Follow Us on Google
Senegal’s President Macky Sall sought re-election yesterday on his record of building roads and creating jobs, while opposition supporters maintained those efforts had not reached many.
This year’s vote also has been marked by allegations that the presidency had effectively blocked two prominent opposition politicians from taking part: Dakar’s former mayor and the son of the president Sall ousted from office in 2012.
Absent from yesterday’s ballot were two prominent opposition figures who had sought to run but were blocked from doing so after both men were convicted of corruption charges in separate and unrelated trials. Supporters for both men maintain those charges were politically motivated and part of an effort to sideline their candidacies.
Former Dakar Mayor Khalifa Sall is currently serving a five-year sentence on charges of misusing public funds. Karim Wade, son of the former president, has been in self-imposed exile in Qatar since he was released from prison in 2016 following a pardon after serving time on corruption charges.
Sall, 57, who cast his ballot in his hometown of Fatick, was hoping to win a second term outright yesterday without heading to a runoff vote. Opposition voters were divided between four candidates including Idrissa Seck, a former prime minister who has run for the presidency twice before.
“I hope that after this election whomever is chosen will be the president of all Senegalese,” Sall said at his polling station. “I hope that will be me.” Sall has dubbed himself “the builder of modern Senegal,” and billboards lining Dakar’s highways tout the 221 kilometers (137 miles) of new roads and a high speed train in the works that will link the capital to its brand new international airport.
Sall became president in 2012 after campaigning on a message of change and then beating longtime former President Abdoulaye Wade. A constitutional referendum since then has shortened the presidential term from seven years to five.
