Dakar: Fifteen candidates in Senegal’s postponed presidential election have accused President Macky Sall of “ill will” and vowed to take steps to ensure a new vote date is quickly set.
The announcement came after civil society group Aar Sunu Election (Protect Our Elections) said it had organized a new rally on Saturday.
The collective is demanding that the election be held before Sall officially expires on April 2.
It says the vote – originally scheduled for February 25 – must take place by March 3 at the latest.
“There has been an inexplicable slowness. Nothing has been done” despite developments over the past week, the 15 candidates said in a joint statement released late Tuesday.
“Everything is moving at the pace of President Macky Sall’s ill will,” the statement added.
The 15 signatories include former Dakar mayor Khalifa Sall and jailed opposition candidate Bassirou Diomaye Diakhar Faye, whose name was added by proxy.
Faye is the anti-establishment firefighter Ousmane Sonko’s deputy, who is also in prison.
Sonko’s political party said its national youth coordinator, Ngagne Demba Toure, was arrested at his home on Wednesday, three days after returning from Mali, where he fled for fear of detention in Senegal.
The movement demanded Toure’s immediate release.
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President Sall’s last-minute postponement of Sunday’s vote plunged the traditionally stable West African nation into its worst political crisis in decades and sparked unrest that left four dead.
A 22-year-old student studying in the northern city of Saint-Louis died on Wednesday after being admitted to the intensive care unit in a coma following a protest 10 days ago.
A hospital source in Saint-Louis said the man had inhaled tear gas from recent demonstrations.
The opposition condemned Sall’s move as a “constitutional coup” and said his party feared defeat at the ballot box for its candidate, Prime Minister Amadou Ba.
The incumbent president has repeatedly said he will not seek re-election for a third term.
He is expected to give an interview to three Senegalese media on Thursday evening, presidential spokesman Yoro Dia said on Wednesday.
Senegal’s Constitutional Council last week lifted the postponement of the vote, which would have kept Sall in office until his successor was installed.
The council said it was “impossible to organize the presidential election on the originally planned date”, but called on “the competent authorities to organize it as soon as possible”.
However, the question of when that would be remained open.
The 15 candidates said the election process should have been restarted and accused Sall of neglecting his duty to organize the election.
“Everything indicates that Macky Sall cannot accept that his attempt to sabotage the presidential election was thwarted by the Constitutional Council and the people,” they said.
The candidates announced “a series of actions aimed at ensuring that the election is held on time”.
The 15 are among the 19 names included in the Constitutional Council’s updated list of candidates for the postponed presidential election.
The electoral collective Aar Sunu said it would hold a rally in the capital Dakar on Saturday, the day before the election.
She urged attendees to come with their voter ID cards to what she described as Sall’s “farewell party.”
In a symbolic gesture, the collective also called on voters to head to the polling stations on Sunday.
Aar Sun’s election on Saturday mobilized several thousand people in the capital for the first authorized protest since Sall postponed the election.
Eight of Senegal’s public universities last week went on a two-day strike to protest the death of the first student during riots in Saint-Louis on February 9.
On Wednesday, several dozen students gathered at Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar to demand the reopening of the campus, which has been closed since deadly riots last June.
The rally was accompanied by a heavy police presence.
“We want the university to open next week at the latest,” student representative Modou Diagne told AFP.
Senegal’s international partners have expressed concern over the political unrest.
Sall’s announcement that he would “fully” implement the Constitutional Council’s decision and provisionally release hundreds of prisoners, however, appeared to ease tensions.
