Around a dozen Senegalese opposition leaders have joined forces to challenge the postponement of the presidential election, one of the candidates, Anta Babacar, told Reuters on Wednesday, outlining her plan to fight the delay in the Supreme Court.
Less than three weeks before the Feb. 25 presidential poll, parliament on Monday voted to push it back to December, sealing an extension of President Macky Sall’s mandate that has provoked international alarm and widespread domestic backlash.
The unprecedented postponement has undermined Senegal’s reputation for democratic stability in a region that has seen a string of military takeovers in recent years and constitutional manoeuvres to extend presidential terms.
Amid deep uncertainty about what happens next, at least 12 of the 20 presidential candidates cleared to run in the February vote have agreed to put political differences aside to fight the delay, Babacar said, adding that both legal challenges and mass protests were on the table.
“We’re not negotiating. We’re not discussing. We’re not postponing. It’s one date and we’re sticking to it,” said the entrepreneur, who heads the Alternative for the Next Generation of Citizens (ARC) political movement.
Sall, who has reached the constitutional limit of two terms in power, said he delayed the vote due to a dispute over the candidate list and alleged corruption within the judicial body that handled the list.
But Babacar and other opposition and civil society representatives see it as an unprecedented attack on Senegal’s democratic tradition that has seen four largely peaceful transfers of power via the ballot box since independence from France in 1960.
Demonstrations in the capital Dakar against the move on Sunday and Monday were fairly small and dispersed by riot police with tear gas.
“Right now, we are preparing, we are cooking. So, let nobody get fooled by this peace in the streets,” Babacar said.
Protracted legal battles are already in the offing. Several opposition figures have launched legal challenges via the constitutional council. Babacar said she would file her own challenge directly to the Supreme Court on Thursday.
West Africa’s main political and economic bloc ECOWAS on Tuesday urged Senegalese politicians to re-establish an electoral calendar in line with the constitution.
Decried by the opposition as a tactic to cling to power, Sall’s postponement has raised fears of a repeat of violent protests in recent years over concerns that the president had ambitions for a third term and the political stifling of opposition leader Ousmane Sonko.
Babacar said she and fellow opposition leaders had asked their supporters to stay home and remain calm while they try to challenge the postponement via legal routes.
“Most … people are home and some of them are very scared, but something is boiling. And it’s taking a few days. And it’s boiling everywhere. People are meeting on the low and preparing themselves,” she said.
Earlier on Wednesday, the authorities restored mobile internet service access after two days of curfew-style restrictions to contain any unrest.
S&P Global Ratings said on Wednesday that uncertainty could weigh on capital inflows and investor confidence.
“Although we do not foresee a scenario where the current president clings to power indefinitely, these developments will likely erode confidence in Senegal’s relative institutional strength,” it said in a report.