After two weeks of unrest in Senegal, the country’s Constitutional Council invalidated the postponement of the presidential election on Thursday, December 15. The highest judicial body declared unconstitutional the law adopted on February 5 by the National Assembly, postponing the vote by ten months and keeping the outgoing president, Macky Sall, in his post until his office takes office. successor, according to a document published on social networks and authenticated by a source within the institution. The Constitutional Court reaffirmed the principle of “intangibility” of the five-year duration of the presidential mandate.
The Court also annulled the presidential decree which modified the electoral calendar, but noted “the impossibility of organizing the presidential election on the date initially scheduled” of February 25, given the delay in the process. She “invites the competent authorities to hold it as soon as possible”.
The decision of the Constitutional Council was welcomed by the opposition. Cheikh Tidiane Dieye, candidate for the presidential election, told RFI : “It shows that the Senegalese people, who stood as one man in front of Macky Sall, deserve to be applauded. It also shows that our country still has solid resources which have just been activated at the institutional and legal.”
“It’s a decision that puts Senegal back on its normal trajectory. I’m not surprised because everything that was happening was too big,” former Prime Minister Aminata Touré commented to AFP. , who joined the ranks of the opposition.
The vote, initially scheduled for February 25, had been postponed until December. Macky Sall, in power since 2012, justified this decision by the quarrels sparked by the pre-electoral process and his fear that a contested ballot would provoke new outbreaks of violence.
This postponement provoked an outcry from the opposition and civil society who cried out for a “constitutional coup”. Major protests have taken place across the country in recent weeks. Several dozen opponents, arrested in connection with the political unrest of recent years, were released on Thursday February 15. “International pressure is causing President Macky Sall to order releases,” Souleymane Djim, a member of the Collective of Families of Political Prisoners, told AFP.