In Senegal, less than a week before legislative elections, a report by 46 civil society observers warns of the increase in cases of violence during the first ten days of the campaign and the persistence of the use of means of the State in certain localities of the country.
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With our correspondent in Dakar, Léa-Lisa Westerhoff
The Minister of Health who brings equipment to a dispensary in Podor, in the north of the country, while he is a candidate and head of the list in this same department… This is one of the cases of use of the means of State recorded by the Civil Forum which denounces “ a break in equality between competitors “. Twenty-six percent of such incidents were reported during the first ten days of the campaign.
Cases of conscientious buying are another area of concern. Twenty percent of reported incidents involve this practice, according to the civil society organization. Finally, there is the electoral violence which escalated a notch during the first week of the campaign with, among other things, the headquarters of an opposition party burned in Dakar, posters trashed and fights between activists in the center of the country. The Civil Forum calls for strengthening the security of processions.
Satisfaction, on the other hand, with the electoral preparations. The 46 long-term observers of the Civil Forum noted in particular the good functioning of the commissions for distributing voter cards, even if several hundred of these cards are still waiting to be recovered.
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