Senegal: short election campaign in full swing for delayed presidential vote on 24 March

Campaigning for the upcoming presidential election is in full swing in Senegal, as the country’s voters will head to the polls this Sunday (24 March), in which as many as 93 candidates, including six women, initially declared their intent to run.
But this year, the total of 19 presidential candidates that were ultimately confirmed, were given a campaign period of only two weeks, which is shorter than normal, because of the delays of the polls. The West African nation was plunged into a political crisis when outgoing President Macky Sall decided to defer elections originally scheduled for 25 February just hours before campaigning was to begin, sparking violent protests and arrests. The country’s Constitutional Council subsequently responded to the unfolding political crisis by overturning Sall’s decision to push the polls back December, ruling the election had to take place before his term ended on 2 April.
The 19 candidates now have just about two weeks to convince Senegal’s more than 7 million registered voters to choose them. One of the frontrunners is Amadou Ba, who was handpicked by President Sall’s for the top job and who only recently stepped down from his post as prime minister to campaign for presidency. Another frontrunner is Bassirou Diomaye Faye, who had been held in prison since April 2023 and was only freed as part of an amnesty deal last week. Another candidate, human rights activist Anta Babacar Ngom, has made history in Senegal when she became the first female presidential candidate since 2012 to enter the race. The ultimate challenge for Senegal now is to return to holding a “peaceful, honest and transparent ballot that respects the electoral calendar,” says Djibril Gningue, Executive Director of the Platform of Civil Society Actors for the Transparency of Elections in Senegal.