Senegal’s Constitutional Council decided on the date of the elections

The Constitutional Council in Senegal has declared this Tuesday March 6 that the presidential election must take place before the end of the mandate of President Macky Sall.

It also rejected another recommendation made to President Sall and declared that the list of 19 candidates already validated by the institution should not be revised.

The first round on March 24

The Senegalese head of state Macky Sall has set March 24 for the first round of the presidential election after weeks of a deep crisis

“The President of the Republic informed the Council of Ministers of the setting of the date of the presidential election for Sunday March 24, 2024,” said a press release sent by a spokesperson for the presidency.

The Senegalese presidency noted this sudden acceleration of the calendar by announcing in the evening that Prime Minister Amadou Ba was “released” from his post to lead the campaign. He is replaced by Interior Minister Sidiki Kaba, a spokesperson said.

The Constitutional Council has been referred to the Constitutional Council since Monday for its opinion by President Sall himself. The head of state submitted recommendations resulting from a “national dialogue” that he had convened last week to try to get out of the crisis caused by the postponement of the presidential election, one of the most serious in recent years. decades.

President Sall caused a shock in a country presented as one of the most stable in West Africa shaken by power grabs by decreeing on February 3 the postponement of the election scheduled for February 25.

The “national dialogue” was one of President Macky Sall’s responses to the crisis.

The other was a bill for amnesty for acts linked to political violence in recent years, a text that has been widely criticized even though it is supposed to dissipate tensions.