Senegal’s Presidential Election: Incumbent Macky Sall postpones polls

Senegal’s President Macky Sall has postponed the presidential election that was scheduled to take place on February 25.

Speaking in a televised address to the nation on Saturday, the president announced he had cancelled the relevant electoral law, citing a dispute over the candidate list.

Sall said he signed a decree abolishing a measure from November 2023 that had set the election date.

“I will initiate an open national dialogue to bring together the conditions for a free, transparent and inclusive election in a peaceful and reconciled Senegal,” he said, without giving a new date.

The announcement comes as lawmakers investigate two Constitutional Council judges whose integrity in the election process has been questioned.

Last month, election authorities excluded some opposition members from the list of candidates.

The opposition Senegalese Democratic Party (PDS), whose candidate Karim Wade was among those excluded, had earlier submitted a formal request to postpone the vote.

However, another party said pausing the election would be what it called “an institutional coup d’etat”.

The constitutional council’s decision to exclude prominent contenders has fuelled growing discontent about the election process, with excluded candidates saying the rules for candidacy were not applied fairly – something the authorities deny.

“These troubled conditions could seriously undermine the credibility of the ballot by sowing the seeds of pre- and post-electoral disputes,” the president said in his address.

Sall has said he will not run for a third term, a point he reiterated on Saturday. “As for me, my solemn commitment not to run for the presidential election remains unchanged,” he said.

This is the first time a Senegalese presidential election has been postponed.