The Senegalese elect their deputies on Sunday in a ballot that the opposition wants to use to impose cohabitation on President Macky Sall, who hopes to keep a large majority.
These legislative elections are a test after the local elections in March, won by the opposition in large cities in this West African country renowned for its stability, such as Dakar, Ziguinchor (south) and Thiès (west).
The legislative elections, in a single round, aim to renew for five years the 165 seats of the unicameral Parliament largely controlled by the presidential camp.
Macky Sall has promised to appoint a Prime Minister - a position he had abolished and then restored in December 2021 - within the victorious formation of the elections.
Polling stations opened at 8:00 a.m. (GMT and local) and closed at 6:00 p.m. for some seven million Senegalese registered on the lists.
At the end of the morning, the turnout seemed relatively low, according to the findings of AFP and observers.
In Scat Urbam, a neighborhood in the suburbs near Dakar, far fewer voters than usual were waiting to vote. Ditto in the popular district of Grand Médine in the capital. Same observation in Ziguinchor, capital of Casamance, in the south of the country, according to AFP journalists.
At the opening of the ballot, in the courtyard of a school in Mbao, near Dakar, a hundred people, mostly elderly, were preparing to vote. Police were also present to provide security.
Observers
"I want the day of voting to pass in peace, that there are no disputes. It's like football. You need a winner and a loser," said Lamine Sylva, a painter aged 60. years married and father of a family.
"I hope that the future Assembly will be made up of deputies from power and a strong representation of the opposition for contradictory debates. This is what advances democracy," El Yahya Sall also told AFP. , a retired soldier, who still bears the trace of the indelible ink on his finger.
The Autonomous National Electoral Commission (Cena), which supervises the vote, has deployed some 22,000 observers throughout the territory. About forty experts from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) are also present.
The deputies are elected according to a method that mixes proportional voting with national lists for 53 parliamentarians, and majority voting in the departments for 97 others. The diaspora has 15 deputies.
Eight coalitions are in the running for these elections, including those of the majority and "Yewwi Askan Wi" (Free the People in Wolof), the main opposition coalition, formed around Ousmane Sonko, who came third in the 2019 presidential election. .
This is allied with the coalition "Wallu Senegal" (Save Senegal in Wolof), led by ex-president Abdoulaye Wade. The least well placed in one department undertakes to support the other to "impose governmental cohabitation".
The election takes place in a context of rising prices, in particular because of the consequences of the war in Ukraine, the arguments used by the opposition against the government, which highlights the subsidies for petroleum products and foodstuffs as well as its program of infrastructure construction.
"Is the priority of the Senegalese to build beautiful stadiums, new highways when people are not having enough to eat?" said Mr. Sonko after voting in Ziguinchor. Concerned about the turnout, he called on voters to vote in numbers "to balance the powers".
Third term?
The opposition also wants to force Mr. Sall - who voted in the morning in Fatick, 150 km south-east of Dakar - to give up any hint of a candidacy in 2024. President Sall, elected in 2012 for seven years and re-elected in 2019 for five years, remains unclear about his intentions 19 months before the presidential election.
"If Macky Sall loses them (the legislative elections), he will no longer speak of a 3rd term", assured Mr. Sonko.
The pre-campaign had been marked by violent demonstrations which had caused at least three deaths due to the invalidation by the Constitutional Council of the holders of the national list of the coalition led by Mr. Sonko.
Several opposition figures, including Ousmane Sonko, were forced to give up participating in the elections, not without having called on their supporters to protest against what they considered to be a ploy by President Macky Sall to dismiss his opponents under the guise of legal means.
Apart from the first demonstration, all the others had been banned by the authorities.
On June 29, the opposition had finally calmed things down by agreeing to take part in the ballot, which it had hitherto threatened to prevent.