Senegalese President Macky Sall’s ruling coalition has claimed victory in the legislative elections held on Sunday, reported The Reuters.
Aminata Toure, head of the presidential coalition, said that the coalition has won 30 departments out of the 46 in the west African country and overseas constituencies. Toure announced the partial results on national television from the party’s headquarters early on Monday after Sunday’s vote.
“We have given a majority in the National Assembly to our coalition president Sall,”she added.
She did not give details about the number of seats won by her camp out of the 165 parliamentary seats or whether it was an absolute or relative majority. She, however, acknowledged her coalition had been defeated in the capital Dakar in Sunday’s vote.
Under Senegal’s hybrid electoral system, 97 candidates who win a majority of votes in administrative departments are elected. 53 canidates from national lists are elected using proportional representation, while 15 are elected by Senegalese living outside the country.
The opposition swiftly rejected Toure’s claims.
Barthelemy Dias, mayor of the capital Dakar, and a leader of the main opposition coalition, rejected the results announced by Toure, warning that it was not her place to announce results of the election.
“The people will respond, and the people will come out into the streets tomorrow, and you will tell us where you got your majority,” Dias said.
The political backdrop in Senegal, which is home to about 17.5 million people, considered among West Africa’s most stable democracies, has become increasingly acrimonious, fuelled in part by Sall’s refusal to rule out breaching term limits.
President Macky Sall’s refusal to publicly rule out a candidacy in 2024 has stoked fears he will follow in the footsteps of Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara and former Guinea President Alpha Conde. Both men stood for third terms in 2020 and won by arguing that new constitutions had reset their two-term limits.
