Senegal polls close in tight presidential race after months of uncertainty

Описание: (24 Mar 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Zuiguinchor, Senegal - 24 March 2024
1. Worker closing door to polling station
2. Various of electoral staff counting votes
3. SOUNDBITE (French) Pape Malan Badji, voter:
“A second round? I don’t think so. The favoured candidate is Diomaye (Bassirou Diomaye Faye). The presidential majority candidate, in the last local elections, he wasn’t even capable of winning his neighbourhood, nor his polling station. So I don’t see how he can win all the regions of Senegal.”

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Dakar, Senegal - 24 March 2024
4. Men praying after polls close
5. Senegalese flag at polling station
6. Two police who staffed the polls sitting down on bench
7. Close of polling station sign
8. SOUNDBITE (French) Seydi Diouf, observer from Amadou Ba campaign and voter:
“Everything went well. Senegalese people have expressed themselves. We’re in a democracy, and in a democracy, the most basic rule is that everyone has the right to his opinion.”
9. Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) observers walking by polling station

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Zuiguinchor, Senegal - 24 March 2024
10. Various of vote counting process
STORYLINE:
Polls closed on Sunday in a tightly contested presidential election in Senegal following months of uncertainty and unrest that has tested the West African nation’s reputation as a stable democracy in a region shaken by a wave of coups in recent years.

The election comes after President Macky Sall unsuccessfully tried to postpone the February 25 vote until the end of the year, sparking violent protests.

Sall is barred by the constitution from seeking a third term. As a result, the vote took place during Ramadan, the holy month when observant Muslims fast from dawn until dusk.

Vote counting began in the early evening.

Observers said turnout among the more than 7 million registered voters appeared to be high in the morning, though more precise figures would be available later Sunday.

In the run-up to Sunday’s election, opposition leader Ousmane Sonko was released from prison last week, triggering jubilant celebrations on the streets of Dakar and renewed excitement about the contest.

Sonko was barred from running due to a prior conviction for defamation, and was backing his key ally Bassirou Diomaye Faye, who was also freed from prison last week.

From a polling station in Zuiguinchor, Pape Malan Badji, a proud voter for Faye, said he didn't believe the vote would go to a second round.

If no candidate can get more than 50% of the vote, there will be a second round of voting in two weeks.

Along with Faye, aspirants include Amadou Ba, a former prime minister, Khalifa Sall, a former mayor of Dakar unrelated to the president, and Idrissa Seck, a former prime minister from the early 2000s who was the runner up in the 2019 presidential race.

In Dakar, observer Seydi Diouf said he felt everything had gone well with the vote.

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