Senegal’s president has canceled the election for his replacement three weeks before voting was set to take place, saying that a dispute between the legislative and judicial arms of government over accusations of corruption needed to be resolved first.
Speaking on Saturday afternoon from the presidential palace in Dakar, Senegal’s capital, his words live-streamed on his social media platforms, President Macky Sall said that the dispute between the West African country’s national assembly and its constitutional court had reached a crisis point, and that he was repealing the decree convening the electoral body, effectively postponing elections.
But his opponents said he was essentially carrying out a coup d’état, and accused him of treason.
“For the first time in its history, Senegal has just suffered a coup d’état,” Ousmane Diallo, a researcher with Amnesty International, posted on X.
After the country’s constitutional council published lists of approved candidates for the election, some of them were found to have been approved despite holding dual nationality, something presidential candidates are not allowed in Senegal.
This situation, the president said, “could seriously damage the credibility of the election” in a country that “cannot afford a new crisis.”
Mr. Sall had spent years refusing to confirm whether he would try for a third term in office. Senegal’s Constitution limits presidents to two consecutive terms. But in 2016, when Mr. Sall was four years into his first term, voters changed the Constitution to reduce terms to five years from seven, which he argued reset the clock, allowing him to run a third time.
