In Senegal, the electoral campaign for the early legislative elections, scheduled for Sunday, November 17, concludes in a tense atmosphere, sometimes punctuated by violence. On Tuesday, at the request of the Prime Minister, Ousmane Sonko, head of the list of the Party of African Patriots of Senegal for Work, Ethics and Fraternity (Pastef), a meeting was improvised in the capital, just a few dozen meters from the house of Barthélémy Dias, current mayor of Dakar and head of the Samm Sa Kaddu opposition coalition list.
On Monday, Sonko asked his activists to “duty to respond” For “avenge” the attacks against some of his activists in Saint-Louis, in the north of the country, for which he accused Dias’ coalition of being responsible. “May every act of violence suffered by Pastef since the beginning of the campaign be avenged proportionally to each patriot attacked and injured.”, he wrote on Facebook, signing the return of gatsa gatsa (a Wolof variation of the law of retaliation).
In reaction to these statements, Mr. Dias’s coalition denounced a “assassination call taken up by the current prime minister”reporting that she herself had been attacked by “multiple attacks”.
Ousmane Sonko finally called for appeasement, following the announcement by the Ministry of the Interior of the arrest of 81 people, 77 of whom are security members of the Sam Sa Kaddu coalition. “Don’t attack anyone. Disable everything, but let’s be attentive »declared.
Pastef aspires to absolute majority
The first acts of violence broke out as soon as the electoral campaign began. At the end of October, Barthélémy Dias’ campaign headquarters in Dakar was burned down, while fights broke out across the country between activists, leaving several dozen people injured, according to the NGO Forum Civil. “Legislative elections constitute a very strong issue of power, both for the opposition and for the authorities, hence this permanent tension”analyzes Maurice Soudieck Dione, associate professor of political science at the Gaston-Berger University (UGB) of Saint-Louis.
These early legislative elections were called at the beginning of September by President Bassirou Diomaye Faye, elected on March 24 with 54% of the votes, but who is without a majority in the National Assembly. In total, no less than 41 coalition lists and political parties were validated by the General Directorate of Elections to appear in this single-round vote, both majority (for the 112 departmental elected officials) and proportional (for the 53 elected officials). national).
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