DAKAR, Feb 25 (NNN-AGENCIES) – Senegal’s President Macky Sall won in the first round of the election Sunday, his prime minister said, although his two main challengers look set to contest the outcome.
“The results allow us to say that we should congratulate President Macky
Sall on his re-election,” Prime Minister Mahammed Boun Abdallah Dionne said at midnight, predicting the incumbent would receive “at least 57 percent” of the vote.
His announcement hours after polls closed was greeted with cheers from
supporters gathered at the headquarters of the presidential coalition in
Dakar. Sall, who was seen there earlier in the evening, did not speak.
Official results from each region are not expected until Tuesday with a
nationwide announcement by Friday midnight at the latest. If no one wins more than 50 percent a second-round runoff will be held on March 24.
Shortly before Dionne’s announcement, Sall’s two main challengers had
warned against premature proclamations of victory.
“At this stage, a second round is announced and the results that are
already compiled allow us to say so,” said former prime minister Idrissa
Seck, who was making his third run for president.
“At the current state of the vote count, no candidate, I say no candidate,
including myself, can claim to have won the presidential election,” taxman-
turned MP Ousmane Sonko, who was also in the race, added at their joint press conference.
Seck and Sonko are the only two candidates seen as having a chance of
making it to a second round, with incumbent Sall, 56, in the lead in many
polling stations, according to preliminary results reported in the evening by
local media.
The other challengers, former foreign minister Madicke Niang and Issa Sall
of the Unity and Assembly Party (PUR), were trailing far behind, according to the results.
Macky Sall had looked set to cruise to victory in the first round after his
two key rivals, popular former Dakar mayor Khalifa Sall and Karim Wade, son of the previous president, were banned from running over graft convictions and he only faced four lesser-known candidates.
The EU observation mission said its overall assessment was “quite positive”
among the polling stations it observed.
“There has been very little violence, very isolated incidents, which is
very good news,” said Elena Valenciano, head of the mission.
Senegal has a population of 16 million but only 6.7 million were registered
to vote in the West African nation which gained independence from France in 1960.
For polling day, some 8,000 police were deployed throughout urban areas
alongside an unspecified number of civilian security staff, officials said.
And around 5,000 observers — including some from the European Union —
were monitoring proceedings, the interior ministry said. — NNN-AGENCIES
