Postponed election in Senegal will be held around July, says President Macky Sall

Voting in Senegal will be held before the rainy season begins around July, President Macky Sall said, reiterating his commitment to leave office before his mandate ends in April.

The exact date of the Senegal election has, however, not been announced by Sall at a national dialogue in which 16 candidates refused to take part, who insisted that a poll date must be set at the earliest in line with a court order earlier this month.

On February 15, Senegal’s Constitutional Court ordered the government to set a new election date as soon as possible, but the government headed by Sall has not done so to date.

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Sall had postponed the election for 10 months, citing unresolved disputes over who could run. The court had struck down the delay as illegal.

Sall has, however, said he wouldn’t contest again after his two terms in office.

Senegal is considered to have Africa’s most stable democracies, but disputes over the election have plunged the country into a political crisis.

The national dialogue is intended to foster trust among the population and political actors and includes civil society members and religious leaders.

“Dialogue and consultation are precisely what is needed to heal these weaknesses and move forward in the quest for the ideal of democracy,” Sall said.

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To calm the people of the West African nation, Sall also vowed to submit a general amnesty law addressing the sometimes deadly protests in which hundreds of people were jailed.

However, it remains unclear as to who would benefit from the amnesty law and if leading opposition political leaders like Ousmane Sonko would benefit.

Sonko is charged with calling for an insurrection and convicted of “corrupting youth". He is in jail and has been barred from running in the election.

With inputs from Associated Press