For the first time in its history since its accession to independence, the ruling party does not hold an absolute majority in the legislative elections in Senegal.
Indeed, according to the provisional official results of the National Commission for the Census of Votes (CNRV) published Thursday afternoon, the presidential coalition “Benno Bokk Yakaar”, although victorious in the legislative elections, lost the absolute majority of a seat with 82 MP seats obtained, instead of the 83 required. The opposition records respectively 56 and 24 seats obtained by the coalitions “Yewwi Askan Wi” (led by the opponent Ousmane Sonko) and “Wallu Senegal” of former President Abdoulaye Wade who has just been elected deputy this Thursday at the age of 96.
By way of “comparison, President Macky Sall’s party had obtained 25 seats during” the last legislative elections in 2017, out of the 165 in the national assembly, against 40 seats for the opposition. We therefore note a loss of 43 deputies compared to the last election and an increase of 40 seats in the opposing camp which attests to a real rise in power of the opposition which confirms its progress since the local elections in January.
According to Déthié Fall, national representative of the Yewwi Askan Wi coalition, said that the opposition intends to challenge these results. He had tried to seize the electoral commission to ask it “the right to check the minutes (of polling stations) in order to make his observations and possible complaints within the legal deadlines” which had been refused to him according to his assertions.
Ousmane Sonko immediately after the proclamation of the provisional results, declared: “We are not going to accept a confiscation of the victory. It is a massive fraud enterprise orchestrated by politicians with certainly the complicity of the administration” Ms. Aïda Mbodj, another opposition figure had in turn denounced the day before the results, “ballot stuffing” and “prefabricated and unsigned minutes that they (the power) created themselves in localities in northern Senegal including Matam, Podor, Ranérou and Kanel, strongholds of President Sall.
President Macky Sall, for his part, said he was proud of the conduct of the elections and saluted the Senegalese people, following the provisional proclamation of the results of the legislative elections, for the exemplary nature of their democracy and the credibility of their electoral system, through a Tweet on Thursday evening.
The presidential coalition will also assure the Senegalese “the pursuit of reforms essential to the construction of a united, prosperous Senegal, in the rule of law” and calls “for the consolidation of (our) democracy and (our) Republic”, declared after the results Aminata Touré, his head of the list.
The final figures must be published by the Constitutional Council within five days in the absence of appeal.
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