(MENAFN- Kuwait News Agency (KUNA)) RABAT, March 24 (KUNA) -- Senegalese are heading to the ballot stations on Sunday to elect a new head of the republic after observing a day of electoral silence.
The elections are held in the aftermath of a stalemate when the current president Mackay Sall had decided to delay the voting, originally set on February 25. Following public protests, the Constitutional Council intervened and insisted that they must be held before the end of the president's tenure on April 2. Sall had heeded the council's call and set the elections on March 24 (today).
The Senegalese people observed on Saturday electoral silence as a prelude to presidential elections following two weeks of heated campaigns by the nominees.
Up to 19 candidates have been jostling to win the Senegalese minds and hearts and occupy the presidential post for a five-year mandate.
The head of the Independent Election Commission, Abdullah Silla, said in a statement broadcast by the Senegalese news agency that the commission observers and representatives of the nominees would be present at the ballot stations.
This is the first time that such elections are held without the nomination of the president, he said.
The election general directorate reported that the elections would be supervised by 2,457 observers including 1,568 national observers and 889 foreign ones.
The contenders include the prominent nominee of the ruling coalition, Benno Bokk Yakaar,
the former minister Amadou Ba, the candidate of the opposition coalition Bassirou Diomaye Faye, who was recently released from jail to run for the post as an alternative to the eminent opponent Ousmane Sonko, whose nomination was canceled by the constitution council.
Among the leading contenders are the former capital mayor Khalifa Sall, and Idrissa Seck who had come second in the 2019 voting. The contenders have been struggling to persuade the voters of their manifestos to tackle heaps of social and economic issues and challenges. (end)
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