Senegal heads into a presidential election unlike any other
Senegal's presidential election campaign officially kicks off on Sunday. With the incumbent out of the running and a broader than ever field, the vote later this month promises to be the country's most competitive yet.
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No clear frontrunner has emerged ahead of the 25 February vote, with an unprecedented 20 candidates bidding to become Senegal's next president.
Fears of pre-election violence have not materialised. But tensions are high following a turbulent candidate validation process and the disqualification of prominent opposition figures Ousmane Sonko and Karim Wade.
Analysts agree that none of the hopefuls are guaranteed a place in the second round, and that the race could be tight.
Open field
Prime Minister Amadou Ba was chosen by President Macky Sall as his successor after Sall announced in July that he would not seek a third term.
It is Senegal's first election without an incumbent standing.
The vote is "the most open election" since Senegal gained independence from France in 1960, the deputy editor of Le Soleil newspaper, Sidy Diop, told the French news agency AFP.
But the presidential camp is confident. Speaking to RFI and France 24, Ba said: "I think I'll be elected in the first round on 25 February."
Ba has lauded Sall's achievements in office but admits he needs to be "better" and "faster".
Major infrastructure projects undertaken by Sall's government have divided the electorate. And the last few years of his presidency were difficult, marked by Covid, the war in Ukraine, and the departure of tens of thousands of Senegalese nationals to Europe.
A divided opposition
On the opposite side, Sonko's Pastef party has struck a chord with Senegal's youth with its pan-Africanist rhetoric and defiant stance on former colonial power France.
But after a series of judicial battles, its popular leader lost the right to compete and put forward substitute candidate Bassirou Diomaye Faye instead.
Both are still in prison, and Faye might have to campaign from behind bars.
Pastef's vice-president, Birame Souleye Diop, told RFI that Faye was fully in tune with its voters' expectations.
Diop claimed that pre-election polls gave the party some 71 percent of the vote.
Le Soleil's Diop listed Faye among the favourites to win, along with Ba, former Dakar mayor Khalifa Sall and a few others. But he added that the turbulence associated with the pro-Sonko camp might put some voters off.
"Elections are won by the working classes... these classes need stability," he told AFP.
Meanwhile Khalifa Sall told RFI no candidate looked likely to win a majority on 25 February, and predicted the vote would go to a second round.
Concerns for press freedom
Often held up as a bastion of stability in West Africa, Senegal's vote will be closed watched by the international community.
Gilles Yabi, executive director of West African think tank Wathi, anticipates possible "points of tension" when the results are announced.
Since 2021, Senegal has witnessed deadly unrest caused by a severe clampdown on the opposition. The violence has led to dozens of deaths and hundreds of arrests.
Last month Human Rights Watch denounced Senegal's repression of opposition leaders, media and civil society, claiming that "the authorities have been filling prisons for the last three years with hundreds of political opponents".
Sadibou Marong, head of office for sub-Saharan Africa at Reporters Without Borders, told RFI that the media watchdog had recorded 18 incidents against the press between mid-2022 and mid-2023.
"Most of them were related to elections," he added, saying that despite Senegal's historic press freedom, Sall has pushed for the persecution of journalists.
"We are very, very worried," Marong said.
Senegal's government, meanwhile, insists that "all freedoms are exercised without hindrance".
(with AFP)
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