Senegal’s populist opposition candidate set to win presidential election

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Bassirou Diomaye Faye, the opposition coalition’s populist candidate in Senegal’s presidential election held on Sunday, is set to win after his closest rival conceded.

Amadou Ba, a 62-year-old former finance minister and immediate past prime minister in Sall’s cabinet who ran as the ruling party coalition’s choice, conceded defeat to Faye on Monday and congratulated him.

Senegalese law requires a candidate to win 50% or more of the vote to be declared president after the first round, failing which a second round between the top two candidates will decide the election.

Faye, 44, was one of 19 candidates on the ballot in the contest to replace President Macky Sall who is term-limited. He is an ally of Ousmane Sonko, the populist figure who had been the loudest opposition voice in the years leading up to these elections. Sonko was barred from running for president after a criminal conviction but his party galvanized a coalition to back Faye.

Earlier Ba had described celebrations of a supposed Faye victory as “manipulative” on Sunday evening, maintaining that a second round of voting would be needed.

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Faye had only 10 days to campaign ahead of the March 24 election. Like Sonko, he had been jailed by the Sall administration since last April but received the Constitutional Council’s approval to be a contender in the elections. Both men campaigned together after being released from prison.

Like Sonko, Faye is a former tax official in Senegal. His platform has depended on Sonko’s popularity and the PASTEF party where he was the secretary general to Sonko. One of their key policy prescriptions is for Senegal to have its own currency, if a reform of the euro-pegged CFA currency system that eight West African countries use fails.

An official announcement of the election result from the first round of voting is expected on Wednesday.

Step Back

Though it is widely regarded as an example of democratic stability in an often turbulent region, Senegal veered towards a constitutional crisis over the past month following Sall’s postponement of the elections in early February. Sunday’s vote followed defiant rejection by opposition parties against the postponement and Senegal’s top court’s ruling that an election must be held before Sall is due to leave office on April 2.