Senegal Awaits Presidential Poll Outcome As Opposition Takes Lead

Dakar, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 25th Mar, 2024) Senegal's anti-establishment candidate Bassirou Diomaye Faye appeared to be closing in Monday on winning a presidential election just over a week after his release from prison, but the governing coalition insisted a run-off would still be needed.

The winner will have to steer Senegal, viewed as a beacon of democracy in coup-hit West Africa, out of three years of turbulence and a political crisis, and manage revenues from oil and gas reserves that are shortly to start production.

Uncertainty remains over the outcome of the unprecedented vote, with official results not expected before the end of the week. An absolute majority is required for a first-round win.

Opposition figure Faye promised voters profound change and a presidential programme of left-wing pan-Africanism.

He appeared clearly ahead of the governing coalition's former prime minister, Amadou Ba, according to provisional results from individual polling stations published by local media and on social networks.

Newspapers proclaimed Faye the winner on their front pages.

Faye, 44, and Ba, 62, -- both former tax inspectors -- had emerged as the favourites to win in a crowded pack of 17 candidates.

"It's almost a certainty because from what we can see, from the figures that have just come in, I'm telling you that there won't be a second round," Serigne Aissanine, the youth coordinator of Faye's coalition, said late Sunday.

Hundreds of Faye supporters gathered at his campaign headquarters in the capital Dakar, singing and dancing to the sound of klaxons and drums.

Young people on motorbikes paraded the streets chanting "to the (presidential) palace".

Ba briefly appeared in front of his supporters during the night, saying he would give a "definitive" assessment around midday on Monday.

At least eight of the other presidential contenders congratulated Faye in light of initial indications from the ongoing vote count.

But Ba's campaign said in a statement that according to its experts, it was "certain to be, in the worst-case scenario, in a second round".

It also accused Faye's camp of attempted "manipulation".

"It is not inevitable that Senegal will slide into a populist adventure," the statement added.