Electoral commission: Senegal's president wins 2nd term

By KRISTA LARSON and BABACAR DIONE

Published February 28, 2019

Senegalese President Macky Sall has won re-election without the need for a second round of voting, the country's electoral commission announced Thursday.

It was not immediately clear if the top opposition candidates would accept those results or would pursue a legal challenge. Earlier in the week they had disputed unofficial results showing Sall with a solid majority of Sunday's vote.

The president ultimately received 58.27 percent of the vote, according to Demba Kandji, chairman of the electoral body. According to the provisional results, top opposition candidate Idrissa Seck took 20.50 percent of the vote while Ousmane Sonko had 15.67 percent.

The opposition scheduled a news conference to immediately follow the announcement of official results and a representative of Seck's party did not attend the proclamation of results Thursday.

The 57-year-old Sall sought re-election on his record of building roads and creating jobs, while opposition supporters maintained those efforts had not reached many in this West African country where young men often risk their lives to migrate to Europe.

Senegal has long been a democratic example in West Africa where coups and clinging to power used to be all too common. Election observers reported no major irregularities on Sunday.

However, this year's vote also has been marked by allegations that the presidency had effectively blocked two prominent opposition politicians from taking part: Dakar's former mayor and the son of the president Sall ousted from office in 2012.

URL

https://www.foxnews.com/world/electoral-commission-senegals-president-wins-2nd-term