Senegal: Macky Sall Re-elected President

Not surprisingly, Senegal’s President Macky Sall on February 28, 2019 won the first round presidential election of February 24, 2019 by a comfortable margin of 58.27 per cent, as against 20.50 per cent for his closest rival, Idrissa Seck. According to the provisional results published by Judge Demba Kandji of the National Vote Counting Commission, CNVR, in a court hall in the capital, Dakar, Macky Sall scored 2.5 million of the 4.3 million votes, Le Soleil newspaper reported.

There were 6.6 million registered voters, with 4.4 million having voted. There were 42,465 null votes and 4.3 million valid votes. Ousmane Sonko scored 15.6 per cent, El Hadji Issa Sall, 4.07 per cent, and Madické Niang was in fifth and last position with 1.48 per cent of votes cast. These figures still have to be confirmed by the Constitutional Council, the only body allowed by law to publish election results, Radio France International, RFI reported. Initially meant to be published at 11 am local time, the provisional presidential poll results were finally made public about two hours after in a presentation that lasted just about three minutes. Judge Kandji did not go into detailed scores in various administrative areas.

The National Vote Counting Commission attributed the long delay in making public the results to some returning sheets – especially from abroad – arriving only yesterday morning. Meanwhile, aggrieved candidates have three days to lodge petitions with the Constitutional Council. “Idrissa Seck’s representative did not sign the minutes,” disclosed Judge Demba Kandji, President of the National Vote Co...