Senegalese voters must choose 165 deputies for five years. Polling stations opened from 8:00 a.m. (local and GMT) and must close at 6:00 p.m. Reliable projections of the new Assembly could be available as early as Monday morning thanks to the media.
Prime Minister’s call for calm
The Prime Minister, Ousmane Sonko, who voted in Ziguinchor (south), appealed for calm: “democracy is expressed in peace and stability. And I think that when we are in democracy, there is no there is no room for violence.” President Bassirou Diomaye Faye, for his part, fulfilled his electoral duty in the family village of Ndiaganio.
“The people are going out and exercising their right to choose their representatives in the National Assembly. They are doing so in calm, in serenity, in the pure Senegalese democratic tradition,” he said. . “There will always be winners at the end of this election. There will also be losers. But ultimately, it is the Senegalese people who will be winners,” he insisted.
Priority of voters
Voters’ priority is improving living conditions, marked by the high cost of water, electricity and food. The Senegalese will have to decide whether they confirm their support for President Bassirou Diomaye Faye and his Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko by offering them a parliamentary majority.
Voters must decide whether or not to give the Faye-Sonko duo the means to keep their promises: to improve the lives of a population, a large part of which struggles on a daily basis to make ends meet, to share with them the income from natural resources such as hydrocarbons and fishing, fighting corruption, transforming the State and justice.
The executive needs a three-fifths majority to revise the Constitution, without going through a referendum.
Mademba Ndiaye, a 20-year-old student, voted for the first time in Dakar: “it’s one of the only means we have to really impact society and I tell myself that if we don’t vote, we won’t be able to , afterwards, come and mope about what is happening in society.”
Pascal Goudiaby, 56, hopes that “Pastef (party of Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko) will win the elections to have the majority, (…) to better carry out their mandate. The priority is unemployment, young people are so faced with unemployment.
The cost of living remains a major concern, as does unemployment, at more than 20%. The country is also faced with massive departures of young people who leave each month by canoe to seek a better future in Europe.
There are at least 40 competing lists including those led by the current head of the prime minister, Ousmane Sonko, former president Macky Sall, who remotely leads the Takku Wallu coalition, Barthélémy Dias, mayor of Dakar, former ally of M . Sonko and head of the Samm Sa Kaddu coalition list and Amadou Ba, former Prime Minister but currently leads the Jamm Ak Njariñ coalition.
