Ouestafnews – Voting operations for the legislative elections of November 17, 2024 in Senegal started in the morning and still took place calmly. From the opening of polling stations at 8:00 a.m. until early afternoon, no major incidents were reported.
According to the observation of journalists from Ouestaf News in Dakar and around thirty partner radio stations of our editorial staff inside the country, the polling stations generally started operations at the scheduled time.
Minor delays were noted in some of the voting centers in Dakar and the regions. Odds mainly linked to the tedious implementation of the ballot papers for the 41 lists competing for the 165 seats in the National Assembly.
In the department of Mbacké (central-west), operations continued calmly around midday, according to community radio Mbacké FM, a partner of Ouestaf News. The department of Mbacké, which is home to the town of Touba, one of the largest religious cities in Senegal, has more than 380,000 voters. Mbacké is one of the three departments of the Diourbel region which constitutes, with more than 630,000 voters, the third region with the largest number of voters, behind the regions of Dakar and Thiès.
In Dakar as in its suburbs as well as in the interior of the country, no major incident had been reported until 2:00 p.m.
According to a press release from the Autonomous National Commission (Cena, in charge of organizing the vote) published at midday, a sample of 553 witness polling stations showed that 93.2% opened on time. and full electoral materials are present in 99.1% of offices.
The Cena also indicates that in 98.76% of cases, voting takes place normally and a security system is present in 95.66% of the centers evaluated.
The President of the Republic Bassirou Diomaye Faye voted in his stronghold of Ndiaganiao, about a hundred kilometers southeast of Dakar. After fulfilling his civic duty in office number 2 in the center of Ndiayendiaye around 11:00 a.m., Mr. Faye welcomed the conduct of the vote in calm and serenity, a pure “Senegalese democratic tradition”.
“An important day for Senegalese democracy”, according to him, because the results of this election will be decisive for the conduct of public policies over the next five years.
Recalling his call for a peaceful campaign on the part of political actors, Mr. Faye called for the preservation of the climate of serenity, “to fully play the peace card” and “to receive the popular will” after the publication of the results .
The Minister of the Interior, General Jean-Baptiste Tine, also welcomed the smooth running of operations: “everything is going as planned,” he said in an address to journalists broadcast by Radio Futur Média (RFM) after voting at the Saint-Michel center in downtown Dakar.
For his part, Ousmane SonKo, head of the national list of the African Patriots of Senegal for Work, Ethics and Fraternity (Pastef, in power), voted around 8:30 a.m. in Ziguinchor (south), a locality considered to be his electoral stronghold.
The Prime Minister insisted on the issue of the vote which, according to him, can be summed up as a choice between the return to the “old system” or the “confirmation of the desire for rupture, change and progress” made by him. seven months ago through the election of President Bassirou Diomaye Faye as head of state.
Mr. Sonko, who had launched a call “for revenge” from his supporters on November 12, 2024 before retracting, called on the populations to go out en masse to vote and in the calm and stability which allows democracy to “ express oneself.”
The opponent and former Prime Minister Amadou Ba, for his part, voted around 1:30 p.m. in HLM Grand Médine, a district in the Dakar suburbs. He welcomed the order and discipline that prevail, while deploring the scenes of violence recorded during the campaign.
For his part, the opponent Bougane Guèye Dany, nominated on the same list as the mayor of Dakar, Barthélémy Dias, regrets the “irregularities” reported almost everywhere in the country by representatives of his camp.
Bougane Guèye Dany also regretted the weak mobilization of voters. According to this opponent, one of the most critical of power, the participation rate was 10% around 11:00 a.m. but he said “hope” that the people will go out to vote before 6:00 p.m., the time scheduled for the closing of the polls. offices.
Generally speaking, in Dakar as in the interior of the country, it was above all the low attendance in this first part of the day which left its mark.
As part of his tour to supervise operations, the president of the Cena, Abdoulaye Sylla, also noted a weak mobilization of voters in the morning at the Cité Imprimerie school in Rufisque (old town at the Dakar exit) where he spoke to the local press.
Mr. Sylla recalled the low participation rate of Senegalese in the 2022 legislative elections (less than 50%) compared to the presidential election of March 2024 (62%). He still said he hoped for a rate of around 50% by the end of the day.
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