Senegal opposition ends boycott
2008-02-11 15:21
Dakar - Senegal's main opposition party has decided to take part in upcoming local government elections despite its boycott last year of the parliamentary election to protest at alleged fraud, it said on Monday.
The formerly ruling Socialist Party (PS) said its return to the political arena "followed a decision expressed by the party's grassroot authorities" and after a weekend central committee meeting.
In a statement, the party said it is "convinced that the local elections are an opportunity to enter into and win the battle for reliability and regularity of the electoral process".
The May 18 vote was to pick 15 000 regional, municipal and rural councillors for the next five years in this west African nation of 11.7 million inhabitants.
The PS had no representation in the National Assembly, for the first time since independence from France in 1960, because it boycotted the legislative polls last July and August in protest at alleged fraud in the presidential vote a few months earlier that returned President Abdoulaye Wade to office.
Wade, an opposition figure for two decades who swept to power in elections in 2000, ending 40 years of rule by the Socialist Party, was re-elected in February.
The PS did not rule out entering the polls as part of an electoral coalition, the Front Siggil Senegaal, which grouped several leading opposition groups.