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Senegal opposition cries foul
28/02/2007 16:01 - (SA)
Dakar - Senegal's opposition Socialist Party has cried foul over the outcome of a presidential election that has apparently swept Abdoulaye Wade back into a second term of office.
The socialists, who ruled the west African country for 40 years until Wade first defeated them in 2000, have alleged fraud was at play in Sunday's poll and was set on Wednesday to challenge the results.
Provisional figures published by the official APS news agency late on Tuesday gave the 80-year-old Wade 55.7% of the votes cast in the first round of the election, more than enough to avoid a run-off round.
"A president who was not elected cannot lead the country," Aissata Tall Sall, a spokesperson for Socialist leader Ousmane Tanor Dieng, one of Wade's main rivals said late on Tuesday.
"We will not accept these results," Sall told a press conference, stating the Socialist Party would contest them by whatever means "people judge appropriate".
The country's electoral commission has yet formally to announce the outcome of the vote and declare Wade re-elected, but his prime minister and campaign manager has urged other candidates to accept defeat and his supporters have been celebrating since Monday.
"Wade was not elected," Sall said, describing the vote as "the most truncated elections of our history" since independence from France in 1960. "People must take up their responsibilities."
Regional oasis of democracy
The leader of a small opposition party, Abdoulaye Bathily, said: "These results do not reflect the feelings of the population which, in reality, expressed a massive rejection of Wade's authority."
Senegal is considered a regional oasis of democracy and is the only country in volatile west Africa to have never experienced a coup.
Sall pointed to irregularities in the issuing of voting cards, alleging they were still being issued polling day in violation of the law and that some people could have voted more than once.
The octogenarian Wade, who became president after almost three decades in opposition, beat his former prime minister Idrissa Seck who trailed behind with less than 20% of the votes, followed by the socialist leader.
Prior to the vote, several contenders, including Seck, who was sacked from government by Wade two years ago, said only electoral fraud would make it possible for the head of state to win outright in the first round.
The Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) has given the polls that largely passed off peacefully a clean bill of health, declaring them "free and transparent".
The polls saw a record turnout of voters put at 75% by officials in this predominantly Muslim country.
When Wade first came to power in a vote that a saw a high 62% turnout, he then won a seven-year term, but a new constitution approved by referendum the following year means the next mandate will be a five-year one.
Wade, who had predicted victory before polling, said he needed another term to complete his grand social and economic reform promises.
- SAPA
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