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Anti-government march banned
01/06/2007 07:11 - (SA)
Dakar - Authorities in the Senegalese capital Dakar have banned an anti-government march planned by the opposition ahead of weekend legislative elections, march organisers said on Thursday.
"We received yesterday (Wednesday) evening a notification from the prefect of Dakar, prohibiting the Friday demonstration for failure to observe a three-day pre-march notice period," Cheikh Seck, leader of a 17-party opposition youth coalition, told AFP.
He said the prefect refused to clear the ban because of a lack of officers to police the march, as some had been dispatched into the interior of the country for Sunday elections.
Protesters had wanted to petition President Abdoulaye Wade over the rising cost of basic commodities, lack of political dialogue and an education crisis marked by a teachers' strike that has run since March.
The opposition coalition has decided to boycott Sunday's legislatives over the president's refusal to change the electoral process.
Wade's Senegalese Democratic Party (PDS) party faces 14 small parties in the polls, in which voters will pick new lawmakers for a national assembly.
- AFP
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