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Senegal's ruling party wins poll
20/08/2007 14:11 - (SA)
Dakar - The ruling Senegalese Democratic Party (PDS) has won 34 of the 35 elected senatorial seats in a vote for a new upper house, where the president will name two-thirds of members, says an elections source.
About 12 000 parliamentarians, local and municipal councillors voted on Sunday to pick 35 members of the 100-strong senate, a newly reconstituted one that had led to controversy about its composition, said the electoral commission.
President Abdoulaye Wade had to name the remaining 65 members of the senate, whose leader would become the second highest-ranking official in the west African country after the head of state.
Wade, an opposition figure for two decades, swept to power in elections in 2000 marked by a high 67.4% voter turnout, ending the Socialist Party's 40-year rule. He was re-elected in February this year.
He scrapped the senate in 2001 - introduced by his predecessor Abdou Diouf - arguing that it was a waste of money to have parallel legislative bodies.
But in a surprise move, he re-introduced it this year with changes, notably one giving him the right to nominate two-thirds of the 100-member house.
The main opposition parties slammed and boycotted the weekend elections as undemocratic.
The one other senate seat went to a small opposition African Party for Democracy and Socialism (AJ/PADS) led by a former junior minister Landing Savane, according to several pro-government and independent dailies.
The predominantly Muslim country and former French colony had been widely considered one of Africa's most stable democracies.
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