“My dear compatriots, my long and carefully considered decision is not to be a candidate in the next election of February 25, 2024”. Macky Sall had been unclear about his candidacy for the next presidential election, scheduled for February 2024, for months, thus increasing tension in Senegal. Monday, July 3, he put an end to the suspense and announced that he will not be a candidate during a speech broadcast on public television.
« Senegal goes beyond me and is full of leaders who are also capable of pushing the country towards emergence he said, wishing reach out to goodwills “willing to create” a Senegal of builders and not breakers ». « I would like to say that I have a clear conscience and memory of what I have said, written and repeated here and elsewhere: that is to say that the mandate of 2019 was my second and last mandate added the head of state, elected in 2012 and re-elected in 2019, whose hypothesis of a candidacy was feared by the opposition, which considered it unconstitutional.
The reactions of opposition supporters in the event of the president’s candidacy for a third term were feared? On Sunday, his main opponent, Ousmane Sonko, called on the Senegalese to “going out massively” the next days. “We must come out to confront the regime of Macky Sall and say that it will not be up to him to choose the candidates who will have to compete for the next presidential election”, he said. He had urged “all the Senegalese people” To “stand up” et ” to face ” to Macky Sall if he showed up.
Ousmane Sonko has just been sentenced to two years in prison in a sex scandal, which should make him ineligible for the next presidential election.