The decision to hold the first round of the presidential election on March 24 was welcomed by the European Union and the African Union. The Europeans and the AU had planned to deploy an electoral observation mission and the project was relaunched.
The European Union had planned an election observation mission for the original date of February 25 and it will be redeployed. A large part of the 32 observers deployed as precursors five weeks ago were kept in Senegal in order to observe the situation. They will serve as the backbone of the new observation mission which will have to be hard at work.