By RFIPubliée on 24-02-2019Modified on 24-02-2019 at 00:15

In Senegal, 6.7 million voters are expected to vote for the first round of the presidential election. Five candidates are running for the presidency: Idrissa Seck, Madické Niang, Issa Sall, Ousmane Sonko and Macky Sall. But without the PDS nor Khalifa Sall.

The election will be held without the Senegalese Democratic Party (PDS) and Karim Wade, nor the former mayor of Dakar Khalifa Sall. Both could not show up. The candidacy of the two opponents was invalidated by the Constitutional Council in January, because of their respective convictions.

The Socialist Party rallied to the presidential camp. During the election campaign, Macky Sall has always said he will be elected in the first round. A demand taken up in slogan by the presidential camp.

Opposite him, four opponents: Madické Niang, dissident candidate of the PDS, wants to capitalize on the solid electoral base of the party. Ousmane Sonko, the meteoric rise in politics, wants to surprise him in the first round. There is also Issa Sall who seeks to impose itself by counting on its religious and faithful electoral base. Finally, Idrissa Seck was able to win a rally of weight: that of Khalifa Sall, and its activists. For the four opponents, it is to create the conditions for a second round, the only possibility to hope to destabilize Macky Sall.

Casamance, the challenge of the election

Gambian President Yayah Jammeh has fallen, the transgambian bridge is open. For the first time, Casamance is no longer cut off from the rest of the country and for the Casamans, who have accumulated over time a sense of frustration with the power of Dakar, to the point that some have decided to take up arms to claim the independence of the region, it is a real step forward.

Throughout the campaign, Macky Sall surfed on his record: the bridge, the roads, the dredging of the river. To fill the voices and take away the region that voted against him in the first round of the 2012 presidential election, he also relies on the rallying of many local figures such as that of Deputy-Mayor Abdoulaye Baldé, former Minister of Defense under Abdoulaye Wade.

Faced with the outgoing president, former Prime Minister Idrissa Seck relies on the dynamics of his coalition to win the vote. Issa Sall and Madické Niang also came to convince. But here it is especially Ousmane Sonko, rising star of Senegalese politics, who is a challenger. The child of the country, who will also vote in Ziguinchor, intends to take away the protest vote, especially among young people, to defeat Macky Sall.

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