Senegal’s Constitutional Council on Saturday released a final list of 20 presidential contenders for the February 25 election, which excludes jailed opposition leader Ousmane Sonko and Karim Wade, former president Abdoulaye Wade’s son.
Among those included is Prime Minister Amadou Ba, who was chosen by President Macky Sall as his successor after Sall stated in July that he would not seek a third term.
Former prime ministers and opponents Idrissa Seck and Mahammed Boun Abdallah Dionne were also listed, as was the former mayor of Dakar, Khalifa Sall, and Bassirou Diomaye Diakhar Faye, who was offered as Sonko’s alternative candidacy.
Faye, 43, a member of Sonko’s dissolved party, is also detained but has not yet been tried.
He has been imprisoned since April 2023 for “contempt of court” and “defamation against a corporate body” related to a Facebook post.
Sonko, who finished third in the 2019 presidential race, has been at the center of a tense standoff with the state for more than two years, resulting in often fatal upheaval.
The 49-year-old opposition figure has amassed a devoted following among Senegal’s disgruntled youth, owing to his pan-Africanist rhetoric and uncompromising attitude against former colonial power France.
The Constitutional Council rejected Sonko’s nomination because of his six-month suspended sentence for slander, which was affirmed by the Supreme Court on January 4.
He had also been handed a hefty fine for defamation and insults against Tourism Minister Mame Mbaye Niang.
Crowded field
In other court matters, Sonko was sentenced to two years in prison in June for morally influencing a young person and has been in jail since the end of July on additional counts such as insurgency, conspiracy with terrorist groups, and harming state security.
He has disputed the charges, claiming they are designed to prevent him from standing in the February election, which the government opposes.
The released list of candidates includes two women: gynaecologist Rose Wardini and entrepreneur Anta Babacar Ngom.
Senegal has never held a presidential election with so many contenders, constitutional lawyer Babacar Gueye told AFP. The most recent election in 2019 featured five candidates.
According to the Constitutional Council, Karim Wade, who served as a minister under his father’s administration, was deemed “inadmissible” due to his dual French and Senegalese nationality.
He condemned the move on X, formerly Twitter, calling it “scandalous” and a “blatant attack on democracy” on Sunday.
According to the constitution, presidential candidates “must be exclusively of Senegalese nationality” and aged 35 to 75 on election day.
Wade, who was born in France to a Senegalese father and a French mother, produced documents indicating that he had abandoned his French nationality.
However, the council rejected them, stating that the decision confirming his loss of French nationality was “not retroactive” and that his sworn declaration was “inexact” at the time it was filed.
With only a month till the two-round election, Senegal’s first without the participation of the incumbent president, the outcome remains completely unclear.
Sall, who was elected president for seven years in 2012 and reelected in 2019, announced in July that he would not run again.