In Senegal, the campaign for the legislative elections kicked off yesterday, Sunday 10 July 2022, the day of the Tabaski holiday. A celebration marked by political speeches from different sides to solicit the voice of the people and to reach a wide audience on 31 July 2022.
According to the calendar of the CENA (Autonomous National Electoral Commission), the hostilities are launched this Sunday 10 July 2022 for the legislative elections. Scheduled to be held on 31 July, all political parties from both the opposition and the mainstream have already laid the groundwork for the first day of the campaign. Les activités ont démarré timidement et sans la ferveur d’antan à cause de la célébration de la Tabaski ce même jour.Activities started slowly and without the fervour of yesteryear because of the celebration of Tabaski on the same day. Nevertheless, representatives of the eight competing lists were given statements on the evening news on the national channel.
Call for peace and warnings from President Macky Sall.
In the morning after the Tabaski prayer at the Grand Mosque of Dakar, the Head of State Macky Sall sent a solemn message to the entire political class. In his remarks, the authority urged political actors to show patriotism and avoid all forms of violence during the 21-day campaign. The President of the Republic also placed particular emphasis on the crossing of caravans, often a source of insults and fights. “The state will be inflexible and will punish with the utmost rigour, people of bad faith who recruit troublemakers, regardless of their political affiliation,” concluded Macky Sall.
Like the ruling party, the opposition is already in the starting blocks.
The first day of the campaign, although timid and quiet, did not prevent the leaders of some opposition parties from taking advantage of the internet to give confidence and remobilise the troops. From his stronghold in Ziguinchor, Ousmane Sonko, one of the figures of the main opposition coalition Yewi Askan Wi, made a statement live on social networks. He called for a massive vote to give the majority of the National Assembly to the opposition. According to Ousmane Sonko, this is the only way to break the dream of President Macky Sall who could aspire to a possible third term.
In total, 165 deputies will sit in the National Assembly of Senegal. The distribution of these members will be done according to a parallel voting system in fifty-four (54) electoral constituencies distributed as follows: forty-six (46) departments of Senegal and eight (8) constituencies of the diaspora.
One hundred and twelve (112) seats shall be filled by majority vote. This, with one to seven seats per constituency, depending on their population. Diaspora constituencies have between one and three seats, for a total of fifteen (15) seats.
The remaining fifty-three (53) seats are filled by multi-party proportional representation on the basis of the total votes of the parties added together at national level.
