Voters deny victory to leader seeking third term, forcing a tough second round of elections
Senegal's president, Abdoulaye Wade, has failed to secure an outright win and a third term by polling less than the required 50% votes in the presidential elections, according to provisional results announced on Wednesday. The 85-year-old leader got only 34.82% of votes. He now faces his former protege, Macky Sall, in the second round this month.
Wade got 942,546 votes and Sall 719,369 (26.57%) percent in the elections held on Sunday. In third and fourth place were two other members of Wade's inner circle who fell out with him, including ex-prime ministers Moustapha Niasse, with 13.2%, and Idrissa Seck with 7.86%.
Wade's failure to win in the first round, when the opposition vote was split, is an embarrassing defeat. He was facing 13 opponents, who are now likely to unite behind Sall.
Wade's waning popularity was evident when he went to vote on Sunday. Instead of the usual cheers, the leader, who reneged on his pledge to not run for the third term, was loudly booed and heckled by hundreds of voters. The contest became less about the issues, which were rarely discussed, and more about preventing Wade winning a third term, a move that many considered to be a violation of the constitution. Ironically, it was Wade himself who had revised the law to impose a maximum two-term limit.
Sall said in a press conference: "You clearly and with a great majority made your voice heard to put an end to the regime of the sitting president. Two out of every three Senegalese chose to open a new page of our history ... Senegal is at a crossroad."
He outlined the reforms that he hoped to pursue if he wins the March runoff, the election date has not yet been announced.
The results issued on Wednesday are considered provisional until all appeals have been addressed. Supporters erupted in cheers when Sall, said that he planned to change the constitution to reduce the presidential term from seven to five years.
For most of Senegal's post-independence history, the presidential term was seven years long. When Wade was elected in 2000, he reduced it to five. In 2008, he amended the constitution to increase it back to seven years. Since taking office Wade had revised the constitution 15 times and was accused of treating the country and its laws as his personal property.