Presidential elections were held in Senegal on 24 March 2024. Incumbent president Macky Sall was ineligible to pursue a third term due to term limits in the Constitution of Senegal.
The elections were originally scheduled for 25 February, but were postponed indefinitely by a decree of Sall on 3 February, and then delayed by the National Assembly to 15 December. However, on 15 February the Senegalese Constitutional Council overturned the postponement and ordered elections to proceed as soon as possible, with the government subsequently setting a new election date for 24 March after a national dialogue at the end of February was ruled unconstitutional.
Bassirou Diomaye Faye, running in place of Ousmane Sonko, was elected president with 54% of the vote, while Amadou Ba, the candidate of the ruling United in Hope (BBY) coalition, peacefully conceded defeat. Faye's victory was later confirmed by Senegal's Supreme Court. He was inaugurated as president on 2 April.
Background
Several parties had announced their intent to run for office in 2024, but they first had to receive sufficient support from the general public to pass the sponsorship stage. Any presidential candidate must receive between 0.8 percent and 1 percent of the electorate's signatures. These signatures must be collected with at least 2,000 sponsorships in each of the seven of Senegal's fourteen regions. Candidates can also have the option of receiving sponsorships from at least 13 members of the National Assembly, or 120 mayors and heads of regional councils. A deposit of 30 million CFA francs must also be paid by candidates at the Caisse des dépôts et consignations.
On 17 February 2023, the day before the date was revealed for the upcoming elections, Senegalese opposition candidate Ousmane Sonko was forcibly taken from his vehicle amid rallies outside a Dakar courthouse where his trial was taking place. Sonko was in court as part of a civil lawsuit against him by Senegal's tourism minister for defamation and public insults.
On 3 July, following a series of protests regarding Sonko's conviction for "immoral behaviour" in a separate case, incumbent president Macky Sall stated that he would not seek re-election for a third term.
Registrations for candidacy opened in October 2023 and ended on 26 December 2023. Pre-campaigning began on 5 January 2024 while the campaign period was set to start on 4 February, with the first round taking place on 25 February.
Candidates
On 14 July, Ousmane Sonko was announced as the presidential candidate for PASTEF. Sonko's eligibility as a candidate was unclear due to him receiving a two-year prison sentence in June 2023, rendering him ineligible to run according to some legal experts; although it was noted he had not exhausted his appeals to the Supreme Court, which could reverse his sentence. On 31 July, PASTEF was ordered dissolved by the Senegalese government, while Sonko undertook a months-long hunger strike in protest over the political situation.
In September, Sall nominated Prime Minister Amadou Ba as candidate for the ruling Alliance for the Republic.
On 19 November, PASTEF designated its secretary-general Bassirou Diomaye Faye as their candidate for the election. Faye had been imprisoned since April 2023, when he was arrested for criticising the conduct of Sonko's defamation trial on social media. In December, a court ordered Sonko's reinstatement to the voters' list and allowed him to file his candidacy.
A total of 93 people registered to run for president before the Senegalese Constitutional Council. The list of candidates was narrowed down as the body examined the sponsorship of would-be candidates until 10 January 2024 before moving on to scrutinize other relevant documents. Many candidates were rejected due to missing documents, insufficient sponsors or sponsors supporting more than one candidate, including former prime ministers Aminata Toure and Cheikh Hadjibou Soumaré, as well as Macky Sall's brother-in-law Adama Faye. This prompted Toure and 27 other candidates to collectively criticise the sponsorship control system.
In January 2024, candidate Thierno Alassane Sall filed a complaint against fellow candidate Karim Wade being of dual French-Senegalese nationality. Wade, a former minister and the son of former president Abdoulaye Wade, subsequently renounced his French citizenship. At the same time, the National Assembly created a commission of inquiry responsible for monitoring the electoral process.
On 20 January, the Senegalese Constitutional Council published the final list of candidates for the presidential election. It was made up of 20 candidates including Amadou Ba, former prime ministers Idrissa Seck and Mahammed Boun Abdallah Dionne, former interior minister Aly Ngouille Ndiaye, the former mayor of Dakar Khalifa Sall, the mayor of Kolda, Mame Boye Diao, and Bassirou Diomaye Faye, who was in prison pending a trial. Two women were also cleared to run, namely gynaecologist Rose Wardini and entrepreneur Anta Babacar Ngom, the head of one of the country's largest food manufacturers and poultry firms, Sedima. Both are the first women to run for president since 2012.
The candidacies of Ousmane Sonko and Karim Wade were not validated, with the council citing Sonko's six-month suspended sentence for defamation that was upheld by the Senegalese Supreme Court on 4 January and Wade's renunciation of his French citizenship being "not retroactive" and his sworn declaration of the renunciation being "inexact". Wade's exclusion prompted the 25 MPs of his Senegalese Democratic Party to call for an inquiry in the National Assembly over Wade's and other candidates' exclusion, which lasted until 18 February, when it was ended by the Senegalese government, citing the opening of a judicial investigation over the matter.
On 28 January, Sonko released a video on social media formally recognizing Bassirou Diomaye Faye as his replacement in the election.
On 19 February, Rose Wardini renounced her candidacy following controversy over her dual Franco-Senegalese nationality.
Postponement
On 3 February, hours before campaigning was about to start, President Macky Sall ordered the indefinite postponement of the election, citing a parliamentary investigation into two judges of the Constitutional Court over their integrity with regards to the electoral process that was launched following Karim Wade's exclusion from the elections and warning of adverse effects on the "credibility of the election by creating the seeds of pre- and post-electoral litigation". Sall also claimed that some of the official candidates held dual citizenship. This was the first postponement of a presidential election in the country's history.
The postponement was welcomed by Wade's Democratic Party, which requested the postponement, while candidates Thierno Alassane Sall, who called the postponement "high treason," Khalifa Sall and Déthié Fall announced that they would start their campaign as originally scheduled, while candidate Habib Sy said that all opposition candidates had agreed to launch their campaigns together as scheduled. Rejected candidate Aminata Touré called the decision "sabotage". Abdou Latif Coulibaly, the Secretary General of Sall's government and its concurrent spokesman, announced his resignation, saying that he wanted to have "full and complete freedom" to defend his political convictions.
On 4 February, police in Dakar fired tear gas to disperse demonstrators protesting against the postponement and arrested Aminata Touré and candidate Anta Babacar Ngom, who had attended one of the rallies after all 19 opposition candidates called for supporters to gather in the streets, including at a major roundabout and in front of the National Assembly. Authorities also suspended and later revoked the broadcasting license of the private television channel Walf TV for its coverage of the protests, calling it an "incitement to violence". Protesters were seen chanting "Macky Sall, dictator!" and establishing makeshift barricades, burning tyres and throwing rocks at police. The Ministry of Communication, Telecommunications and Digital Economy shut off mobile internet access on 5 February, citing "the dissemination of several hateful and subversive messages relayed on social networks in the context of threats and disturbances to public order." Three people were killed during protests against the postponement in Saint-Louis, Dakar and Ziguinchor. Protests were also held in Diourbel.
In a heated session on 5 February that saw some opposition deputies removed by security forces after they tried to block proceedings, the National Assembly voted in favor of a proposal to postpone the elections until 15 December formally. The measure, which needed the support of at least three-fifths (99) of the chamber's 165 deputies to pass, was approved by 105 members and rejected by only one MP and prompted renewed protests outside the National Assembly that were suppressed by police using tear gas. Two opposition parties subsequently filed an appeal to the Constitutional Council urging it to direct "the continuation of the electoral process." Fourteen opposition candidates also filed an appeal to the council, with two others pledging to challenge the postponement in court. Three lawmakers who were affiliated with PASTEF were briefly arrested on 6 February.
In response to the postponement and subsequent protests, former presidents Abdou Diouf and Abdoulaye Wade called on Macky Sall to organise the "national dialogue he has announced, without delay." They also called on protesters to "immediately end the violence."
International reactions
The French foreign ministry called on Senegalese authorities "to end the uncertainty about the electoral calendar so the vote can be held as soon as possible." The US State Department also urged "all participants in (the) electoral process to engage peacefully to swiftly set a new date and the conditions for a timely, free and fair election". US Senate Foreign Relations Committee chair Ben Cardin said the postponement put Senegal "on a dangerous path towards dictatorship, and must not be allowed to stand."
ECOWAS called on authorities to "expedite the various processes to set a new date for the elections", while African Union commission chair Moussa Faki Mahamat urged a resolution of the political crisis "through consultation, understanding and dialogue" and called on authorities to "organise the elections as quickly as possible, in transparency, in peace and national harmony". The European Union also said the postponement had opened a "period of uncertainty" and called "for the staging of a transparent, inclusive and credible election as soon as possible." United Nations Human Rights Office spokesperson Liz Throssell said any decision to postpone the elections should be "based on broad-based consultations." On 8 February, foreign ministers of ECOWAS member states held an emergency session in Abuja, Nigeria, to discuss the situation in Senegal. On 12 February, an ECOWAS delegation arrived in the country to attempt to help mediate.
The Committee to Protect Journalists condemned the Senegalese government's shutdown of Walf TV.
Overturning of postponement and resumption of elections
On 15 February, the Senegalese Constitutional Council ruled that the decision to postpone and reschedule the election by Macky Sall and the National Assembly was "contrary to the constitution" and ordered its cancellation. However, it also acknowledged that holding the election as originally scheduled on 25 February was no longer feasible, and urged the government to act immediately. In response, presidential spokesperson Yoro Dia said that Sall would comply with the decision, but did not give a new date for it to be held. In a televised interview on 22 February, Sall said that he would leave office as scheduled on 2 April, but said that he would hold talks first with political leaders to determine a new timetable for the elections. He also expressed his willingness to release Ousmane Sonko and his supporters as an act of good faith. His proposal for a dialogue was rejected on 23 February by the Aar Sunu Election (Protect Our Election) collective composed of 40 civil society groups, which called it "unacceptable" and an "attempt at diversion".