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Senegal\u2019s president has canceled the election for his replacement three weeks before voting was set to take place, saying that a dispute between the legislative and judicial arms of government needed to be resolved first.<\/p>\n
Speaking on Saturday afternoon from the presidential palace in Dakar, Senegal\u2019s capital, his words live-streamed on his social media platforms, President Macky Sall said that he was repealing the decree convening the electoral body, effectively postponing elections indefinitely.<\/p>\n
But his opponents said he was essentially carrying out a coup d\u2019\u00e9tat, and accused him of treason.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor the first time in its history, Senegal has just suffered a coup d\u2019\u00e9tat,\u201d Ousmane Diallo, a researcher with Amnesty International, posted on X<\/a>. In an interview, he said that the dispute Mr. Sall cited as the reason for the postponement was \u201ca manufactured crisis, a crisis created in a week to stop the electoral process.\u201d<\/p>\n After the country\u2019s constitutional council published lists of approved candidates for the election, some of them were found to have been approved despite holding dual nationality, something presidential candidates are not allowed in Senegal.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n One was Karim Wade, the son of President Sall\u2019s predecessor, Abdoulaye Wade. The younger Mr. Wade, whose mother is from France, had renounced his French citizenship in order to run, but may have done so only after the constitutional court rejected him as a presidential candidate. After he was blocked from running, his party accused two of the court\u2019s judges of corruption, and it appears that these allegations form the basis of President Sall\u2019s decision to cancel the election.<\/p>\n In his speech on Saturday Mr. Sall portrayed it as a dispute between the national assembly, which launched an inquiry into the allegations, and the constitutional court, saying things had reached a crisis point. The situation, he said, \u201ccould seriously damage the credibility of the election\u201d in a country that \u201ccannot afford a new crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Sall had spent years refusing to confirm<\/a> whether he would try for a third term in office. Senegal\u2019s Constitution limits presidents to two consecutive terms. But in 2016, when Mr. Sall was four years into his first term, voters changed the Constitution to reduce terms to five years from seven, which he argued reset the clock, allowing him to run a third time.<\/p>\n But last July, he said he would not run again<\/a>, and later named the prime minister, Amadou Ba, as the governing party candidate for the 2024 election.<\/p>\n He gave no new date for an election in his address to the nation on Saturday, but said he was still committed to staying out of the race himself.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cMy solemn commitment not to run in the presidential election remains unchanged,\u201d he said in his live-streamed address, before the camera cut to shots of the golden lions outside the presidential palace, and the Senegalese flag embossed with the president\u2019s initials fluttering in slow motion.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Half an hour after the president\u2019s address on Saturday, three young men jumped off a bus in Ouakam, a neighborhood in Dakar, and bought cups of spiced coffee as they discussed the news of the canceled election. One said that Mr. Sall was just testing people, to see if they would take to the streets.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is the biggest coup d\u2019\u00e9tat ever,\u201d said another, Abdou Lahat, sipping his Touba coffee<\/a>.<\/p>\n Despite a warning from the U.S. embassy that violent protests could break out, most residents of Senegal\u2019s capital, Dakar, merely continued with their day on Saturday. But many were unhappy.<\/p>\n \u201cWe want to change all these people,\u201d said Fatou Diouf, a young woman selling fabric in a Dakar market on Saturday afternoon, referring to the country\u2019s leaders.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Koumba Sakho, a 28-year-old who works in a bakery in the city center, agreed. \u201cThe Senegalese will no longer accept anyone being imposed on them,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n In the wake of the announcement of the canceled election, experts scrambled to assess the legality of the president\u2019s move.<\/p>\n