To protest President Macky Sall of Senegal’s prospective third term, hundreds of opposition supporters and members of civil society rallied in the nation’s capital on Friday.
Violent protests have rattled Senegal over a variety of concerns, including opposition parties’ worries that Sall would run for a third term.
Sall, 61, took office in 2012 and was elected again in 2019. The new Senegalese constitution, which was enacted in 2016, restricts presidential tenure to two terms of five years each.
Sall has not declared his intention to run or refuted it. The argument, which has been used by other presidents in the region to run and win third terms, was made by him to the French newspaper L’Express in March. He said that he could technically run because the new constitution reset the clock on his number of mandates.
Macky Sall has finished. He cannot run for a third term. Ibrahima Lo, a trader from the southern town of Kaolack who joined the demonstration in the capital, declared, “We’ll not accept it — not today, not tomorrow.”
The opposition has also charged Sall’s administration with exploiting the legal system to target possible rivals, notably Ousmane Sonko, 48, a senior opposition firebrand who finished third in the 2019 presidential race.
The government has refuted the claims made by the opposition.
Sonko is facing two trials that could bar him from running for president in 2024. On May 8, a court of appeals sentenced him to a longer suspended term in a libel lawsuit against the Senegalese tourism minister.
He is accused of raping a beauty salon employee in 2021 and threatening to kill her in a second trial that is set to begin on Tuesday. Both charges have been refuted by Sonko.
Violent protests and altercations between his fans and security forces have resulted from his legal issues and court appearances.
