The President of Senegal, Macky Sall, promised on Saturday to end the suspense on the question of the third mandate, for the presidential election of February 2024, affirming that he will make a “free and sovereign choice very soon”, because, according to him, “the time has come”.
Speaking at the closing ceremony of the National Dialogue, held on Saturday afternoon at the Presidential Palace in Dakar, Macky Sall made an appointment with the Senegalese after Tabaski, the Aid Al-Adha feast, which will be celebrated on June 29 in Senegal.
“Rest assured, I will respond very soon, because the time has come, but not today. I will make a speech to the nation, I will bring my answer which cannot depend on the context in which we evolve”, declared the Head of State.
“It must be clear, there is a lot of excitement, it will be a free and sovereign choice which will be explained to the country and which will be assumed. So let’s wait for the Tabaski, we’ll get started…”, he said.
President Macky Sall, elected in 2012 and re-elected in 2019, declared on March 20 to the French magazine “L’Express”, that he has the right to run for the next presidential election scheduled for February 25, 2024.
On the legal level, the debate has been settled for a long time, ”he told the French media. It should be noted that the Constitution, after the revision of 2016, provides that the duration of the presidential mandate is five years, and no longer seven, and that “no one can exercise more than two consecutive mandates”.
However, Macky Sall had argued in an interview with “L’Express” that, when the Constitutional Council had been consulted before the revision, the latter had considered that his first term was “out of reach” of the reform.
Returning, moreover, to the events of June 1, which occurred after the conviction of Ousmane Sonko, the Head of State underlined, during the closing of the National Dialogue this Saturday, that “There were serious abuses which occurred “. “It is established that these acts are comparable to terrorist acts which will not go unpunished”, said Macky Sall during his speech after receiving the report from the hands of the President of the steering committee of the national dialogue which had been launched on 31 may.
The participants in this consultation, held in the absence of the opposition coalition Yewwi askan Wi (liberate the people) and the Mouvement des forces vives du Sénégal F24, notably reached an agreement on the maintenance of citizen sponsorship with a percentage of 0.6% to 0.8% of the General Register of Electors, to an agreement on the establishment of a Sponsorship Control Commission housed at the Constitutional Council, composed of members of the Constitutional Council, the Chief Registrar, the representative of the candidate, the administrative and technical staff of the Constitutional Council, independent personalities and representatives of the CENA.
They also agreed on the renewal and improvement of the technical control measures used during the 2022 legislative elections and on the institutionalization of the drawing of lots for the submission of candidate files and on the maximum amount of the deposit for the presidential election, which cannot exceed 30 million CFA francs.
The participants in the National Dialogue also reached an agreement on the modification of article L.28-3 of the Electoral Code by adding the measure of pardon. Thus, persons benefiting from a measure of clemency must wait until the expiry of the duration of the sentence pronounced by the trial court, if it is a prison sentence, or a period of three years from the date of the pardon, if it is a sentence of a fine, before being able to register on the electoral lists.
Regarding the candidacy of the outgoing president, they called for “respect for the Constitution, laws and regulations on the part of the poles and civil society, without a common position on the question”.
Among the points of agreement of this national dialogue is also an agreement on the modification of article L.29 of the Electoral Code to limit permanent ineligibility. Thus, they agreed that the ban on registration on the electoral lists applies only to persons convicted of crime, drug trafficking and offenses related to public funds, with the exception of the cases provided for in Article L .28-3 of the Electoral Code. For other offences, this prohibition is five years after the expiry of the sentence imposed.
The eight commissions of this National Dialogue also reached an agreement on the conduct of a feasibility study to determine the advisability of using the single ballot after the presidential election of February 25, 2024.
For the implementation of certain recommendations of this Dialogue, Macky Sall has given his government a week to draft the texts which will then be presented to the National Assembly.