Senegalese men and women are deciding today in early parliamentary elections whether President Bassirou Diomaye Faye’s PASTEF political party will win a majority in the legislature, which would make it easier for him to push through reforms, the AP agency writes.
More than seven million eligible voters in the approximately 18 million West African country have the opportunity to decide on the occupation of 165 seats in the parliament, where PASTEF has been in the minority until now. According to observers, thanks to the popularity of the 44-year-old president elected in March, he has a good chance of winning a majority in at least 83 mandates.
Precisely because of insufficient support for his policies, which aim, among other things, at anti-corruption measures or securing a greater share of the country’s natural resources for the local population, Faye dissolved parliament in September. “I am dissolving the National Assembly to ask the sovereign people for the institutional means to carry out the systemic transformation I have promised to carry out,” the president said at the time.
The main rival of the president’s camp should be the Takku Wallu group led by ex-president Macky Salle. In addition to him, approximately four dozen other parties and coalitions are participating in the vote.
Polling stations will close at 18:00 local time (19:00 CET). The first results should be known by Monday morning.
Source: www.tyden.cz
