Opposition in Senegal Boycotts Vote

June 4, 2007

By LYDIA POLGREEN
Published: June 4, 2007
DAKAR, Senegal, June 3 — Voters in Senegal on Sunday largely stayed home from an election to choose a new national assembly amid widespread apathy and after a call for a boycott by the main opposition parties.

In calling for a boycott, opposition leaders said President Abdoulaye Wade refused to meet with them to discuss irregularities in the voter rolls and the process of requiring identification from voters in February, when he was re-elected. The opposition parties did not offer candidates for the 150-seat assembly. Mr. Wade, who will serve a five-year-term after easily winning the election against a fractured opposition, has dismissed the complaints as irrelevant to the overall outcome of the race.

But the prospect of a legislature virtually devoid of opposition is sure to tarnish Senegal’s cherished reputation as a strong and long-standing democracy in a region where governments have historically changed in putsches and rigged elections rather than in open, multiparty voting.

Final results in the election were not expected until Monday.

Senegal has never had a coup, and in 2000 it became one of the very few African countries to pass power from one party to another peacefully in an election. Mr. Wade, a longtime opposition figure, won largely because of his pledges to shake up the sleepy economy with changes that would put legions of unemployed youths to work.

He defeated the incumbent from the Socialist Party, which had governed the country since independence in 1960. The Constitution was recently changed to reduce the president’s term from seven years to five. But many of the young people who supported Mr. Wade in 2000 were disillusioned by 2007, when he ran for re-election despite being in his 80s.

A long-promised program of public works began in earnest only once the election drew near, and Senegal’s economic growth has been dampened by high fuel prices and other factors. Unemployment remains rife, and each year the number of young people fleeing to Europe on fishing boats grows exponentially. Basic services like water, electricity and trash collection have faltered.

Since his re-election, Mr. Wade has pledged to redouble his efforts to improve the economy and to increase the number of jobs.

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