Thanks to the concession of his essential rival, the young political outsider, supported by an influential opposition activist, won a surprise and direct victory in the presidential elections in Senegal just 10 days after his release from prison.
Bassirou Diomaye Faye is the anointed candidate of the popular and controversial Senegalese opposition politician Ousmane Sonko. Faye’s essential rival, ruling party candidate Amadou Ba, stepped down in a press release on Monday congratulating his rival on winning the first round.
Faye, who celebrated his forty fourth birthday on Monday, will change into the West African country’s youngest-ever president. He was jailed on charges of defamation and contempt of court and is awaiting trial.
“I wish him much success for the good of the Senegalese people,” Ba said in a press release on Monday afternoon addressed to Faye as president.
The state electoral commission has not yet announced the exact variety of votes, but Mr. Ba’s concession got here after local media reports that Mr. Faye won greater than 50 percent of the vote, ruling out a runoff.
Faye and Sonko captivated young people by criticizing political elites, promising to renegotiate contracts with oil and gas corporations and promising “monetary sovereignty” — Senegal is one in every of 14 countries using the CFA, a currency pegged to the euro and backed by France.
Ba, who stepped down as prime minister to run the campaign, received the support of Senegalese President Macky Sall. Sall served two terms and for years refused to say whether he would seek a 3rd. He threw the country into chaos when he abruptly canceled elections that were scheduled for February, after which almost as suddenly reversed course.
Residents of Dakar, the coastal capital of Senegal, began celebrating at 8 p.m. on Sunday, before many polling stations had even counted the contents of their ballot boxes. People danced, waved flags and got into cars and motorcycles, blowing a cacophony of horns and shouting, “Get out, Amadou Ba!” as they ran through the streets.
And at midnight, supporters began singing “Happy Birthday” to Mr. Faye, who had gone from obscurity to winning the presidency in just a few short months.
But Mr. Faye wasn’t the only winner. Many Senegalese who voted for him saw him merely as a proxy for Mr. Sonko, a fiery orator who had been imprisoned and barred from running, and who anointed Mr. Faye in his place.
Mr. Faye is a former tax collector who was jailed on charges of libel and contempt of court after accusing judges of persecuting Mr. Sonko, who was himself convicted of libel and individually of corruption of a minor after being accused of raping a young massage parlor worker.
Mr Sonko was keen to emphasise that a vote for Mr Faye, known to many as Diomaye, was a vote for him.
“Diomaye to Sonko” – said the ubiquitous posters with the youthful, radiant faces of each men.
Election Sunday was peaceful, with many citizens arriving at polling stations early and calmly lining as much as solid their ballots.
This was a stark contrast to the previous two months, during which it was often uncertain whether the elections would happen in any respect.
In early February, Sall stunned the nation by canceling the election, saying there have been allegations of corruption requiring investigation by the Constitutional Council, the country’s highest court.
Police then occupied Parliament, throwing out opposition legislators in order that laws confirming Sall’s decision might be pushed through. The presidential elections were postponed to December.
In the confusion that followed, the Constitutional Council declared the delay illegal and Mr Sall modified his mind. He agreed to carry elections quickly and even released Sonko and Faye from prison, allowing them to campaign quickly for 10 days.
Many observers saw this turn of events as evidence of the resilience of democracy in Senegal, a rustic with a difficult neighborhood. A variety of West African countries – corresponding to Niger, Burkina Faso, Guinea and Mali – have experienced coups in recent years, and Senegal is taken into account an outpost of democracy and relative political stability.
Over the past five years, Mr. Sonko has gained a big following by criticizing Senegal’s political elites and invoking the vague but energized concept of “sovereignty” while targeting Senegal’s wealthy youth: half of the population is under 19 years old.
And the youth responded. Thousands of individuals took to the streets to support Mr Sonko, and dozens of them lost their lives at the hands of the police.
In West Africa, other young men have taken the reins of presidency in recent years – in Burkina Faso, Mali and Chad. But they took power by force.
The opposition candidates stepped down one after the other from Sunday to Monday until Monday, congratulating Mr. Faye.
Mr Ba’s camp initially insisted there can be a second round at worst. However, on Monday afternoon he admitted that he was right.
