Senegal opposition marches against 85-year-old president Wade’s 3rd term bid.
Special to USAfricaonline.com, the USAfrica-powered e-groups of Nigeria360, IgboEvents, UNNalumni, and CLASSmagazine Houston.
Dakar: Thousands of Senegalese opposition supporters on Tuesday marched through central Dakar to ratchet up the pressure for President Abdoulaye Wade to abandon his bid for a controversial third term in office.
The 85-year-old president’s camp planned to strike back with a gathering in front of the
presidential palace downtown in the afternoon, said one of his electoral campaign managers, without giving further details.
Several thousand opposition supporters began their march in front of the capital’s university, and had planned to make their way to the interior ministry which is a few blocks down from the presidential palace. However government banned the protesters from entering the downtown Plateau suburb. “The march is allowed but the police notified us of the ban on going beyond Avenue Malick Sy” which separates the university from Plateau, said Cheikh Tidiane Dieye one of the leaders of the anti-Wade June 23 Movement (M23). Senegalese music icon Youssou Ndour, whose
presidential application was rejected by his country’s top court, was at the march along with several opposition candidates contesting the February 26 election and their supporters. Police kept close watch over the long procession. Opposition protests last week descended into riots, leaving four dead as tension flared over Wade’s third term candidacy which the opposition says is unconstitutional.
The country’s highest court on January 27 upheld Wade’s assertion that changes made to the constitution in 2008 meant he could run again despite having served two terms already. The opposition has vowed to force Wade to withdraw from the election and the leader, who has styled himself as a pan-African statesman, has received little sympathy from his erstwhile western allies.
Both the United States and France have expressed disappointment in his plans to run again, and urged a generational change in the country’s highest office. Wade, who says he needs another term to fulfil his promise to turn Senegal into a developed nation, has heaped scorn both on opposition protests and those from abroad. “I do not seek the interest of the toubabs (Westerners), but that of the Senegalese people,” the veteran leader said Sunday as he launched his election campaign. (AFP)
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