Unrest in Senegal as opponents tell president to cancel looming election

Abdoulaye Wade, seeking a third term after pledging to serve only two, plans to allow weekend poll to go ahead

It is one of west Africa's more stable democracies, often singled out as an example to its benighted regional rivals. But Senegal is teetering on the edge of the kind of electoral confrontation that has troubled the likes of Ivory Coast and Liberia recently.

In the worst riots in the country for decades, thousands of opposition activists have taken to the streets daily for the past month in protest at a decision by the country's constitutional council to allow the incumbent president, Abdoulaye Wade, to run for a third term in the election this weekend.

Senegal: Why anti-Wade protests and momentum might end in heartbreak

Like all other street protests in recent years, I was out there in the streets of Dakar on Friday evening for another round of the so-called citizen protest aimed at stopping Senegal’s octogenarian president, Abdoulaye Wade from running for a controversial third term.

By 6pm, thousands of protesters scattered around the ‘forbidden’ independence square, the epicenter of opposition protest in recent days. They are Senegalese citizens from all regions across this beautiful West African nation. They are united by one goal: To force their ageing president to quit.

They wore T-shirts and held placards with such clearly spelt messages as ‘Down with Wade’, ‘We are fed up’, ‘You leave in peace or be forced to leave: It’s your choice’, ‘We are sick of your lies’ and ‘Where are the jobs you promised us, Mr. President’. One cheeky placard held by a young Cafe Touba (local coffee) seller reads, ‘Coffee for all except Goorgui (Wade’s local name)’. 

Senegalese youth on the streets for change

RNW - “I never thought Senegal would get to a stage when the police would beat us and shoot at us just because we are asking the president to leave power. I never thought that some would die in a brutal way for merely exercising their democratic right to protest,” says a 24-year-old Senegalese named Lemzo. He is a former street trader responding to reports that a student had just been run over by a police truck.

Lemzo is one of the thousands of young Senegalese who are gathering at the popular Place De l’Obelisque to call on President Abdoulaye Wade not to run for a third term. Wearing a black t-shirt emblazoned with a message to Wade to not use force to his bid to stay in power, Lemzo sits on a tiny wooden box and looks on as his colleagues set car tires on fire.