Politics
Senegal presidential elections: Wade booed as he votes
Senegal President Abdoulaye Wade, right, casts his vote in presidential elections. PHOTO/REUTERS/Youssef Boudlal
Voters booed Senegal’s president so loudly when he went to cast his ballot Sunday that his bodyguards whisked him away, another sign of how much his popularity has dipped ahead of an election that has sparked weeks of riots.
This normally unflappable republic has been rocked by back-to-back protests following President Abdoulaye Wade’s decision to seek a third term, threatening Senegal’s reputation as one of the most mature democracies in Africa.
In choosing to run again, the 85-year-old leader is violating the term limits he himself introduced into the constitution.
Wade argues that those restrictions should not apply to him since he was elected before they went into effect, and has predicted that he will win Sunday’s poll with a crushing majority.
But voters shouted “Get out old man!” as Wade showed up in his home district, where he has voted for decades. Country watchers say they have never witnessed such a scene before in Senegal, where respect toward the elderly is considered a cultural value.
“I feel sad because our democracy doesn’t deserve this,” said the president’s daughter Syndiely Wade, who stayed back in the polling station in the neighbourhood of Point E to talk to reporters. “My father doesn’t deserve this.”
The deadly riots began last month when the country’s highest court ruled that the term limits in the new constitution did not apply to Wade, paving the way for him to run again. The country’s opposition has vowed to render the country ungovernable should he win.
Moussa Signate, a security guard, sat against the cement wall of an elementary school that had been transformed into a polling station downtown, watching others line up to vote. Lines snaked outside the doors of the classrooms, but Signate said he was so discouraged that he was considering not voting at all.
