Presidential Election, 24 March 2024

Senegal’s Presidential Elections were held on 24 March, 2024. Senegalese citizens elect the president by direct universal suffrage through a majority system, with a runoff (University of Florida n.d.). In 2024, 19 candidates were confirmed to contest the elections by Senegal’s Constitution Council (Hudson 2024). This was the longest list of candidates in the country’s history and also the first without an incumbent vying for reelection. Elections in Senegal are jointly managed by the Ministry of Interior’s Directorate General for Elections and the independent Autonomous National Electoral Commission (CENA) (IFES 2024).  

While neighbouring states in West Africa have experienced a series of coups in recent years, Senegal has generally been considered one of the most stable performing democracies in Africa (Freedom House 2024). However, the 2024 elections were preceded by several events that raised concern about electoral integrity.  

Originally scheduled for February 2024, the elections were initially postponed—indefinitely—by sitting President Macky Sall (Hudson 2024). President Sall cited controversies surrounding the disqualification of certain presidential candidates, particularly those from the opposition, as a reason for postponement. The President’s announcement was followed by a rushed decision in Parliament to postpone the elections until December, during which opposition parties were forcefully removed from the chamber (International IDEA 2024a).   

The decision to postpone elections was met with violent protests across the country (BBC 2024) and subsequently declared unconstitutional by the Constitutional Council (Hudson 2024). After this verdict, Sall vowed to host elections ‘without delay’.    

In spite of the initial chaos, election day itself was calm (Marsi and Mohamed 2024). The voter turnout was 61.3 per cent as opposed to 66.27 per cent in 2019 (International IDEA 2024b). Opposition candidate Bassirou Diomaye Faye was declared the winner of the election (Aljazeera 2024).  

Women in Senegal remain underrepresented in all governing bodies, with only one of the 19 presidential candidates being female (EU-EEM 2024). Following the election of President Bassirou Diomaye Faye, his government was criticized for its lack of female representation, with only four women out of 34 positions, representing just 13%—a decrease from the previous administration's 18%. This was surprising given Senegal’s historical support for gender equality (Africa Practice 2024). There is also no data provided by the EMB on how many women voted in the election (EU-EEM 2024).

EU observers noted some cases of online disinformation but argued that it did not affect the integrity of the elections. In a climate where the internet and the media were restricted, social media did provide also a positive source of voter information. Observers claimed the elections to be free and were held in a calm atmosphere (EU-EEM 2024).