Election campaign begins

Campaigning for Senegal's presidential elections on 27 February got off to a calm start on Sunday, news reports said. The strongest of the seven candidates challenging the incumbent, Abdou Diouf, who has ruled Senegal since January 1981, is Abdoulaye Wade, a five-time presidential challenger. Wade heads a six-party opposition bloc known as Coalition pour l'Alternance 2000 (CA-2000) that includes his Parti democratique senegalais. Opening his campaign in Mbake, a town 170 km east of Dakar, he reiterated an opposition demand for the scrapping of Israeli-printed ballots which, opposition parties say, were produced with the intent of cheating in the voting. CA-2000 proposed on Saturday a three-day boycott of television time allocated to all candidates. However, another alliance of 20 parties known as the Front pour la regularite et la transparence des elections (FRTE) had taken no decision on this proposal by early Monday. Diouf, who is on the ticket of the Parti socialiste, will also face his one-time information and interior minister, Djibo Ka, backed by the Union pour le Renouveau democratique. Other contenders include Moustapha Niasse, head of the Alliance des Forces de Progres, and former education minister Iba Der Thiam, head of the CDP/Garab-Gui party.