Voters end 40 years of Parti Socialiste rule

Senegalese voters have brought about the most significant political change in their country since independence in 1960: Abdou Diouf, leader of the Parti Socialiste (PS) that has ruled since the nation’s birth, conceded defeat in presidential polls held on Sunday.

“There was a demand for change,” El Hadj Mbodj, a member of the National Elections Observatory, told IRIN.

Diouf, candidate for the Parti Socialiste (PS), moved quickly to congratulate his opponent, Abdoulaye Wade, leader of the Parti democratique senegalais.

Nationwide provisional results should be announced by the Court of Appeal by Friday, and go on Saturday to the Constitutional Court for validation, Mbodj said. If the losing party accepts the results, the Constitutional Court will declare them three days later. Should the results be contested, the court will have up to five days (from the time the protest is filed) to announce the winner.

The new president will be sworn by 3 April at the latest.

On assuming office, Wade’s most pressing security and political task could be to end a separatist war in the Casamance, southern Senegal. The spokesman for the pro-independence Mouvement des forces democratiques de Casamance (MFDC), Alexandre Djiba, told IRIN on Monday from Banjul, Gambia, that his organisation would want to know the position of the incoming government on the ongoing preliminary talks on peace negotiations.

“We are awaiting the new government to see whether it will confirm the accords [already reached] and whether it will accept Gambia and Guinea-Bissau [as mediators],” he said.