Senegal - 2024 Election

Senegal is a republic dominated by a strong executive branch. In 2019, voters re-elected Macky Sall as president for a second term of five years in elections local and international observers considered generally free and fair. Observers judged the July 2022 legislative elections to be also generally free and fair.

Significant human rights issues included credible reports of: unlawful or arbitrary killings; torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment by or on behalf of the government; harsh and life-threatening prison conditions; arbitrary arrest or detention; political prisoners or detainees; serious problems with the independence of the judiciary; serious government corruption; lack of investigation of and accountability for gender-based violence, including domestic and intimate partner violence, child, early, and forced marriage, and female genital mutilation/cutting; trafficking in persons; crimes involving violence or threats of violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or intersex persons; and enforcement of laws criminalizing consensual same-sex sexual conduct between adults.

Human rights organizations noted examples of physical abuse committed by authorities, including excessive use of force as well as cruel and degrading treatment in prisons and detention facilities. They highlighted strip search and interrogation methods. Police reportedly forced detainees to sleep on bare floors, directed bright lights at them, beat them with batons, and kept them in cells with minimal access to fresh air. Investigations often were unduly prolonged and rarely resulted in charges or indictments. Prison overcrowding was endemic. For example, Dakar’s main prison facility, Rebeuss, held more than twice the number of inmates for which it was designed. The NGO World Prison Brief reported the country held 12,430 detainees in facilities with a capacity of 7,350 persons.

Unless a crime is “flagrant” (just committed or discovered shortly after being committed), police must obtain a warrant from a court to arrest or detain a suspect. Police treat most cases as “flagrant” offenses and make arrests without warrants, invoking pretrial detention powers.

Journalists occasionally practiced self-censorship, particularly in government-controlled media. Independent journalists regularly criticized the government without reprisal. Radio was the most important medium of mass information and source of news. Although an administrative law regulates radio frequency assignments, community radio operators claimed a lack of transparency in the process.

Although the government continued to influence locally televised information and opinion through Radio Television Senegal (RTS), privately owned television channels broadcast independently. By law the government holds a majority interest in RTS, and the president directly or indirectly controlled selection of all members of the RTS executive staff. Beyond RTS, members of President Sall’s ruling party, appointed by the president, controlled all other public media outlets; reporting by these outlets often carried a progovernment bias.

In 2019, President Macky Sall secured re-election, winning 58 percent of the votes. Election observers agreed the election was generally free and fair, despite isolated cases of voters being unable to vote. President Macky Sall -- in power since 2012 -- has not clarified his intentions but rejects claims it would be unconstitutional for him to run again.

More than 100 political and civil society groups in Senegal on 16 April 2023 formed the F24 Movement of Vital Forces, a coalition to oppose a third term for President Macky Sall. Ten months ahead of presidential elections, the coalition in a declaration called on Sall to respect the constitution and refrain from running for an "illegal and illegitimate" third term. Tensions had been running high through the country since March 2023, with protests bringing the capital Dakar to a virtual standstill.

The president's main political opponent, Ousmane Sonko, was among several opposition leaders to attend the launch of the coalition. The declaration called for the release of "political detainees" arrested during demonstrations over a defamation case against Sonko brought by Tourism Minister Mame Mbaye Niang, a member of Sall's party. Sonko was handed a two-month suspended sentence in the court case at the end of March after a trial his lawyers said would not rule him out of the 2024 presidential election. An appeal was lodged against the ruling and Sonko is due to be judged on appeal on Monday. Sonko's fate is also wrapped up in another case in which he is accused of rape, which he contests. He and his supporters accuse the government of using the justice system to try to prevent him from running in next year's ballot. The presidential party accuses Sonko of seeking to paralyse the country and of drumming up anger on the streets in a bid to escape justice.

President Macky Sall’s decision 03 July 2023 not to seek a third term as Senegal’s head of state has thrown open the country’s presidential election, ending widespread speculation over his political future. “Even if I have the right, I felt that my duty is not to contribute to destroying what I have built for this country,” the president said as he ruled out running for a third term – to the dismay of his most ardent supporters. The 61-year-old leader had previously remained coy about his ambitions, stoking tensions over whether he would use a constitutional revision to bypass the country’s two-term limit.

Sall’s momentous decision bucked the continent’s trend of entrenched strongmen leaders using constitutional changes as an excuse to reset their mandate and extend their hold on power. It was praised by neighbouring leaders, the African Union and former colonial power France, whose foreign ministry hailed it as “proof” of the solidity of Senegalese democracy. The president's surprise move comes 11 years after he defeated his predecessor and former mentor Abdoulaye Wade, whose own decision to seek a controversial third term in office had sparked violent street protests.

Senegalese opposition figure Ousmane Sonko on 31 July 2023 was charged with fomenting insurrection, three days after being arrested at his home. Sonko, a fierce critic of President Macky Sall, "was charged and placed in custody" after appearing before a judge, lawyer Ousseynou Ngom told AFP. Sonko explained, "In the face of so much hate, lies, oppression, persecution, I have decided to resist," of his decision to go on hunger strike and urged "all political detainees" to join him. Senegal's public prosecutor announced seven new charges against the politician – who has faced a string of legal woes he claims are aimed at keeping him out of politics. Sonko was sentenced to two years in prison on June 1 in a high-profile moral corruption case. The sentence, which could bar him from the 2024 presidential election, sparked clashes that left at least 16 dead.