DAKAR (Reuters) – Senegal’s Constitutional Council on Tuesday published an amended list of candidates for a presidential election delayed from Feb. 25 to a yet undecided date, removing just one candidate from the initial list because she withdrew her application.
The council last week overturned a bill that delayed the vote to December – a move that had plunged the West African country into unchartered constitutional territory and stoked public anger against the government.
President Macky Sall, who said the postponement was needed due to a dispute over the candidate list, later pledged he would abide with the court’s decision and hold consultations to organise the vote as quickly as possible.
The new candidate list was almost unchanged from the original list for the Feb. 25 vote apart from removing opposition contender, Rose Wardini, bringing the number of candidates down to 19 from an initial 20.
The council said Wardini had withdrawn her application without providing further detail.
Prominent opposition figures including the firebrand jailed politician Ousmane Sonko and Karim Wade, the son of former president Abdoulaye Wade, remained excluded.
(Reporting by Ngouda Dione; Writing by Sofia Christensen; Editing by David Goodman and Josie Kao)
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