Senegal leader endorses five-year president term

DAKAR, Monday
Senegal’s President Macky Sall has finally endorsed the five-year presidential mandate as enshrined in the amended 2007 constitution during the regime of his immediate predecessor.

After several delays in reducing the presidential mandate from seven to five years, Ex-President Abdoulaye Wade spearheaded the reduction but again attempted to rescind on the decision. 

That attempt culminated in a massive nationwide mobilization by opposition political parties and the civil society organizations which caused a protracted break down in law and order. 

Coincidentally, the issue erupted at the threshold of the 2012 presidential polls culminating in the death of nearly a dozen people. 

“I will not allow this (bloodbath) to happen during my regime and that is why I am contemplating on declaring the presidential mandate reduced and pegged to five years,” President Sall said Saturday.  

Media reports on Monday quoted the president as officially endorsing the presidential mandate, during a seven hour-long meeting on Saturday at the presidential palace in Dakar. 

Analysts told the Nation that President Sall’s declaration at his party’s steering committee meeting means there will be no national referendum on the presidential mandate again. 

In July, following the ruling Alliance Pour le Republic (APR’s) defeat in the local elections, the APR lost the influential woman premier as well as the information minister because they were defeated in their constituencies. 

It was at that juncture that the presidential mandate came to the fore as observers began doubting President Sall’s re-election in 2017. 

This apparently spurred President Sall (left) to hint about an imminent national referendum on the presidential term.