Presidential elections were held in Senegal on 24 February 2019.[1] Incumbent president Macky Sall of the Alliance for the Republic was re-elected for a second term with 58% of the vote in the first round.
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Turnout | 66.27% | ||||||||||||||||||||
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Results by department | |||||||||||||||||||||
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The President of Senegal is elected using the two-round system; a candidate must receive over 50% of the vote to be elected in the first round. If no candidate had crossed the threshold, a second round would have been held between the top two candidates.[2]
Prior to the elections, the electoral law was amended to introduce requirements for candidates to secure signatures from at least 0.8% of the registered electorate, and for at least 2,000 signatures from seven of the 14 regions. Voters were only allowed to give a signature to one candidate.[3]
Although 87 candidates registered intent to collect signatures,[4] only around 20 applied to the Constitutional Council to participate in the election, with the requirement for signatures and the introduction of a 30 million franc bond thought to have put many potential candidates off.[5] Five candidates were approved to run in the elections; Madické Niang , Issa Sall , Macky Sall, Idrissa Seck and Ousmane Sonko.[6]
In January 2019, two opposition leaders Khalifa Sall and Karim Wade were barred from participating due to previous convictions for misuse of public funds.[6]
On 25 February 2019, Prime Minister Mahammed Dionne said that Sall had been re-elected with "a minimum of 57%" of the vote, enough to avoid a runoff election. He also said Sall had won in 13 of the country's 14 regions.[7] On 5 March 2019, the Constitutional Council confirmed the election results.
Candidate | Party | Votes | % | |
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Macky Sall | Alliance for the Republic | 2,555,426 | 58.26 | |
Idrissa Seck | Rewmi | 899,556 | 20.51 | |
Ousmane Sonko | PASTEF | 687,523 | 15.67 | |
Issa Sall | Party for Unity and Rally | 178,613 | 4.07 | |
Madické Niang | Independent | 65,021 | 1.48 | |
Total | 4,386,139 | 100.00 | ||
Valid votes | 4,386,139 | 99.04 | ||
Invalid/blank votes | 42,541 | 0.96 | ||
Total votes | 4,428,680 | 100.00 | ||
Registered voters/turnout | 6,683,043 | 66.27 | ||
Source: Constitutional Council |