DAKAR: Senegalese’s ruling party has claimed a comfortable victory in Sunday’s legislative elections with nearly all ballots counted.
The win comes just a few months after President Bassirou Diomaye Faye secured the presidential election, and now clears his way to carry out an ambitious reform agenda.
Local media reported that Diomaye Faye’s PASTEF party had emerged as the winner in most of the first polling stations giving their provisional results.
“I pay homage to the Senegalese people for the large victory that it has given to PASTEF,” government spokesman Amadou Moustapha Ndieck Sarre told TFM television.
Even as vote counting was still going on, Senegal’s two main opposition parties conceded.
“I would like to congratulate PASTEF, the winner of the election,” said Barthelemy Dias, who is head of one of the opposition coalitions, SAMM Sa Kaddu.
Former President Macky Sall, who leads an opposition grouping from abroad called Takku Wallu Senegal, claimed the vote was marred by “massive fraud organized by PASTEF.” Sall did not provide further details on the alleged fraud.
New president’s path to reform
The 44-year-old Faye pledged change at his inauguration in April, but had found it difficult to deliver while his PASTEF party did not hold a majority in the country’s parliament, with less than a third of the seats.
