Senegal Must Hold Election After All, Top Court Rules

The president of the West African country had postponed a coming election, but the country’s constitutional court said the vote must take place as soon as possible.

Senegal’s constitutional court ruled on Thursday that a national election that had been postponed by the president must take place as soon as possible, throwing the West African country’s political future into fresh doubt.

The court, the country’s highest, said that while it is now impossible to hold an election in 10 days’ time — the vote had initially been planned for Feb. 25 — the balloting should be held by the earliest feasible date.

Less than two weeks ago, President Macky Sall issued a decree indefinitely postponing the balloting, pending an investigation into corruption allegations in the constitutional court. Just a couple days later, the country’s Parliament decided to delay the vote by nearly 10 months, setting Dec. 15 as the date.

But the court’s ruling on Thursday declared the law passed by Parliament to be against the Constitution and ordered that Mr. Sall’s decree delaying the election be canceled.
“Neither the president of the republic nor Parliament can postpone a presidential election,” the ruling said, adding that only the court had that power. The precise date could be adjusted to make up for the campaigning days lost, it said.

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