Senegal has Sunday voted in parliamentary elections the opposition hopes will force a coalition with President Macky Sall and curb any ambitions he may hold for a third term.
Polling stations opened at 0800 GMT and close at 1800 GMT.
According to Media reports, about 100 people, mostly elderly, queued up to vote at a polling station located in a school in the Dakar suburb of Mbao as police kept watch.
The single-round ballot will decide the 165 seats of the single-chamber parliament — currently controlled by the president’s supporters — for the next five years.
Lawmakers are elected according to a system that combines proportional representation, with national lists for 53 lawmakers, and majority voting in the country’s departments for 97 others.
The diaspora elects the remaining 15 members of parliament.
This year, eight coalitions are in the running, including Yewwi Askan Wi (meaning “Liberate the People” in Wolof), the main opposition coalition.
Sixty-year-old Sall, who was elected in 2012 for seven years and then re-elected in 2019 for another five, has been accused of wanting to break the two-term limit and run again in 2024.
He has remained vague on the subject, but any defeat of his supporters in the vote could upset such plans.
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