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Senegalese parliamentary election, 2007


Parliamentary elections were held in Senegal on 3 June 2007. They had originally been planned to be held together with the presidential election on 25 February 2007, but were postponed. Fourteen parties or coalitions participated in the elections, but they were marked by a major opposition boycott. The ruling Sopi Coalition won 131 seats, including all 90 of the seats elected by majority voting.

In late March, the National Assembly passed a law requiring gender parity in national candidate lists; this move was backed by Wade. However, in early April it was reported that, due to an appeal against the law filed by the Socialist Party, the application of the law was suspended and it was not in effect for the June election.

According to an electoral commission official in May, over 4,000 candidates were standing for the 150 National Assembly seats. Previously the Assembly was composed of 120 seats. 90 of the seats in the new Assembly were to be decided through majority votes and 60 were to be decided through proportional representation. Campaigning for the election began on 13 May and ran until midnight on 1 June. Members of the security forces voted a week early, on May 26 and May 27. Participation among the security forces was placed at 27.23%, and the boycotting parties (grouped into a coalition called the Siggil Sénégal Front) said that this indicated that the security forces observed the boycott.

On 2 April, twelve opposition parties, including the former ruling Socialist Party and the Rewmi party of Idrissa Seck, who placed second in the presidential election, announced they would boycott the election, alleging that the electoral roll was doctored. They wanted the electoral roll to be revised and for a new, independent electoral commission to be created. They had demanded that the Interior Minister, Ousmane Ngom, be dismissed; they also said that the constituencies were drawn to the advantage of the Democratic Party of President Abdoulaye Wade, and demanded that they be redrawn. Wade refused to talk to them and said that they could boycott if they wished. On 5 April, it was announced that the coalition And Defarat Sénégal, including And-Jëf/African Party for Democracy and Socialism (AJ-PADS), would contest the election, with a spokesman saying that boycotts were not politically effective. On 6 April, several of the main parties participating in the boycott announced that they were withdrawing their guarantees of 15 million CFA francs in order to invalidate their candidacies, citing the unwillingness of Wade to engage in dialogue. Prior to the deadline at midnight on the same day, 15 parties or coalitions filed candidate lists with the Interior Ministry, which had three days to determine the validity of the lists. Interior Minister Ngom pointed to the participation of 15 lists as evidence for the health of Senegalese democracy; others, however, have considered the situation to be a serious setback for democracy. 14 of the lists were approved and one, an independent list, was rejected.


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