Current President Faye’s ruling party stands a good chance of securing a majority in the upcoming parliamentary elections, on November 17.

Reasons for holding extraordinary parliamentary elections

He justified his move on the grounds that, as a President without a majority in Parliament, he was unable to implement the reforms he had promised in his campaign. These include the renegotiation of contracts with oil and gas companies and fishing permits for foreign companies in Senegal’s territorial waters, and measures to improve living standards and combat widespread corruption in a country with the highest inflation rate in West Africa and from which thousands of people, especially the young, leave every year in search of a better life elsewhere.

More than 60 percent of Senegalese are under 25 years of age, and of these, most are not in permanent employment. As a result, the country has become a major source of illegal migration to Europe, with many travelling in fishing boats, risking their lives in a journey to the Canary Islands, the main transit point. Last year over 32,000 people, mostly Senegalese, traveled via the Canary Islands.

Speaking in Parliament, the President stated that he had “concluded that the pledge of a frank collaboration with the parliamentary majority in order to carry out economic reforms in the interests of the Senegalese people was an illusion.” In a televised address he appealed to the people to give his party a mandate to carry out a “systemic transformation” of Senegalese society by choosing representatives who would support the implementation of his program of institutional and economic transformation, as he had promised in his electoral program.

Tension before the elections

The main obstacle to the implementation of these reforms was the opposition in the National Assembly, with 106 out of 165 MPs remaining loyal to his predecessor, Macky Sall. The National Assembly has passed a vote of no confidence in Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko, refused to hold mandatory budget debates and opposed the abolition of several bureaucratic bodies, such as the Supreme Council for Local Governments and the Economic Social and Environmental Council, which the current........

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