Senegal ruling coalition wins big parliamentary majority

Senegal’s ruling party has won a large parliamentary majority, according to official provisional results, following an election last Sunday that opposition leaders say was tainted by fraud.

President Macky Sall’s ruling coalition took 125 seats in the 165-seat National Assembly after winning nearly 50 percent of the vote, according to the results announced on national television late on Friday.

The coalition of 91-year-old former president Abdoulaye Wade, whom Sall defeated in a 2012 presidential election that cemented Senegal’s reputation as one of West Africa’s most stable democracies, won 19 seats. A coalition led by jailed Dakar mayor Khalifa Sall won seven seats.

Last Sunday’s vote was marred by delays in issuing biometric identity cards that prevented hundreds of voters from casting their ballots, part of what opposition leaders said was an intensifying clampdown on political opposition.

REUTERS