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Envoy mediates in Senegal

February 23, 2012

The African Union has sent an envoy to help resolve the ongoing political dispute over Senegal's upcoming presidential election. Both the EU and US have criticized the government's ban on demonstrations.

https://p.dw.com/p/147vN
A small group of anti-government protesters carries a banner reading 'The Senegalese Revolution said to liberate the people,' as police allowed them to hold a brief, peaceful march on a main boulevard in central Dakar, Senegal Monday, Feb. 20, 2012. Senegal is less than a week away from a crucial presidential poll and unrest is growing, after days of clashes between anti-government supporters and the police. Protests over the weekend spread from the capital's downtown core to a dozen neighborhoods and to the interior. (Foto:Rebecca Blackwell/AP/dapd).
Image: AP

Africa's top envoy met with opposition candidates in Senegal on Wednesday in a bid to defuse political tensions over President Abdoulaye Wade's decision to seek a third term in office, with the EU and US calling on the government to end a ban on demonstrations.

Former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, who is leading the African Union observer mission to mediate between the parties, said that Senegal "is a very beautiful country and nothing should be done to destroy it."

Senegal has experienced violent clashes over the past week between police and protesters in which six people have died. The protesters oppose Wade's presidential bid, which they say violates the country's two-term constitutional limit.

But the 85-year-old Wade claims that since the constitutional limit was passed after he had already assumed office in 2000, it does not apply to his first term, thereby allowing him to run a third time. The president has dimissed the opposition as a "light breeze which rustles the leaves of a tree, but never becomes a hurricane." Wade will face 13 opposition candidates in Sunday's presidential election.

Ban on demonstrations

The government has imposed a ban on demonstrations in downtown Dakar, the nation's capital. Interior Minister Ousman Ngom has defended the ban, saying it covers a sensitive area made up of state institutions, diplomatic buildings, banks and hospitals. Ngom called on the opposition to gather in another suburb instead.

The opposition June 23 Movement is demanding the right to protest in Independence Square, which is located blocks away from the presidential palace.

US State Department spokesman Mark Toner said that Washington condemned "the use of any violence or the threat of violence," calling on Senegal's government and security forces to "show restraint and honor the Senegalese people's freedoms to peaceful assembly and peaceful expression."

The European Union called on Wade's government to lift the ban on demonstrations.

"The EU considers that the ban on demonstrations is unnecessary and unhelpful, and it urges the authorities to lift it," said Sebastien Brabant, a spokesman for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton.

slk /pfd (AP, AFP)