{"id":9428,"date":"2024-03-25T15:28:41","date_gmt":"2024-03-25T15:28:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/03\/25\/young-opposition-candidate-wins-senegals-presidential-election\/"},"modified":"2024-03-25T15:28:41","modified_gmt":"2024-03-25T15:28:41","slug":"young-opposition-candidate-wins-senegals-presidential-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/03\/25\/young-opposition-candidate-wins-senegals-presidential-election\/","title":{"rendered":"Young Opposition Candidate Wins Senegal\u2019s Presidential Election"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1050\" height=\"550\" src=\"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/03\/25\/multimedia\/25senegal-2-gvwq\/25senegal-2-gvwq-facebookJumbo.jpg?fit=1050,550&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"Young Opposition Candidate Wins Senegal\u2019s Presidential Election\" title=\"Young Opposition Candidate Wins Senegal\u2019s Presidential Election\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">With the concession of his main rival, a young political outsider backed by a powerful opposition figure has won a surprise outright victory in Senegal\u2019s presidential election only 10 days after being released from jail.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Bassirou Diomaye Faye is the anointed candidate of Senegal\u2019s popular and controversial opposition politician Ousmane Sonko. Mr. Faye\u2019s main rival, the governing party candidate Amadou Ba, conceded in a statement congratulating his rival on Monday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Faye, who celebrated his 44th birthday on Monday, will become the West African country\u2019s youngest ever president. He had been jailed on charges of defamation and contempt of court, and was awaiting trial. <\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cI wish him a lot of success, for the well-being of the Senegalese people,\u201d Mr. Ba said in the statement released Monday afternoon that addressed Mr. Faye as president.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The national electoral commission has not yet announced the tally, but Mr. Ba\u2019s concession followed reports by local media that Mr. Faye had won more than 50 percent of the vote, ruling out a runoff.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Faye and Mr. Sonko have captivated young people by excoriating political elites, pledging to renegotiate contracts with oil and gas companies, and promising \u201cmonetary sovereignty\u201d \u2014 Senegal is one of 14 countries that use the CFA, a currency pegged to the euro and backed by France.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Ba, who stepped down as prime minister in order to campaign, was backed by Senegal\u2019s president, Macky Sall. Mr. Sall had served two terms and for years refused to say whether he would try for a third. He threw the country into chaos when he suddenly called off the election, which was supposed to happen in February, and then, almost as suddenly, changed course. <\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Residents of Dakar, Senegal\u2019s coastal capital, began celebrating at 8 p.m. on Sunday, before many polling stations had even had a chance to count the contents of their ballot boxes. People danced, waved flags, and piled into cars and onto motorcycles, sounding a cacophony of horns and shouting \u201cGet out, Amadou Ba!\u201d as they raced through the streets.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">And at midnight, supporters began to sing \u201cHappy Birthday\u201d to Mr. Faye, who has gone from obscurity to winning the presidency in a few short months.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But Mr. Faye was not the only winner. Many Senegalese casting their ballots for him saw him merely as a proxy for Mr. Sonko, the fiery orator who was jailed and barred from running, and who anointed Mr. Faye in his place.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Faye is a former tax collector who was jailed on charges of defamation and contempt of court, after he accused magistrates of persecuting Mr. Sonko, who was himself convicted of defamation and, separately, of corrupting a minor, after he was accused of raping a young massage parlor employee.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Sonko has been keen to emphasize that a vote for Mr. Faye \u2014 known to many as Diomaye \u2014 was a vote for him.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cDiomaye is Sonko,\u201d read ubiquitous posters bearing the two men\u2019s youthful, glowing faces.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>With the concession of his main rival, a young political outsider backed by a powerful opposition figure has won a surprise outright victory in Senegal\u2019s presidential election only 10 days after being released from jail. Bassirou Diomaye Faye is the anointed candidate of Senegal\u2019s popular and controversial opposition politician Ousmane Sonko. Mr. Faye\u2019s main rival, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9429,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/03\/25\/multimedia\/25senegal-2-gvwq\/25senegal-2-gvwq-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2309,50,5118,212,14348,8613,1723],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9428"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9428"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9428\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9430,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9428\/revisions\/9430"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}