AP News, February 25th, 2007
President Abdoulaye Wade sought to win a second seven-year term in office Sunday, facing off against 14 challengers as voting began in an election to decide who will lead one of Africa's most stable democracies.
Wade's opponents are promising to create jobs in a country where half the working-age citizens are unemployed. Among Wade's strongest opponents is former prime minister Idrissa Seck, who was jailed and later freed after human rights groups cried foul.
Wade, 80, is a decade older than the oldest of his 14 opponents and has been criticized for pursuing glitzy building projects that some say benefit the capital's cosmopolitan elite while doing little to ease the problem of unemployed youth.
Commonly referred to as "gorgui" _ a respectable Wolof word for "old man" _ Wade says age is not an issue.
Electoral polls are illegal in Senegal and analysts say it is difficult to predict a winner. Seck, who is in his 40s, is widely seen as the candidate of choice among youth in Senegal, where more than 40 percent of the country's 12 million citizens are under age 14. The voting age is 18.
In 2000, Wade won a landslide victory toppling the Socialist party that had ruled the former French colony for 40 years by appealing, in part, to its disenfranchised youth. He spent three decades in opposition and ran four times for president before being elected.
His slogan of "Sopi," meaning "Change," has been used against him, with posters throughout this seaside capital showing Seck alongside the words: "Vote for real change."
Seck was appointed premier in November 2002 and sacked 15 months later after being accused of embezzling millions of dollars _ charges he denies. He was jailed for seven months starting in July 2005, but then released and cleared of the charges.
Senegal, a dry, dusty and mostly Muslim nation with few natural resources, is one of a handful of African countries never to have suffered a coup. It is viewed as a model of democracy and one of the continent's most stable countries, with relatively little crime.
Still, Wade's tenure has met criticism from international rights groups for the jailing of opponents, including Seck, as well as several journalists.
Sporadic violence has marred the election campaign.
The government banned a march organized by opposition leaders last month and security forces fired tear gas into the crowd when leaders decided to go ahead anyway. Moustapha Niasse, a key opposition leader who is also running in Sunday's race, was dragged through the street by security forces.
This week, Seck's cavalcade was attacked by a rock-hurling mob chanting "Sopi," Wade's slogan. The windows of his car were broken and his assistant injured.
Wade has traveled to Sudan and sent peacekeepers there in an effort to broker peace in the troubled Darfur region, but a low-level conflict in southern Senegal's Casamance province, where separatist rebels have waged a struggle for independence since 1982, grinds on at home.
Wade has overseen an impressive 5 percent growth rate, compared with 1 percent during the 40 years of Socialist rule before he won office.
He points to job-creating initiatives such as raising crops whose oil can be used for biofuels. He says he has invested heavily in measures intended to help his country's young _ including devoting 40 percent of his budget to education and by opening skills training centers.
But half of the West African nation's working population is unemployed, causing waves of illegal migration to Europe to increase markedly this year _ perhaps the greatest stain on Wade's presidency.
About 4.9 million of Senegal's roughly 12 million people are registered to vote, said Election Commissioner Issa Sall. More than 12,000 polling stations have been set-up nationwide in what will be Senegal's first election using an electronic voting identification system based on fingerprint and retina recognition.
