Former tax collector and left-wing advocate, Bassirou Diomaye Faye, has won Senegal’s presidential election, only 10 days after being released from jail..
This comes after the governing coalition’s candidate, former Prime Minister Amadou Ba, on Monday conceded defeat to Faye hours after saying he was ready for a run-off vote. In Senegal, a candidate requires more than 50 percent of votes to prevent a run-off.
The 44-year-old leader contested the elections as an independent candidate due to the dissolution of his Patriots of Senegal (PASTEF) party last July for causing unrest. The PASTEF party, which was founded by Sonko in 2014, endorsed Faye.
The left-wing populist has been organising protests against President Macky Sall accusing his government of corruption and failing to address chronic poverty. Sall’s decision to extend the elections originally scheduled for February triggered the latest round of political crisis.
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The elections were held after the intervention of the Constitutional Court. Faye was born in 1980 in west-central Senegal’s Ndiaganiao.