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Critical NGO Will Not Monitor Poll: Senegalese Presidency
Tuesday, 04 October 2011 22:31
(AFP) – Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade's office said Tuesday it does not want to grant a leading rights
watchdog observer status in the 2012 presidential poll as it was biased against the 85-year-old head of state.The African Encounter for the Defence of Human Rights (Raddho), which has opposed Wade's controversial proposed bid for a third term, has been "waging a fight against the government on the one hand and on the other says 'I want to be an observer,'" said Serigne Mbacke Ndiaye, a spokesman for the presidency.
"It is out of the question that Raddho becomes an observer."
Raddho and its head Alioune Tine have consistently denounced Wade's bid to contest next year's poll. Tine has said "a third term would be dangerous" for Senegal and gave Wade until the end of October to step down "or else...".
Wade, a veteran opposition leader, was elected for a first seven-year term in 2000 and reelected for five years in 2007, after a constitutional amendment reduced the mandate by two years and imposed a limit of two terms.
He has since said he will seek another term, his supporters arguing that the two-term limit only came into play after the change in the law.
Tine is also spokesman of the Movement of June 23 (M23), a grouping of some 60 political parties and non-governmental organisations which are against a new mandate for Wade on the ground that it is unconstitutional.
A defiant Tine told AFP: "Neither the presidency, nor anybody can tell us that we don't have the right to monitor elections as political parties and civil society groups observe elections.
"We have a president who violates the constitution ... We have started to monitor the elections by telling (Wade) you don't have the right to contest," he said.
Raddho has been observing elections in Senegal and elsewhere in Africa since 1993.
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