Senegal - 2022 Election
Senegal is a republic dominated by a strong executive branch. In 2019, voters re-elected Macky Sall as president for a second term of five years in elections local and international observers considered generally free and fair. Observers judged the July 2022 legislative elections to be also generally free and fair. Protests erupted June 17 after the Constitutional Council upheld the electoral commission rejection of the political opposition’s national candidate list for the July 2022 legislative elections, resulting in four deaths, two attributed to police by some nongovernmental organizations. Police arrested 130 protesters.
Significant human rights issues included credible reports of: unlawful or arbitrary killings; torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment by or on behalf of the government; harsh and life-threatening prison conditions; arbitrary arrest or detention; political prisoners or detainees; serious problems with the independence of the judiciary; serious government corruption; lack of investigation of and accountability for gender-based violence, including domestic and intimate partner violence, child, early, and forced marriage, and female genital mutilation/cutting; trafficking in persons; crimes involving violence or threats of violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or intersex persons; and enforcement of laws criminalizing consensual same-sex sexual conduct between adults.
Most defendants awaiting trial were held in detention. The law states an accused person may not be held in pretrial detention for more than six months for minor crimes; however, authorities routinely held persons in custody until a court ordered their release. Felony detainees may be held indefinitely. Judicial backlogs and absenteeism of judges resulted in an average delay of two years between the filing of charges and the beginning of a trial. In cases involving murder charges, threats to state security, and embezzlement of public funds, there were no limits on the length of pretrial detention. In many cases pretrial detainees were held longer than the length of sentence later imposed.
The National Anticorruption Commission in 2021 concluded that bribery, misappropriation, abuse of authority, and fraud remained widespread within government institutions, particularly in the transport, health, and education ministries, and the postal services. Reports of corruption ranged from rent seeking by bureaucrats involved in public approvals, particularly in extractive industries, to opaque public procurement, to corruption in the judiciary and police. In 2021, two members of the National Assembly facilitated fictitious marriages in order to issue diplomatic passports for paying clients; following arrest and trial, on May 19 they were sentenced to two years in prison.
In the 31 July 2022 legislative elections, voters chose among eight coalitions of political parties competing for 165 seats in the National Assembly. With independent candidates winning three seats, neither the ruling party nor the opposition won an absolute majority, and the ruling party lost control of the assembly for the first time in recent history. Observers judged these elections to be generally free and fair.
No laws limit the participation of women or members of minority groups in the political process, and they did participate. The law requires candidate lists of political parties contain equal numbers of men and women for elected positions at all levels, from city councils to the National Assembly. While the number of women in elected positions increased, the law has not significantly expanded their role in exercising political authority since it does not apply to party leadership positions or to other important decision-making bodies, such as the cabinet and the judiciary. Some observers believed traditional and cultural factors prevented women from participating in the political process to the same extent as men. Women elected to office often faced additional pressure to maintain traditional subservient gender roles, making it difficult to confront male leadership and domination within the political sphere.
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