Gambari To Lead 120-Member ECOWAS Observer Mission to Senegal’s Presidential Election.
By Caroline Ameh
Professor Ibrahim Gambari, Nigeria’s former Foreign Minister and United Nations Under-Secretary-General, has been appointed to lead a 120-member ECOWAS Election Observation Mission (EOM) to Senegal’s Presidential election rescheduled for March 24, 2024.
The mission, comprising 14 Long-Term Observers (LTOs) and 106 Short-Term Observers, will deploy experts in various fields, including constitutional and electoral laws, conflict management, and gender inclusivity.
The Short-Term Observers are drawn from ECOWAS Member States’ Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Electoral Commissions, the ECOWAS Council of the Wise, Parliament, Community Court of Justice, and regional Civil Society organizations.
The EOM, aimed at supporting and monitoring the electoral process to ensure best practices, will be backed by an ECOWAS Technical Team led by Ambassador Abdel-Fatau Musah and Mr. Serigne Ka.
The deployment of the EOM aligns with Articles 12 to 14 of the regional Supplementary Protocol on Democracy and Good Governance, as approved by Dr. Omar Alieu Touray, President of the ECOWAS Commission.
Senegal, with 7,033,854 registered voters, has a history of holding multi-party presidential elections since 1978, often without significant threats to its institutions’ stability.
Electioneering commenced on March 9, with voting scheduled from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. across 15,633 polling units in the country’s 14 regions, including the capital Dakar.
Among the 19 presidential candidates cleared by the Constitutional Council are former Prime Minister Amadou Ba, opposition leader Idrissa Seck, and entrepreneur Anta Babacar Ngom, the only female candidate.
In case no candidate secures an absolute majority, a run-off vote between the top two contenders will be held 15 days after the official declaration of the first round’s final results.
