Sarah to Senegal

Nungiy xaar

          Nungiy xaar. We’re waiting. The Presidential election was held on Sunday, with a total of 14 candidates running, including current President Abdoulaye Wade, who’s candidature has been highly contested (see my previous post about politics). Amazingly, voting was carried out peacefully throughout the day, and aside from booing of President Wade as he voted in his neighborhood of Dakar, I didn’t hear of anything negative happening. Monday morning though, I heard the results - no outright winner (you need 51% of the vote to win here).

          President Wade came in with 28.4% of the vote, followed by Macky Sall (a former minister in Wade’s government) with 25.5%. This means that the two of them will move on to a run-off election, scheduled to be held on March 17th, where the Presidency will officially be decided.

          What that means in the meantime though, is that students will stay at home, and classes will not happen. Which means I wait. And wait some more. And gosh it’s a good thing I’ve gotten so good at sitting and doing nothing, because that’s definitely not going to change anytime soon!

          Check out Al Jazeera for informative articles about the elections/political world here in Senegal!