EU Election Observation Mission, Republic of Senegal, presidential election 24 March 2024: Final Report

The mission's 93-page final report, presented in Dakar on 31 May 2024, records Bassirou Diomaye Diakhar Faye's first-round win with 54.28 per cent against Amadou Ba's 35.79 per cent on 61.30 per cent turnout, and dates the interruption of the electoral process from 3 February to 6 March 2024. It finds the mobile internet suspensions of 5 and 6 February and of 13 February had no legal basis, were disproportionate and were contrary to the Constitution and to international standards, and states that the Supreme Court said as much in two orders on appeals brought by a telephone operator (no. 2 of 22 February 2024 and no. 7 of 14 March 2024). It documents the replacement of the entire membership of the electoral supervision commission on 3 November 2023, four days after it asked the electoral administration to give effect to a court decision on Ousmane Sonko's registration; the withdrawal and extra-legal restoration of the Walfadjri broadcasting licence; a sponsorship check whose order of verification it calls a serious breach of equality between candidates; the collective of 41 rejected aspirants who alleged manipulation of the checking software; fake polls and out-of-context video on social media whose limited scale did not damage the integrity of the poll; and the unmet legal obligation to publish results polling station by polling station. It reports that the protests that followed the postponement occasioned four deaths in circumstances the mission says remain to be clarified. It makes 22 recommendations, eight of them priority.