Deputies in Senegal’s parliament passed a vote Saturday that effectively restored the right of two key opposition deputies to run in the country’s presidential election, due in seven months’ time.
The vote cleared any person convicted but then either pardoned or amnestied to run for office, clearing the way for Khalifa Sall and Karim Wade, who would otherwise have been ineligible. The proposal was passed by 124 votes to one.
Sall, a former mayor of Dakar, and Wade, son of former president Abdoulaye Wade, have been considered for the presidential vote, due in February 2024.
They were prevented from running in the last presidential election, in 2019, because of separate convictions on financial issues.
The 2019 victor Macky Sall, who is completing his second term in office, is ineligible to run.
Saturday’s parliamentary vote may help ease the tension that has gripped the country in recent months, as opposition figures complain of moves against them ahead of next year’s vote.
