2019 Senegalese presidential election

The President of Senegal is elected using the two-round system; a candidate must receive over 50% of the vote to be elected in the first round. If no candidate had crossed the threshold, a second round would have been held between the top two candidates.^[2]

Prior to the elections, the electoral law was amended to introduce requirements for candidates to secure signatures from at least 0.8% of the registered electorate, and for at least 2,000 signatures from seven of the 14 regions. Voters were only allowed to give a signature to one candidate.^[3]

Although 87 candidates registered intent to collect signatures,^[4] only around 20 applied to the Constitutional Council to participate in the election, with the requirement for signatures and the introduction of a 30 million franc bond thought to have put many potential candidates off.^[5] Five candidates were approved to run in the elections; Madické Niang [fr], Issa Sall [fr], Macky Sall, Idrissa Seck and Ousmane Sonko.^[6]

In January 2019, two opposition leaders Khalifa Sall and Karim Wade were barred from participating due to previous convictions for misuse of public funds.^[6]

On 25 February 2019, Prime Minister Mahammed Dionne said that Sall had been re-elected with "a minimum of 57%" of the vote, enough to avoid a runoff election. He also said Sall had won in 13 of the country's 14 regions.^[7] On 5 March 2019, the Constitutional Council confirmed the election results.