President Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal has been declared outright winner of the country's elections which took place on Sunday, the 25th of February.  President Wade received 55.86% of the votes cast; his nearest opponent, former Prime Minister Idrissa Seck received 14.93%, while 13.57% went to Mr. Ousmane Tanor Dieng, of the Socialist Party, the former governing party until 2000 when Mr. Wade won the first time.
There were 34 regional counting centers, and more than 70% of the 4.9 million registered voters cast their ballots.

The results were announced yesterday, Thursday March 1, by Cheikh Tidiane Diakhate, head of the country's electoral commission at a news conference in Dakar, the country's capital.

A candidate had to score over 50% percent of the vote to avoid a run-off.  There were anticipations prior to the elections that there might be a second round of elections.  But the Senegalese voters were apparently very satisfied with what President Wade has achieved in the last seven years to give him a second chance at governing.  In fact, the 55.86% vote he received is almost 3 percentage point higher than the vote he received in 2000 when the opposition political parties had joined together to defeat the then incumbent President Abdou Diouf.  At that election, there were eight presidential candidates, while Sunday's election had 15 candidates.  In 2000, President Wade had come from a position of having garnered little more than 30% percent of the vote to defeat Diouf in the run-off.

International observers, and especially observers from the Economic Community of West African states, ECOWAS, pronounced the elections free and fair.  However, some of the opposition party candidates have charged the elections fraudulent.

Mr. Ousmane Tanor Dieng, who finished third in the ballotting, called the elections the most corrupt the country had seen.

Responding to this attack, President Wade's campaign team member and president of the new university, Mohamed Camara, said that the opposition's complaints were not unexpected.  "Opposition is always like somebody you box with, you knock them out and the person says 'no, the referee cheated.'  The campaign was great," he said.

While the opposition might dispute the results in Senegal, however, there was no disputing the results of the elections in America.  Here, in the United States, there were 3,305 Senegalese who voted in Sunday's elections.  Of that number, 1,786 voted for President Wade, giving him 54% of vote, reflecting what happened in the country itself. The second place finisher, Mr. Idrissa Seck, scored 13%, followed by Mr. Moustapha Niasse with 12%, while Mr. Ousmane Tanor Dieng received only 10% of the vote.

In fact, these results in America are quite surprising, given the concerted and loud opposition heard leading up to the elections.  In fact, there were some callers to a radio station who had predicted that President Wade might even place third.  What's apparent is that there was a swell of goodwill and satisfaction on the part of the Diasporan Senegalese about the international stature that Wade has achieved for the country.
The peacefulness of the elections reflected a continuing display of democratic ideals which Senegal has exhibited since it won independence in 1960.

It was in recognition of these ideals that the Celebrate Africa Foundation, Africa's good governance watchdog, named Senegal the best African country for the year 2006.  Some of the reasons that Celebrate Africa Foundation cited for giving the award, included the fact that Senegal was the only country in West Africa which had never experienced a military take-over since its indepdence, in a region which is notorious for coup d'etats; that despite being more than 95% Muslim, the country is very tolerant of other minor religions, its first President the great Leopold Senghor being a Christian and who was voted for and stayed in office for 20 years until he decided to resign.

Again, both the government and private press played a major role, and continues to play a major role in ensuring that democracy works in the country, by providing access to all the presidential candidates, not just the President Wade's camapgin.  It is a lesson that other African countries should emulate.