Senegal in 2007Article Free Pass
|Area:||197,021 sq km (77,071 sq mi)|
|Population||(2007 est.): 12,522,000|
|Chief of state:||President Abdoulaye Wade, assisted by Prime Ministers Macky Sall and, from June 19, Cheikh Hadjibou Soumaré|
One of the major stories in Senegal in 2007 was the death in January of 78-year-old Augustin Diamacoune Senghor, the leader of the separatist Movement of Democratic Forces of Casamance (MFDC). Although most members of the MFDC had accepted the 2004 peace accord signed by Senghor, some dissident factions remained active in the southern region, causing a new wave of refugees to flee into neighbouring Guinea-Bissau. Improved security around the beach resorts of Cap Skirring resulted, however, in a modest increase in tourism.
In the February 25 presidential election, Abdoulaye Wade won his second term in office, trouncing 14 other candidates and taking 56% of the vote; his nearest rival, former prime minister Idrissa Seck, captured 15%. The voter turnout was 70%. Despite protests by opposition parties, the Constitutional Council certified the vote on March 11. In the June 3 legislative elections, the leading opposition parties boycotted the vote, which gave President Wade’s coalition an easy victory; it took 131 of the 150 seats in the National Assembly. As a result of the boycott, only 35% of the electorate voted. On June 19 President Wade named Cheikh Hadjibou Soumaré prime minister; he replaced Macky Sall, who resigned to become president of the National Assembly.
The government threatened to withdraw its 500 men from the African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur after 5 of them were killed in April. On August 10, however, after a series of meetings with AU and UN authorities, the government committed Senegal to tripling the size of its contingent.
Over the weekend of June 9–10, renowned Senegalese novelist and filmmaker Ousmane Sembène died at the age of 84. He was a cofounder of the Pan-African film and television festival that was held biennially in Burkina Faso.
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