Senegal’s Dakar The National Assembly of the nation is housed in Plateau, a neighborhood in central Dakar, which was peaceful yet anxious on Monday morning. The assembly, however, was anything but within parliament.
The announcement by President Macky Sall to postpone the general elections, which were initially set for February 25, for an extra six months, sparked debate among lawmakers.
The 29-year-old Fatou Djibril Ndour is in shock over the news.
“I regret voting for Macky Sall in both the 2012 and 2019 elections,” I said. This is not good for a country,” the waitress at a restaurant in the nearby neighbourhood of Ouakam, tells Al Jazeera.
The contentious decision to postpone the vote has sparked demonstrations in the nation’s capital and raised police tensions. On Sunday, the police attacked some opposition supporters with batons and used tear gas on them.
The state police, or gendarmerie, arrived in large numbers on Monday. Several of them assisted in dispersing a smaller gathering outside parliament as dozens of them lining the streets of the city in riot gear.
The increased police presence, according to Ouakam trader Anta Sarr, 31, is slowing down business. “It’s hard for me to feed my family, and now our clients are scared to go out because of a small group of people,” he says.
Police used tear gas on demonstrators and opposition supporters who had congregated close to the National Assembly earlier in the day. Additionally, there have been claims of police intimidation and arrests.
Although the constitution guarantees the right to peaceful protest, police are breaking up demonstrations before they ever start. Reporters claim that law enforcement has stopped them from filming and threatened to seize their equipment.
