Senegal protest march over vote delay postponed

DAKAR - A protest march called on Tuesday against Senegalese President Macky Sall's controversial move to delay this month's presidential poll to December has been postponed after authorities banned it, organisers said.

Elymane Haby Kane, one of the organisers of the march, told AFP he had received an official letter from local authorities in the capital Dakar that the march was banned as it could seriously hamper traffic.

"We will postpone the march because we want to remain within the law," said Malick Diop, coordinator of a collective that called the protest.

"The march was banned. There's a problem with the route. So we will change this," he told AFP.

Sall's decision to push back the February 25 vote plunged Senegal into a crisis which has seen three dead amid clashes between protesters and police.   

The Aar Sunu Election (Let's protect our election) collective, which includes some 40 civil, religious and professional groups, had called for a rally in Dakar on Tuesday at 1500 GMT.    

The United States and the European Union have called on the government to restore the original election timetable.

Sall said he postponed the election because of a dispute between parliament and the Constitutional Council over potential candidates barred from running, and over fears of a return to unrest seen in 2021 and 2023. 

Parliament backed Sall's suspension of the election until December 15, but only after security forces stormed parliament and detained some opposition lawmakers. 

The vote paved the way for Sall -- whose second term was due to expire in April -- to remain in office until his successor is installed, probably in 2025. 

Senegal's opposition has decried the move as a "constitutional coup" and suspects it is part of a plan by the presidential camp to extend Sall's term in office, despite him reiterating that he would not stand again.