Obasanjo meets with Senegal opposition

Dakar - Nigeria's former president met with Senegalese opposition leaders, including pop star and former presidential aspirant Youssou Ndour, in an effort to broker a solution to the country's political malaise ahead of a tense presidential vote. Since leaving office in 2007, Olusegun Obasanjo has become one of Africa's top negotiators and upon his arrival on Tuesday, he said that although he is technically here as an election observer he will not hesitate to try to “prevent the preventable” by helping mediate the political standoff threatening Senegal. The opposition has vowed to render the country ungovernable if 85-year-old President Abdoulaye Wade is allowed to run in Sunday's election. The elderly leader has stubbornly refused to step down and is running for a third term even though the constitution only permits two - a limit he himself introduced. Daily protests have cut business hours in half in downtown Dakar, where offices are now sending their employees home after lunch to avoid the anti-government demonstrations that have paralyzed the city every afternoon. Late Wednesday, Obasanjo sat down with Wade, said presidential spokesman Serigne Mbacke Ndiaye, who declined to give details of their discussion. The spokesman said that Wade was willing to discuss the situation with Obasanjo as long as certain principles were respected, including the fact that the election will go ahead as planned on Sunday and that Wade will be a candidate in the race.

“It is out of the question that the election will be postponed,” Ndiaye told reporters Thursday in reaction to the calls of several opposition candidates who have asked for the poll to be delayed due to the unrest. Among the people Obasanjo is meeting on Thursday is the head of the constitutional court, the legal body that has final say over election disputes. It was the court that disqualified Ndour, one of Africa's most famous musicians, from running. And it was also the court that ruled that Wade could run for a third term, on the argument that he was elected before the new constitution including term limits went into effect. Senegalese newspapers have reported that the five judges on the court, all of whom are appointed by Wade, have received new cars and their salaries were increased to $10 000 a month ahead of the crucial vote. continued