
European Union observers on Tuesday questioned why Senegal’s government has not made public partial results from a contentious presidential election, saying that in the Internet age there was no reason for the delay. In the election on Sunday, President Abdoulaye Wade, 85, ran against a field of 13 opposition candidates. Mr. Wade refused calls to step down and decided to seek a third term, despite a two-term limit in Senegal’s Constitution. On Monday, Mr. Wade announced at a news conference that he was leading with 32 percent of the votes counted at that point, but opposition leaders insisted that the election commission, not the president, should make public the results. The leader of the European delegation, Cristian Dan Preda, said, “The administration would gain a lot of transparency if it started publishing in real time the information that it has at its disposal. In the Internet era it’s inconceivable that the Senegalese will need to wait until Friday to know the official results.”
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