African governments are using courts to sway elections

ELECTION MONITORS across the world will soon be packing their sunhats, “observer” vests and, if they are energetic, surfboards in preparation for Senegal’s presidential elections on February 25th. Yet for all their good intentions they will arrive too late to ensure that this election is free and fair. With the help of the courts, the incumbent party’s candidate, Amadou Ba, already has the upper hand.On January 20th the Constitutional Council, a judicial body that deals with electoral issues, disqualified several of the leading candidates who had applied to stand against Mr Ba. Among those excluded is the main leader of the opposition, Ousmane Sonko, who was barred from running because he had accused a government minister of corruption. In Senegal defamation is a crime; Mr Sonko was convicted of it last year, and this was enough to make him ineligible to stand.