Senegal proves the doomsayers wrong

Little more than a month ago Senegal was in the midst of a constitutional crisis. , the outgoing president, had tried to delay elections by ten months. His most popular rival was behind bars and disqualified from running. Security forces were beating and arresting protesters. Many feared that a country widely seen as a bulwark of stability in a region once again beset by and overstaying presidents might be the next domino to fall.Yet the doomsayers were proved wrong. On March 24th voters turned out in unusually large numbers to give their verdict on Mr Sall’s 12 chequered years in office. In polls that passed almost entirely without incident, they delivered a comfortable majority to Bassirou Diomaye Faye, an anti-corruption crusader who was freed from prison less than two weeks before the vote as part of a last-minute amnesty deal.