After much delay occasioned by the postponement of the presidential election by President Macky Sall, Senegalese in their millions will elect their leader on Sunday.

Voting commenced earlier on Sunday after weeks of delay that triggered widespread protests in Senegal. The casting of votes will end by 18:00GMT.

In the hotly contested election featuring 17 parties, a candidate must win over 50 per cent of the vote to secure a first-round win.

Mr Sall’s anointed candidate, Prime Minister Amadou Ba of the ruling Benno Bokk Yaakaar coalition, and Bassirou Diomaye Faye, who is backed by disqualified popular opposition figure Ousmane Sonko, are regarded as favourites in the election.

Sixty-two-year-old Mr Ba, also Senegal’s minister of economy and finance from 2013 to 2019, is running on the ruling party’s advantage.

On the other hand, Mr Faye, 43, a former tax administrator detained since April 2023 but released last week, is running as an outlier and a disruptor with the support of Mr Sonko.

Both candidates expressed confidence in winning the first round after casting their votes in Dakar on Sunday morning.

Other candidates in the Sunday election are Khalifa Sall, Idrissa Seck, Mahammed Boun, Abdallah Dionne, and Anta Babacar Ngom.

The European Union Election Observation Mission said the election process has been calm.

“Election offices are functioning well. It’s calm; there is serenity in the process, according to our observations,” Malin Bjork, an EU election observer mission member to Senegal, told Al Jazeera in Dakar on Sunday.

Senegal is one of Africa’s most stable democracies. Though surrounded by neighbouring countries with a history of military coups d’état, it has maintained democratic change of power since 1960.