President Macky Sall has announced that Senegal’s election will hold on March 24, after the constitutional court declared the April 2 date “unconstitutional.”

Mr Sall also replaced Prime Minister Amadou Ba with Interior Minister Sidiki Kaba, leaving Mr Ba, who is the ruling coalition’s presidential candidate, to focus on his electoral campaign.

“The President of the Republic informed the Council of Ministers that the date of the presidential election had been set for Sunday 24 March,” the council of ministers said in a statement on Wednesday.

 This followed Senegal’s apex court verdict nullifying Mr Sall’s first announcement that election would hold on June 2, after leaving office on April 2. 

Senegal’s election date reschedule comes as another episode since Mr Sall on February 3 unilaterally postponed the presidential election scheduled for February 25. 

With this latest development, Senegalese will go to the polls on March 24, before Mr Sall leaves office on April 2.

Mr Sall, 62, who assumed power in 2012, already set precedence as the president who got Senegal’s election calendar disrupted with his “unlawful” election postponement. 

 Since 1960, Senegal, a bastion of democracy among neighbouring countries notorious for coup d’états and military takeovers, has enjoyed stable democracy.