BRIDGE in Ziguinchor, Senegal

13 March 2012

For the past 20 years, Senegal has been a beacon of democracy in the West Africa sub region. Although the country has a long history of well-run elections, the presidential elections scheduled to take place on February 26, 2012 will be decisive in the future stability of Senegal. Mr. Wade is currently at the end of his second term as President of the Republic of Senegal but wishes to run for a third term despite the constitutional and popular impediments.

It is within the framework of a 15-month USAID-funded electoral assistance program named “Programme Gouvernance & Paix au Sénégal – PGP”, that the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES), in close partnership with The Gorée Institute, organized this workshop. This training held from December 16th to 18th, 2011 was one of a series of six workshops given to the CENA (Senegalese electoral commission) and its local representations in Dakar, Thiès, Saint-Louis, Kaolack and Ziguinchor throughout the month of December 2011.

This training was held in the city of Ziguinchor, Senegal, in the Southern region of Casamance.

32 members of the departmental electoral commissions of Bounkiling, Bignona, Sédhiou, Oussouye and Goudomp were present. Some of the sessions facilitated during the workshop touched on:

• EMBs types & principles;

• Electoral integrity for EMBs and their auxiliaries;

• Introduction to electoral systems;

• Management of electoral conflict;

• Introduction to electoral observation;

• Voter registration;

• Boundary delimitation, standards and principles;

• In-country and out-of-country voting;

• Security around the electoral process.

Facilitators to the training were: