Dakar

An African Spring in Senegal?

For more than a year, opposition supporters in some of sub-Saharan Africa's more repressive countries have hoped that the wave of pro-democracy protests will spread south from Egypt, Libya and Tunisia.

By and large, the wait has been in vain. There is some irony in that the latest candidate mooted for "people power" is Senegal, one of the few African countries with a genuine democratic tradition in the post-independence era.

Senegal has strong institutions, and is the only country in west Africa never to have suffered a military coup.

The current president, Abdoulaye Wade, first come to power in 2000 when he defeated the incumbent in one of the most exciting and transparent African elections of the post-independence era.

But now, to the fury of many, Senegal's constitutional court has ruled that Wade will be allowed to run for a third term in presidential elections due at the end of this month.