SENEGAL PROTESTERS DEMAND FRESH ELECTION WITHIN A MONTH
DAKAR - Hundreds of protesters in the Senegalese capital Dakar have called for elections to be held before the end of President Macky Sall's term on April 2.
Sall sparked huge protests when he postponed last month's elections and failed to announce a new date.
On Saturday, protesters from opposition parties and campaigning groups called the president a dictator and demanded the release from prison of opposition leader Ousmane Sonko.
Delegates taking part in political crisis talks last week, which were organised by the president but boycotted by the opposition, recommended holding elections in June.
In Chad, interim President Mahamat Idriss Deby said he plans to run in this year's long-awaited presidential race.
Deby's confirmation on Saturday came at the end of a chaotic week in which opposition politician Yaya Dillo was shot and killed in the
capital N'Djamena.
Dillo's death on Wednesday in disputed circumstances has further exposed divisions in the ruling elite at a politically sensitive time as the country prepares for the promised return to democratic rule via the ballot box.
The Chadian government has said Dillo was killed in an exchange of gunfire with security forces and has accused members of his party
of also attacking the internal security agency.
On Friday, the government confirmed that Deby's uncle, General Saleh Deby Itno, had been arrested in the wake of Wednesday's events.
Itno had recently defected to Dillo's opposition Socialist Party Without Borders (PSF).
"He has now been charged by the public prosecutor and his life is in no danger," government spokesperson Abderaman Koulamallah said, without specifying what charges Itno faces.
Chadian rebel group the Front for Change and Concord in Chad and the CNRD opposition party have described Dillo's death as an assassination.