Senegal is going to the polls, with incumbent President Abdoulaye Wade's bid for a third term having sparked deadly protests in one of Africa's most stable countries.

Around 5.3 million people are registered to vote. Voting began at 8am local time on Sunday and will run until 6pm.
The election takes place amid appeals for calm by Thomas Boni Yayi, African Union president, and for "peaceful and transparent" elections by Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, who also said he was "concerned".

However, Wade's third term bid is proving a test of Senegal's democratic credentials, prompting international concern after weeks of protests.

Wade, 85, is facing 13 opposition candidates including three former prime ministers Idrissa Seck, Macky Sall, Moustapha Niasse and socialist leader Ousmane Tanor Dieng.

None has emerged as a front-runner against Wade.

Contested candidacy

Despite having served two terms in office, a limit he himself introduced, Wade says 2008 constitutional changes extending term lengths to seven years allow him to serve two more mandates.

The second oldest African leader after Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe, 88, Wade says he needs more time in office to finish his "grand projects".

The voting started following a proposal by Africa's top envoy suggesting Wade retire in two years if he is re-elected, seeking to ease tensions on the eve of the nation's contentious polls.

Responding to Obasanjo's proposals on Saturday night, Amsatou Sow Sidibe, one of two female candidates contesting these elections, said that her party supported former Nigerian president's ambition for peace, but the situation was irrevocably more complex than that.

"There are a range of reforms needed in this country but how can you wait until the eve of an election to come and make proposals that suggest that if Wade wins the election he could stay for two years? I think that is totally illegal. We totally disagree with Obasanjo's proposals".

Sidibe said that delaying the election was out of the question and it was precisely repeated election postponements that led to the standoff in Cote d'Ivoire.

"In Africa, when ever you delay an election, you are asking for trouble," she said.

In another development on Saturday, the June 23 Movement, an alliance of opposition parties and activists, called for a presidential election to be organized within six to nine months, one in which Wade does not take part.

Wade is a political survivor who was in the opposition for 25 years before unseating the Socialist Party in 2000, and has remained defiant in the face of the storm of criticism at home and abroad.

He has dismissed opposition protests as "temper tantrums" and heaped derision on calls from France and the US that he retire.

He would not be dictated to by "Toubabs", he said, using the Wolof term for Westerners.

Despite its stability, Senegal a nation of 13 million whose main earners are fishing, tourism and groundnut production has a large proportion of people living below the poverty threshold.

Those who support Wade point to considerable infrastructure development under his rule.

However, his opponents argue that his focus on grand legacy projects has left him out of touch with the concerns of the average Senegalese.

PHOTO CAPTION

Electoral cards in Touba, central Senegal, on February 23.

Al-Jazeera