When President Macky Sall announced in a televised address Monday that he would not seek a third term, democracy advocates and opposition supporters in the country celebrated.

Senegal’s 61-year-old president said the country “is bigger than” he is and is “full of leaders equally capable of pushing the country toward emergence.”

Sall’s supporters, like Saidibou Sy, a Dakar resident, said the president made the right call. “If he [Sall] had decided to serve a third term, it would have been complicated for the country,” he told Reuters.

Violent protests rocked the West African nation for weeks following speculation that the president would seek a third term. Until Monday, Sall refused to confirm or deny whether he intended to seek reelection.

Mucahid Durmaz, a senior analyst at Verisk Maplecroft, a London global risk intelligence company, said increased pressure from the opposition might have been behind the president’s decision.

“The opposition bloc has succeeded in utilizing socioeconomic grievances to sustain a nationwide protest movement against Sall’s rule,” Durmaz told VOA. “The widespread protests convinced Sall that a third term would deepen polarization, undermine the country’s democratic credentials and endanger the future of development projects.”

Similar decisions ‘unlikely’

Despite the positive response to Sall’s announcement, Durmaz said it was “unlikely to convince juntas and authoritarian leaders in power across West Africa to follow suit.”

Sall was first elected president in 2012 before returning to the presidency seven years later. Actions during his time in power — jailing opposition figures and removing party officials who challenged his candidacy for a third term — were seen as an attempt to hold on to power.

But conflict over the extension of term limits on the continent isn’t new.