Riots broke out in the West African nation, historically one of the continent’s most stable

Senegal has been a bastion of democracy in Africa, a nation that has historically seen peaceful transitions of power on a continent that is often rife with political violence. But that could be changing after a series of parliamentary moves caused riots to break out across the country, putting Senegal’s democracy in peril.

The issues began when outgoing President Macky Sall announced a unilateral decree to postpone the country’s presidential elections, which had been scheduled for Feb. 25. Sall’s plan was officially enacted by Senegal’s National Assembly on Monday, delaying the election nearly ten full months to Dec. 15. Sall said the election had to be postponed to investigate “controversies over the disqualification of some candidates and allegations of corruption,” The Associated Press said.

The election postponement incited a wave of protests and violence in Senegal’s capital city, Dakar, over the weekend, with Sall now expected to stay in office until the new election — far past when his term is set to expire. Some are calling the move an attempted coup and have expressed concerns that it could be the end of democracy in Senegal.

Senegal ‘hangs by a thread’

The election postponement has “sparked a constitutional crisis and dealt a blow to democracy across West Africa,” The Economist said. It comes as something of a shock in a country that, throughout its history, “has avoided civil wars and coups, and has held a series of largely peaceful and democratic transitions of power,” the outlet said.

Even more surprising is that Sall himself has also been a proponent of stability in Africa and has “played a leading role in the attempts by ECOWAS, the [West African] regional bloc, to push juntas back towards democracy,” ….