Voters stay away as opposition snubs Senegal polls

DAKAR, June 3 (Reuters) Many voters stayed away from Senegal's parliamentary elections today as the main opposition parties boycotted the ballot to protest against what they called President Abdoulaye Wade's ''monarchy''.

Polling stations in the capital Dakar and other cities of the small West African state saw only a trickle of voters in the first hours after they opened, witnesses and officials said.

Opposition leaders had urged citizens to stay at home to contest what they said was the octogenarian leader's increasingly autocratic style and his refusal to discuss alleged flaws in the presidential poll that re-elected him in February.

The boycott and one-sided polls risked tarnishing Senegal's image as a model of working democracy in Africa. The mainly Muslim country has won a reputation for political, religious and ethnic tolerance since independence from France in 1960 and has suffered no coups -- a unique record in turbulent West Africa.

The Senegalese state news agency APS reported ''almost empty voting centres'' in Dakar's populous Pikine suburb and ''a timid start to voting'' in other parts of the country.

''I'm not voting because the last elections in February were rigged. I feel discouraged by that,'' said Sory Ibrahima Diakhate, a 50-year-old security guard sitting on a chair on a dusty Dakar street, like others as quiet as on a normal Sunday.

The opposition boycott strategy was expected to give Wade's ruling Sopi coalition a walkover win in the polls and extend its control over a recently enlarged 150-seat National Assembly.

More than 3,500 candidates were standing, despite the boycott by more than a dozen opposition parties, several led by former presidential candidates who lost to Wade in February.

The opposition said the low early turnout, compared with the enthusiatic voting of February, showed the success of their boycott strategy.

''This is a real slap in the face for Wade,'' said Dialo Diop of the Siggil Senegal (Stand up Senegal) opposition coalition.

The coalition distributed leaflets urging voters to snub the polls to ''save democracy'' and ''fight Wade's monarchy''.

''DEMOCRATIC FATIGUE'' Opposition leaders launched the poll boycott after Wade refused to discuss their complaints that the electoral process and voters' roll were flawed and tilted in favour of his ruling Senegalese Democratic Party (PDS).

''We're experiencing a general malaise after the presidential elections .. Senegal is feeling a bit of democratic fatigue,'' said Alioune Tine of the Dakar-based human rights group RADDHO.

Wade supporters accused the opposition of acting out of defeatist spite and some saw the boycott as political suicide.

''If you don't vote, then you can't get up and say anything the next day .. Five years without having a voice (in the National Assembly), that's irresponsible,'' said Alioune Youm, 48, a commercial agent, as he voted in downtown Dakar.

Many fear the opposition boycott will remove any effective check to Wade, who has already been criticised for harassing political foes and media critics with temporary detentions.

He was enthusiastically elected in 2000, ending four decades of Socialist rule, but popular disillusionment has grown since then and he faces criticism for not doing enough to end poverty, unemployment and high prices for food and basic goods.

In a sign of this social frustration, thousands of young Senegalese have risked their lives trying to reach Spain in rickety open boats in a bid to start a new life in Europe.

''Wade behaves like a king, he doesn't listen to people.

Abroad everyone says this is a model of democracy, but we don't see it like that,'' said student Rokhay Ba, who did not vote.

REUTERS ABM RK2110