Dakar - Senegal will likely hold legislative elections on June 3, officials announced on Thursday, a week after a court forced the postponement of polls originally slated for late next month.
A bill setting the new date was adopted by the government at a cabinet meeting on Thursday, but still has to win parliamentary approval.
The polls were postponed last week after the Council of State, the top consultative body to the government on electoral matters, decided to uphold an opposition charge of "irregularities" in the
organisation of the polls.
The Council annulled a decree by President Abdoulaye Wade after the opposition Socialist Party charged that he broke the law by allocating more seats to certain constituencies despite them having fewer inhabitants. His decree allocated a total of 150 seats.
A presidential poll will go ahead as planned on February 25 - the original date for the legislative elections.
The legislative elections would normally have been held last year, but the government wanted to combine them with the 2007 presidential polls. The projected €10-million saving was due to have been put towards a rehousing programme for Senegalese hit by floods in 2005.
Wade, 80, is seeking re-election as president in this west African country of more than 11 million people. - Sapa-AFP