DAKAR, Senegal -- The government declared a state of emergency and deployed tanks around the palace of Socialist President Abdou Diouf after tens of thousands of students battled security forces to protest allegedly fraudulent national elections.
Diouf's arch-rival, opposition presidential candidate Abdoulaye Wade of the Senegalese Democratic Party, Monday demanded the president's resignation and the holding of new elections.
Opposition allegations that Sunday's elections were rigged sent tens of thousands of students storming into the streets of Dakar Monday. The students set up barricades around a university and Wade's SDP headquarters, pelted troops with stones and set several gasoline stations on fire.
Authorities deployed tanks around Diouf's colonial-style palace and riot police fired tear gas to disperse the demonstrators in the West African capital.
At 1 p.m., state-run Senegal Radio declared a state of emergency, banning all street demonstrations and rallies and closing schools and the university until further notice.
An unknown number of people were arrested, including at least one reporter from the SDP newspaper, foreign photographers, and Wade's chief aide, Boubacar Sall. There were no immediate figures on the number of injuries during the rioting.
Partial results from Sunday's polling gave Diouf 80 percent of the vote from 21 communes or provinces. But the government withheld results from more than 50 percent of electoral areas, including Dakar and the politically important city of Thies, 45 miles east of the west Africa capital.
Unofficial estimates in four political bellwether districts in Dakar showed an apparent swing toward Wade, who lost to Diouf in the 1983 elections.
The opposition alleged the results were rigged and election officials said they found some cases of fraud involving false ballots in Dakar and Thies.
The election and its violent aftermath shook Senegal's claim as a model democracy in Africa. The agricultural nation of 6 million people on the west coast of Africa has 17 political parties and an uncensored press.
Political sources said electoral officers recorded large-scale abstentions among Senegal's 1.9 million registered voters and added that the turnout could have been as low as 40 percent.
The disturbances followed a three-week electoral campaign marred by clashes between Wade's student supporters, allegations of Libyan interference and accusations the government was trying to subvert the constitution.
Diouf expected to win re-election. His popularity among Senegal's large farm population has been high because of government subsidies for peanuts, the nation's main export.
Sunday's voting was calm, but the government deployed tanks and ordered high schools closed indefinitely. The schools were hotbeds of dissent during the campaign, with students demanding better employment conditions.
Diouf said Sunday he did not want to alter the constitution but only to seek means 'to clean up' Senegalese democracy and leave it in a 'strong state.'
Opposition leaders accuse the government of concocting an alleged Libyan plot to send spies to Senegal to disrupt the elections. The government has refused to show publicly three Libyan 'agents' it says were captured trying to infiltrate the country this month.
President Leopold Sedar Senghor, the nation's leader since independence in 1960, retired in 1980 and turned over power to Diouf. In the last election, in 1983, Diouf won 83 percent of the vote to Wade's 15 percent.
