VOTERS went to the polls in Senegal today for a parliamentary election that is set to determine if the country’s newly elected president can carry out ambitious reforms.

More than seven million registered voters in the west African country are choosing 165 lawmakers in the national assembly, where the party of President Bassirou Diomaye Faye currently does not hold a majority.

Mr Faye, who was elected in March on an anti-Establishment platform, says that has blocked him from executing the reforms he pledged during his campaign, including fighting corruption, reviewing fishing permits for foreign companies and securing a bigger share from the country’s natural resources for the population.