Senegal’s highest election authority has excluded two top opposition leaders from the final list of candidates for the West African nation’s presidential election next month.

Senegal is holding a legislative election.

Deadly protests have erupted over the past week in the West African nation of Senegal, long considered a bastion of democracy and a regional leader on diplomacy issues. Anti-government protesters have set supermarkets ablaze and lobbed rocks at riot police in a rare display of violence on the streets of the capital, Dakar. Sonko's supporters say Senegalese President Macky Sall is trying to derail the opposition leader's political future. The protesters see Sonko's arrest as just one example of corruption in a government beset by greed. Sall went on national television late Monday, six days after the protesters first began demonstrating.