Music Icon Youssou N'dour Declares Intention To Run For Senegal Presidency

    World music icon Youssou Ndour says he plans to run in Senegal's presidential election next month, challenging an 85-year-old incumbent whose plans to seek a third term have sparked violent protests.

     Ndour, who made the announcement late Monday on his private radio and TV stations, joins some 20 other candidates already running against President Abdoulaye Wade.

"I am a candidate. I will engage in the presidential race,"I do not have a university education but the presidency is not something you go to school for." N'Dour said in a broadcast on his own TFM (Television Futurs Medias) radio and television station

   

    "For a very long time, many Senegalese of different backgrounds have called for my candidacy for the presidency next February,"  Ndour said. "I've listened, I've heard and I am responding favorably to their request. I am a candidate. It's a supreme patriotic duty, the best I can give of myself. I am the alternative to the current leadership in place in the country."

  The election is less than two months away, and the incumbent president has been in power for more than a decade.

   Ndour, 52, is well known in Senegal for his scathing critique of the country's ruling party. He already owns a hugely popular private radio station that holds regular debates featuring government critics And he has a newspaper that routinely highlights corruption allegations involving the country's ruling elite, including the president's family.