The former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, who is in Senegal to observe and help mediate this weekend's contentious election has begun a meeting with opposition candidates. In the meeting is Wade's former protege, ex-Prime Minister Idrissa Seck, Joy News' Snr. International Correspondent, Jefferson Sackey reports from Dakar. Iddrisa Seck is is now running against his former boss and 85year old Abdulai Wade. Sackey adds that Senegal is tensed as an air of uncertainty blankets the capital with just five days to go before Sunday's presidential election. Businesses on the main commercial avenues surrounding the presidential palace are boarded up and pieces of plywood cover shop windows as if a hurricane is about to pass through town. The former Nigerian president, Obasanjo is also meeting with M23, a coalition of opposition groups which takes its name from the massive anti-government protests that immobilized the capital last June 23. The M23 said in a statement Tuesday that they are calling on the international community to do what it can to prevent Wade from running in Sunday's poll. Even though Senegal has one of the most established democracies in the region, people fear that the ruling party will try to rig the elections. The country has been rocked by daily protests after the opposition vowed to render the country ungovernable if President Abdoulaye Wade runs for a third term on Sunday. Wade has been dismissive, characterizing the protests as nothing more than a "light breeze which rustles the leaves of a tree, but never becomes a hurricane." Many are worried, however, because the pace of the protests are unlike anything Senegal has experienced in years. The country is considered the most stable in the region. Its democratic traditions run deep, with historians dating Senegal's democracy to at least the mid-1800s, when France allowed citizens of this former colony to elect a deputy to the French parliament.