By Diadie Ba DAKAR, Feb 5 (Reuters) - Senegal's octogenarian president Abdoulaye Wade will seek re-election for a second term this month but challengers say an exodus of desperate young migrants rushing to leave the country is a damaging blot on his record. The campaign for the Feb. 25 election in the mostly Muslim West African state kicked off at the weekend and Wade's rivals are homing in on the drama of thousands of young Senegalese who try to flee to Europe in flimsy boats. Challengers accuse the president of failing to deliver on past election promises. Nevertheless, Wade, who is 80 and only Senegal's third president since independence from France in 1960, is seen as favourite to win the polls, in part because his divided opponents could not agree on a single candidate to confront him. Including the incumbent president, a fragmented field of 15 contenders is standing in the first round. A lawyer by profession, Wade was elected in 2000, ending 40 years of Socialist Party (PS) rule and pledging to end unemployment and improve living standards and public services. A sprightly, dapper African statesman well known abroad, Wade argues he has polished and amplified Senegal's image as one of West Africa's most stable nations in a turbulent region. "When you build something, the foundation must be very strong, and that is what I have accomplished," Wade told cheering supporters on Sunday. "Give me another five-year term and I will carry on the job," he added. He kicked off his campaign at Mbacke, 200 km (125 miles) east of Dakar and near the holy city of Touba, West Africa's Mecca and spiritual centre of the Islamic Mouride brotherhood. Wade is a member and draws much of his political power from this economically and socially influential fraternity, which controls most domestic trade, including popular markets. But opponents say he has failed to reduce poverty and unemployment, as evidenced by boatloads of parched, ragged young illegal migrants arriving in the Spanish Canary Islands. Most of the more than 30,000 who landed in 2006 were Senegalese. Spanish authorities reckon shipwrecks, hunger, thirst and exposure kill one in six along the way. "BARCELONA OR DEATH" "We have seen our youth risking their lives in boats with the slogan 'Barca' (Barcelona) or 'Barzakh' (death in the local Wolof language)," former prime minister Moustapha Niasse said. "If you give me your votes the young people will not need to risk their lives, they will find jobs here," Niasse, candidate for the opposition Alliance of Progress, told a weekend rally. Another prominent opposition challenger is Ousmane Tanor Dieng, leader of the Socialist Party that ruled for 40 years. "Wade has embarked on the construction of essential infrastructure. But the electricity cuts and gas shortages and youth employment problems have affected his record and he'll find it tough to win in the first round," independent political analyst Babacar Justin Ndiaye told Reuters. The sluggish pre-campaign run-up has been clouded by rumours that the presidential elections might be postponed, as were parliamentary polls due on the same date.
