DAKAR, Senegal
Senegal’s President, Macky Sall, announced in early February that presidential elections, originally scheduled for February 25, would be postponed indefinitely.
The announcement has raised
fears of popular protests, violent repression, a once democratic president
transforming into an authoritarian ruler – and possibly even another coup
d’état in West Africa.
There has been a flurry of
coups in the region since 2020 – Mali in August that year followed
by a second in 2021. Guinea also saw a coup that year
and Burkina Faso a year later. In July 2023, the military took control
in Niger.
Senegal has never suffered a
coup d'etat and has been considered the region’s most stable democracy.
Since independence in
1960 it has had three peaceful transitions of power. First in 1980,
from Leopold Senghor to Abdou Diouf; then, in 2000, from Diouf
to Abdoulaye Wade; and then, in 2012, from Wade to Sall.
In political science
terminology, a democracy is considered consolidated only after a “double
turnover”. This is when an opposition party which came to power through
democratic elections (the first turnover) itself hands over power to its
opposition after losing democratic elections (the second turnover).
I am a political
scientist and researcher with an interest in African politics and
democracy building. Based on my experience, I believe Senegal is exceptional in
west Africa.
The country has enjoyed a
“triple turnover” of power through democratic elections. Yet all three of these
peaceful democratic transitions were preceded by a crisis with incumbent
presidents attempting to remain in office beyond their constitutional mandate.
Senegal’s democratic
credentials seemed to be cemented by the fact that none of the presidents
succeeded in staying on unconstitutionally.
This track record should be
used to evaluate the prospects of a new president coming to office.
Over the past four decades
Senegal became known for its relatively independent media and free
expression. The presidents of Senegal all managed, eventually, to step down
from power. This allowed elections to become the only game in town.
Senegal is rated “partly free”
by Freedom House in its Freedom in the World 2023 report.
The think-tank uses a set of criteria such as political rights and civil
liberties to categorise countries as free, partly free and not free.
Senegal scores well in some
areas, like academic freedom and individuals’ right to practise and express
their faith or non-belief in public.
But it falls down in others,
such as restricting people’s right of assembly and violently dispersing some
demonstrations.
Although regular elections are
held, each one of Senegal’s leaders started off well, then attempted to stay in
power longer than the designated time.
Leopold Sedar
Senghor became Senegal’s first president after independence in 1960. He
came to power on the back of his reputation as an intellectual of the
“négritude” movement, as a democratic opponent of French colonialism and
someone who had fought for freedom.
But, in 1963, 1968, 1973 and
1978, he staged presidential plebiscites so that he could remain in
office.
Then, in December 1980, after
22 years in office, he decided to step down and hand over to his
designated successor, Abdou Diouf.
Abdou Diouf had the same
temptation. He held on to the presidency until decades of peaceful, principled,
democratic opposition led by Abdoulaye Wade forced him to accept his losing bid
for re-election in 2000.
Wade served time in
prison following a long struggle for power and was forced into exile in Paris.
He went on to lead a popular movement that ousted the long-ruling Socialist
Party and Diouf.
He promised to clean up the
corruption inherent in single-party rule. But towards the end of his second
mandate in 2009, he too began to imitate his predecessors.
Wade spent his last years in
the presidential palace trying to win a third term. When that did not
work, he named his son Karim Wade as his dynastic successor. But
Karim Wade was convicted of corruption and his father’s wishes
weren’t fulfilled.
Macky Sall of
the Alliance for the Republic party came to power in 2012 as an
honest, anti-corruption politician. But he too has fallen.
After his re-election in 2019,
he named an uncharismatic technocratic prime minister, Amadou Ba, as his
number two. This turned his former prime minister Aminata “Mimi”
Touré into his opponent. (She is now running for president.)
It also ensured that he would
not face a prime minister becoming more popular than himself.
Sall clearly wanted to run for
a third term. Yet, he renounced that option in 2023 and endorsed Amadou Ba
as his candidate for succession.
The last main opposition
candidate left in 2023, after the exclusion of Karim Wade, was Ousmane
Sonko. A social media personality, he is sometimes referred to as the “Trump of
Senegal” because of his shocking statements, which have endeared him to young
Senegalese.
In one instance, he said
“those who have ruled Senegal from the beginning deserve to be shot.”
There is also a more serious
side to Sonko, a former tax inspector who investigated corruption in the Sall
government. He published a book about oil and gas corruption in
Senegal which implicated the Sall government.
Sexual assault charges were
mounted against him in 2023 and he was imprisoned. This disqualified
him from running in the 2024 election. Sonko endorsed Bassirou
Diomaye Faye as his replacement.
His supporters have always
maintained that the charges were trumped up because of his opposition
to the Sall government.
Sonko was acquitted on the
rape charge but convicted for “corrupting the youth”. Young
people took to the streets in protest, calling Sall a tyrant. Sall used
the repressive apparatus of the state to quell the protests.
Then on 4 February, as
campaigning was about to begin, in an unprecedented move
Sall announced that he was postponing the election indefinitely,
citing a dispute over the candidate list.
Protesters and
police clashed in Dakar.
Tensions continued to rise. As
opposition leaders and supporters launched protests, the government-imposed restrictions
on access to the internet.
On 5 February,
parliamentarians were asked to vote on postponing the election until 15
December.
A long and heated debate
ensued. Several opposition lawmakers were forcibly removed from the chamber
while the police used tear gas to disperse protesters gathered outside the
parliament building.
In the end, the decision to
postpone the poll until December was passed with opposition MPs
missing. A number were arrested.
In my view Senegal is a
consolidated democracy. It has passed through three peaceful democratic
transitions of power from a ruling party to the opposition.
The optics of the present
moment are certainly not good. But past experience suggests a new president
could still come to office, either from the ruling party or from the
opposition.
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