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Political tension swells in Senegal ahead of the legislative elections, which are due to be held at the end of July. The opposition called for a new demonstration on Wednesday June 29 to denounce the invalidation of a list of its main formation by the Constitutional Council. Three people died in a previous protest on June 17. Several political figures were also arrested and placed under arrest warrant for “unarmed assembly, unlawful gathering and degradation of other people’s property”.
President since 2012, Macky Sall crystallizes the anger of the opposition and part of the youth, who accuse him of wanting to stand for the third time in 2024 in defiance of the Constitution, which sets the number of successive terms at two. allowed. Mamadou Diouf, professor of African studies and history at Columbia University in New York and specialist in the political history of Senegal, warns of the risk of tipping over one of the last stable states in East Africa. West, long held up as a model of democracy on the continent.
On Tuesday, June 28, a court in Dakar sentenced an opposition deputy to a six-month suspended prison sentence for defying a ban on demonstrations. Do you think the current political tensions threaten Senegalese democracy?
It seems to me that this democracy is in any case going through a serious degeneration. It no longer improves but regresses. Today’s opponents are reduced to demanding the same rights as forty years ago: the right to demonstrate, to access the public media, to have guarantees of transparency with regard to the organization of elections . Given the current climate of tension, if the opposition leaders remain excluded from the July 31 legislative elections, an explosion of violence is to be feared.
By prohibiting the mobilizations of the opposition, the power has seriously undermined the right to demonstrate, recognized by the Constitution. It is prohibition that breeds violence. The authorized demonstration of June 8 took place without clashes because the forces of order were not mobilized to repress, but to supervise.
“Only a constitutional reform could allow Macky Sall to run again”
We had already had concerns in 2011, when Abdoulaye Wade ran for a third term, provoking a wave of protests. The president felt he needed an extension cord to ” finish [son] work “, but Macky Sall, then one of his most vocal critics, replied: “What work? Construction sites ? It is cement, concrete and iron. Everyone can do it. »
However, today, Macky Sall in turn maintains the vagueness on a possible third term. In my opinion, we should not even ask the question… The Constitution is clear: the president cannot serve more than two consecutive terms of five years. Only a constitutional reform could allow him to run again.
However, Senegal is seen as an exemplary democracy in the region. Is it justified?
Yes, its historical trajectory bears witness to this. From the beginning of the XXe century, during colonization, the inhabitants of the Four Communes (Dakar, Gorée, Saint-Louis, Rufisque) had the right to vote. Blaise Diagne thus became in 1914 the first African representative elected to the French Chamber of Deputies.
Until the end of the colonial period, there was a culture of strong political engagement in Senegal, which was reinforced during the struggles for independence. In 1960, the country had a plurality of political parties, which favored a tradition of the confrontation of ideas. Even at the time of the single party, under Léopold Sédar Senghor, the opposition press was authorized. In addition, the great marabouts, although supporting the power, ensure stability by arbitrating conflicts.
This is a Senegalese particularity, because in neighboring countries, political confrontations often lead to the elimination or liquidation of the adversary and a tendency to concentrate power and exercise it in an authoritarian manner. There were certainly phases of authoritarianism under Léopold Sédar Senghor, but the opponents continued to fight and the dialogue often persisted as best they could.
Is this dialogue no longer possible today?
I doubt it, because the positions are very polarized on both sides. President Sall is struggling to cope with criticism from his opponents, there are no debates. But he faces adversaries who are also different. The opposition led by Ousmane Sonko does not seek to avoid confrontation. This new generation of political actors must learn the culture of dialogue, an ingredient of Senegalese stability.
You say that the demands of the opposition are repeated over time. What about the profile of those who take to the streets to demonstrate against power?
As in the past, young Senegalese continue to take massive part in anti-government mobilizations. The politicization of this youth is part of the political history of the country. Except that today, because of his great social marginalization, his commitment turns to violence.
Today, people under 30 represent 70% of the population. They suffer the brunt of unemployment, can no longer find partners to start a home and no longer flourish. Their inability to become adults feeds a generational conflict, because society no longer offers them opportunities.
When the living forces of a country consider their future outside their land, even if it means losing their lives there, it is an alarming signal for the stability of a country. This anger also feeds on social inequalities. In Dakar, one of the most expensive cities in the world, part of the elite lives in extraordinary opulence while the overwhelming majority of the population, especially young people and women, sinks into poverty. This potentially destructive revolt for the country has been brewing for years.
These young people are also taking over politics by strongly demonstrating their support for Ousmane Sonko, one of the leaders of the opposition. The 2019 presidential candidate who came third, he is currently implicated in an alleged rape case. What are the sources of its popularity?
Its strength is its image. He represents for his supporters the man of the periphery – he comes from Casamance – who wants to eradicate corruption, this evil which plagues the Senegalese State and the ruling class. He puts his experience as a former tax inspector at the service of this image, because he appears to be a fine connoisseur of the workings of the administration.
When he calls on the Senegalese to go out into the streets with pans every evening, the population responds because his speech echoes their expectations. Its action is similar to that of the Sopi coalition [« changement », en wolof], carried by Abdoulaye Wade and which had resulted in the first alternation in 2000. Hence the fear that it inspires in the regime, which paradoxically contributed to building its image as the number one opponent.
“Ousmane Sonko embodies a conservatism in tune with the aspiration to return to tradition and religion”
Where the ideological left was engaged in social and democratic battles, it marks a break by calling for the moral rebuilding of the country. Ousmane Sonko speaks to practitioners of a street and popular Islam that is expressed outside the brotherhoods and which, it seems to me, is not Salafist for all that. In terms of values, it embodies a conservatism in line with the aspiration to return to tradition and religion, a phenomenon that shakes contemporary African societies disappointed by the authoritarian modernization imposed by the ruling classes after independence. This tendency is also marked in intellectual circles, where the veil and polygamy tend to prevail.
The leader of Pastef [Patriotes africains du Sénégal pour le travail, l’éthique et la fraternité] also capitalizes on the hostility of part of Senegalese youth towards France, accused of supporting President Macky Sall’s continued power.
Are you worried about the future of Senegal?
Several neighboring countries – Guinea, Burkina Faso, Mali – have experienced worrying politico-military crises in recent years with the return of putschs, the intensification of violence between communities and the presence of jihadists. In Senegal, we tend to believe in a form of exception, but this is an illusion. The country is not immune to these excesses. If a negotiated solution between the government and the opposition does not emerge, the political crisis will end up turning West Africa completely on its own.
Many Senegalese feel trapped and have nothing to lose. When I see all these students revising their lessons under the lampposts until late at night on the campus of the University of Dakar, it breaks my heart. The country offers them so few prospects. What will they do with their future? When I see that eleven babies can die in a fire in a hospital because of a short circuit without strong measures to prevent it from happening again, it saddens me. Just like the silence of the State when three people perish in demonstrations, as was the case recently.
To avoid a bloody confrontation between the regime and this exhausted section of the population, dialogue is vital. This role should be entrusted to leaders with a legitimacy that is not political but community based. They have a crucial role to play in rebuilding Senegalese society beyond partisan divisions and around the common good.