In a spectacular election victory in Senegal, West Africa, the little-known opposition figure Bassirou Diomaye Faye was elected president until a few months ago. Outgoing President Macky Sall and his candidate Amadou Ba congratulated Faye on Monday’s victory, even before the official results of Sunday’s election were released.
“I wish him much success and all the best for the well-being of the Senegalese people,” said former Prime Minister Ba. The 62-year-old government candidate was defeated even in his own constituency.
It is the first time that a change of power in Senegal was decided in the first round of voting. The vote to succeed Sall, who has been in power since 2012 and whose term ends on April 2nd, was seen as groundbreaking for the country with its around 18 million inhabitants. “Faye’s election victory means that conservative voters and voters who are otherwise more loyal to the government have also spoken out in favor of a drastic change, a ‘game change’,” says Senegal expert at the German Konrad Adenauer Foundation, Caroline Hauptmann.
Faye, who turned 44 this Monday, until recently only played a supporting role as the right-hand man of the 49-year-old opposition leader Ousmane Sonko. Since Sonko was not allowed to run, Faye became his camp’s “Plan B”. Both were released from prison just ten days before the election, where they, like hundreds of others, were serving time on charges related to protests in recent years. They went into the election campaign with promises to fight corruption and free the former French colony from dependencies. It remains to be seen whether Sonko himself will play a role in the future government.
Thousands of cheering supporters marched through the capital Dakar on Monday night with flags, fireworks and horns. Shortly after the end of the election, the counts showed Faye had a lead over the other 18 candidates. On Monday, the media estimated around 57 percent of the vote for Faye and a good 31 percent for Ba. According to initial impressions from observers, the election was remarkably peaceful and orderly.
Senegal is one of Africa’s most stable democracies and, unlike other countries in the region, has not experienced a coup or military coup since its independence from France in 1960. Outgoing President Sall is being praised for successes in economic development in the country, where oil and gas production is set to begin this year. Critics counter that the country has simply become more investor-friendly without this being noticeable for the majority of people. Human rights activists criticized the growing restrictions on political freedoms.
The opposition movement around former tax inspector Sonko has been gaining momentum for about a decade. Since an indictment against him in 2021, there have been repeated protests for years that were banned and degenerated into violence between demonstrators and security forces. At least 40 people have been killed since 2021. Sonko’s party Pastef – African Patriots of Senegal for Work, Ethics and Fraternity – was dissolved. Sonko himself was convicted for accusing a minister of corruption and sentenced to two years in prison for “corrupting the youth” after he was acquitted of a rape charge.
Senegal’s future president Faye was imprisoned without conviction from last April to March 15 because he sharply criticized the judiciary over Sonko’s trials. “From prison to palace,” was the headline of one newspaper. Like Sonko, the 44-year-old has a career as a tax inspector and is therefore part of the country’s administrative elite, but is considered a political unknown.
Faye’s supporters see him as a fighter for social justice and the liberation of the young population from the post-colonial dependencies that still prevail today. Critics wonder whether the ambitious 84-page election program can be implemented in practice. Plans such as an exit from the regional currency FCFA, which is dominated by the former colonial power France, and the renegotiation of contracts for the production of oil and gas made investors cringe.
“The expectations of the new government are immensely high – now it remains to be seen whether the expectations raised are really realistic; vision meets political reality,” says Senegal expert Hauptmann. Above all, the next head of state must find new jobs for the hundreds of thousands of young people who flood into the labor market every year. Half of the approximately 18 million Senegalese people are younger than 18 years old – and a record number made the life-threatening sea route across the Atlantic to Europe last year in view of a situation that was perceived as hopeless.