Also the Senegal plunges into uncertainty. One of the democracies considered among the most solid in the world is tremblingWest Africa after the postponement of the presidential elections which were scheduled for February 25th. It’s the first time since 1963 that Senegal, one of the few African countries to have never suffered a coup d’état, is postponing its presidential elections. The Dakar government also suspended internet access on Sunday night “to prevent the spread of hateful messages” on social networks. An alarming situation: also Antonio Guterres, through his spokesperson Stephane Dujarric, expressed his hope for abstention “from violence and from any action that could undermine the democratic process and stability”, “in line with Senegal’s long tradition of democratic government”. TO Washington the spokesperson of the State Department, Vedant Patel, said he was “deeply concerned”: “Senegal has a strong tradition of democracy and peaceful transition of power. While we recognize the allegations of irregularities, we are concerned about the disruption of the presidential election.”
The facts – The situation worsened on February 2 when the president Macky Sallin office since 12 years announced the indefinite postponement of the vote. To the very strong opposition protests and street demonstrations, the government reacted with a wave of arrests: 52 people stops on Sunday and others 99 yesterday. And just last night parliament “unanimously” approved the postponement of the elections, setting the new date at December 15thbut this only happened after the riot police had expelled the MPs against. A terrible image for Senegalese democracy: at 10.30pm the opposition parliamentarians were escorted out of the National Assembly by military force and only afterwards, with 104 votes in favour, was the law to postpone the presidential elections until December approved. The bill was presented under emergency procedure on 2 February by the parliamentary group close to the candidate Karim Wadeson of the former president Abdoulaye Wade – The Best Of Abdoulaye Wade, and asked for the postponement from February 25th to August 25th. The date that parliament has now further postponed to December. Reason for request: Karim Wade’s candidacy for the presidency had been rejected by the Constitutional Council. For this reason, the deputies of Wade’s Senegalese Democratic Party (PDS) denounced “serious and recurrent dysfunctions in the electoral process”, such in their opinion as to justify the request for postponement, speaking of “institutional crisis which could call into question Senegalese democracy, the integrity of the electoral process and the transparent and inclusive nature of presidential elections”. However, the majority of opposition groups rejected the postponement proposal, describing the president’s decision as a “constitutional coup”. In response, the PDS accused some members of corruption. An explosive situation that brought people to the streets to protest with the slogan “Macky Sall dictator“, promptly dispersed by the police with tear gas. It is in this context that the mass arrests occurred, the suspension of the internet for “security reasons” and even the suspension of a television channel on charges of “incitement to violence”.
The precedent – As mentioned, Karim Wade and his party, the PDS, are behind the postponement of the vote. The rejection of his candidacy by the Constitutional Council came because Wade allegedly lied about the fact that he no longer had French nationality at the time of his sworn declaration: thearticle 28 of the Constitution states that presidential candidates must have exclusively the Senegalese nationality. Wade, born in France to a French mother, had already encountered this problem in 2019, when to stand as a candidate in the previous elections he had presented a “certificate of honour” in which he claimed to have renounced his French nationality. Document disputed by rivals. A controversy that had given him the opportunity to pose as the victim of a conspiracy. Now the issue has been raised again by a rival candidate and the magazine Jeune Afrique has easily demonstrated that Wade still had French nationality at the time of submitting his candidatures, as he was registered in the French electoral register at that date. Wade, who among other things has resided in June 2016 Dohain Qatarin 2015 he was also sentenced to six years in prison and a fine of 138 billion CFA francs for “illicit enrichment”, a penalty from which he was pardoned a year later. A less than exemplary past. However, President Sall decided to support his claims, officially to “initiate an open national dialogue in order to bring together the conditions for free, transparent and inclusive elections”, in reality probably due to his own complicated electoral calculations.
The background – Who benefits from chaos? According to the Senegalese newspaper WalfQuotidien, La. plays a “dark role” in the affair France: “The Senegalese want the French Prime Minister, Gabriel Attal, explain to them how you were able to sign Karim Wade’s document renouncing French nationality so quickly (…). Was he pressured by Dakar? What was the role of the French consul in Qatar who initiated the practice? France would be afraid of Ousmane Sonko, the people’s favorite? What is behind this French activism?” And he continues bluntly: “Our French cousins cannot be strangers to what is currently happening in Senegal, one of their last bastions in Africa together with the Ivory Coast. This, after what happened to our Malian, Burkinabe and Nigerian neighbors.” Le Monde Afrique comments: “That the beacon of democracy in the region gives such a signal can only cause concern for the sustainability of the “Senegalese model”, imperfect but alive. And to the joy of the military who, in neighboring countries, choose to remain in power without worrying about elections.”