From prison to president of Senegal. On March 13, Bassirou Diomaye Faye slept his last night in prison after eleven months locked up for defamation against the government. He went free thanks to an amnesty in extremis law that allowed him to stand in the presidential elections. Eleven days later, his main rival and establishment candidate, former prime minister Amadou Ba, and outgoing president Macky Sall, who could not run after 12 years at the head of the country, acknowledged his overwhelming victory before the official results were even known: Faye had just proclaimed himself the fifth president of Senegal and the youngest in the country’s history.
In the first appearance before the press, Faye, who has just turned 44, sent a warning: “The Senegalese people have decided to break with the past”.
From Paris, which sees with concern the loss of French influence in Africa in favor of Moscow in countries such as Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger or the Central African Republic, it reacted quickly to the change of powers and the French president Emmanuel Macron was quick to congratulate and extend his hand to the new leader of Senegal, his main partner in West Africa. “I wish him all the best and I hope to work with him”, he said shortly after his choice was confirmed.
From Spain, which supports a mega-project of a gas pipeline along the entire African coast from Nigeria to Morocco, passing through Senegalese territory, the political turn in one of the most stable African states in the continent, which has never received a coup d’état. The hope in the West is that Faye’s indomitable speech will be toned down once she is in the presidential chair, but that doesn’t seem likely.
A law graduate, former tax inspector with a reputation for integrity and a practicing Muslim, Faye embodies a new generation of African leaders with pan-African and anti-colonialist ideals who present themselves as defenders of national sovereignty and demand a fair distribution of the country’s wealth. country and the reform of a justice system that they believe is corrupt and at the service of traditional power.
Raised in a modest family of farmers, Faye crystallizes the disenchantment with the established order of millions of young people (two-thirds of Senegalese are under 25) and during his massive rallies he has promised to renegotiate oil and fishing contracts and he has assured that he is not afraid of leaving the CFA franc, a currency controlled from Paris and shared by 14 African countries. The creation of a new currency was described as “economic nonsense” and “populist adventure” by the former government.
With a youthful face and a perpetual smile, “Diomaye”, as his friends call him (“honorable” in the Serer language, one of the main peoples of Senegal), has not entered politics with the intention of winning the favor of system
In recent months, he has been one of the most critical voices against the anti-democratic drift of Sall’s government and has not hesitated to send his followers to the streets to demonstrate against the government, which responded to the challenge with tear gas and gunfire. Dozens of young people died in clashes with the police in one of the worst political and social crises the country has suffered since independence in 1960.
Faye’s voice hasn’t wavered before the ex-metropolis either, to whom she demanded “balanced and respectful relations” to remain a “safe and reliable ally”, but she let it slip that it won’t be for free: she didn’t refuse to approach se to Russia if he deems it necessary.
In reality, his uncontested victory at the polls is the product of a contingency: initially Faye was not supposed to be a candidate. The battle against power was destined for his inseparable friend and leader of the Pastef Ousmane Sonko, a real leader of the opposition and an extremely popular figure among the youth, but strange accusations of “corruption of minors” prevented him from taking part in the presidential race and they also took him to prison.
Far from giving up, Sonko nominated his right-hand man, Faye, as the candidate of an opposition coalition (Pastef was dissolved by the authorities at the end of last year). “My choice for Diomaye – said Sonko when he named his friend – is not a choice of heart, but of reason. I chose him because he meets the criteria I defined (…) no one can say that he has no integrity. I would even say that he has more integrity than I do. I put the project in their hands.”
Faye, who worked for 20 years with Sonko as a tax inspector and denounced the corruption of the elites, took up the task and took it to the top.
According to his friends, the new Senegalese president is a methodical, serious man, with a brilliant mind, discreet, cold in his analysis and firm in his ideas. It is also an indomitable character; a rebel leader for the new Senegal.
