Senegal opens the polls today as a last relief. The African country today decides on the successor to President Macky Sall, in power for 12 years and who cannot stand for re-election, and seeks to close with votes the worst political-social crisis in decades, after months of protests that have left dozens of deaths in clashes with the police, the arrest of opponents and an unprecedented antidemocratic drift.
A month ago, it was not even clear that the elections would happen. The elections were originally scheduled for February 25, but President Sall surprisingly announced their postponement just three weeks earlier. Although the president tried to convene them in December, when his second term would have already expired, the Constitutional Court ordered them to be held this March 24.
The mess of dates is a reflection of the restlessness and nervousness that floods Senegalese politics. And it is something new because Senegal had been one of the most historically stable countries on the continent: it has never suffered a coup d’état, it has experienced several peaceful transfers of power… and it had never delayed an election.
Among the 19 candidates in the running, one of them a woman, only two have a chance of victory. They are former Prime Minister Amadou Ba, of the party in power, and Bassirou Diomaye Faye, of the former opposition party Pastef, dissolved last year by the government, and which has burst onto the Senegalese political scene like a locomotive with an anti-colonial message and anti-capitalist that has caught on among young people.
If there are no more possible winning horses, it is because of political foul play, with dozens of options rejected or blocked with judicial twists and turns. Precisely, the great opposition leader, Ousmane Sonko, was removed from the race to be president when he was sent to prison after being strangely accused of “corruption of minors”, in a movement that sparked demonstrations throughout the country.
His right-hand man, Diomaye Faye, who was also imprisoned, will finally be able to appear. The release of the two youth leaders a few days ago, received with a wave of enthusiasm in the streets, raises the question of whether “the Sonko effect” will be enough to defeat the statesman Ba, who represents the continuity of the current government.
Senegalese political analyst Saiba Bayo believes in the options for change, although he harbors doubts. “If Senegal were a normal country, Diomaye Faye will be president on Sunday night, but Senegal stopped being a normal country a long time ago.” Bayo highlights that parties with immense historical weight such as the Senegalese Democratic Party, whose candidate Karim Wade was disqualified with shadows, have given support this week to Faye’s coalition. “There are many forces united against Sall,” he says.
The internal tension in the country has caused strange absences. In a debate organized by the UPF on the socio-political crossroads of Senegal this week, Boubacar Saye, president of the international organization Horizons Without Borders, expressed his surprise at the fact that none of the candidates has placed the migration issue at the forefront. . “I am worried that there is no talk about migration. Nobody talks about it. The death toll continues to grow and thousands of young people are leaving… The numbers point to an unstoppable crisis that last year left more than 6,000 dead at sea.
If the year 2023 set a record with 40,403 people arriving on Spanish soil through the dangerous western Mediterranean route, the highest number since the so-called cayuco crisis of 2006, only in the first two months of this year have they reached the coasts of the Canary archipelago 11,932 people on board 191 boats. In the first six months of last year, the figure was about 7,200.
The issue appeals to Senegal, where 75% of the population is under 35 years old, unemployment is growing and one in four Senegalese lives below the poverty line: according to Frontex, 6,766 of those who arrived by sea last year to the Canary Islands They had Senegalese nationality, although the number is almost certainly higher because the country of origin of half of the new arrivals is unknown.
