Macky Sall’s latest choice is less murky when seen through oil and gas
The president’s official reason for postponing the upcoming election has been met with suspicion. Analysts say: follow the money
Kiri Rupiah and Papa Ismaila Dieng in Dakar
President Macky Sall’s decision to postpone Senegal’s presidential elections left many of his international allies stammering for a response. The country is one of Africa’s strongest democracies. Last July, Sall bowed to pressure not to run again after serving his two terms. All seemed set for the people to elect his successor from a pool of 20 candidates on 25 February.
Then he had another thought.
The Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) initially put out a statement asking Senegalese authorities to set a new date, apparently agreeing with Sall’s Saturday decree. But the bloc made a quick about-turn, issuing a second statement calling for a return to the original electoral timetable.
In a similar show of vacillation, the European Union supported Ecowas’ first statement only to issue another statement of its own on 7 February warning that, “the postponement tarnishes Senegal’s long tradition of democracy and opens up a period of great uncertainty”.
The African Union asked “the competent national authorities to organise the elections as soon as possible in a spirit of transparency, peace and national harmony”, more or less repeating Sall’s own words.
Within Senegal, Sall’s move was not as mystifying.
Analysts and people on the street echo each other in saying Sall’s action has a lot to do with the fact that Senegal is on the verge of becoming an oil and gas giant.
Between 2014 and 2016, during Sall’s tenure which began in 2012, Senegal discovered oil and gas that could earn the country $1.5-billion from exports in the first three years of production.
“Whoever gets to run the country will have the upper hand regarding how to manage the resources,” says Marc-Andre Coly*, a lecturer at a university in Dakar, This is partly “why people are motivated in taking part in the elections not as voters but as candidates” he said.
Seventy-nine people put their names forward to run for the presidency, each paying the 30-million CFA ($49,000) required to apply.
Moussa Ndiaye* a street trader in Dakar echoed Coly. “I am not a politician,” said Ndiaye. “They want to make money with oil and they will keep it for themselves.”
Macky maths
Sall maintains his promise not to run in the election but his chosen successor Prime Minister Amadou Ba is not popular. Of the other candidates who expected to run on 25 February, one Karim Wade is popular and crucially, not hostile to Sall, unlike Bassirou Diomaye Faye, another strong contender. Faye is the candidate from the party of Ousmane Sonko, the opposition figure who has been prosecuted several times and ultimately disqualified from running.
But on 20 January when the Constitutional Council which vets and validates electoral candidates released the final list of 20, Wade’s name was missing.
The son of former president Abdoulaye Wade, he was born in Paris to a French mother and the council found that he was a dual France-Senegal citizen at the time of registering his candidacy. The law requires presidential candidates to hold Senegalese citizenship and none other.
A row erupted between the council and MPs in Wade’s Senegalese Democratic Party (PDS). The legislators accused the seven judges on the council of having “dubious connections” and “conflict of interest”. A parliamentary inquiry into the MPs’ accusations was set up.
Officially, Sall is postponing the election to allow this conflict time to resolve. But some see his own self-interest playing a part.
Speaking anonymously to The Continent, a political analyst in Senegal said that the president escalated the row to a crisis because the ruling party faced the prospect of losing. A delay would buy it time to find a more suitable candidate or negotiate a backroom agreement with Wade – if he can get back on the ballot.
On 16 January, days before the final candidate list was released, France formally stripped him of his French citizenship. With an ally in the presidential mansion, Sall and his party won’t be cut off from the oil and gas windfall.
Where to from here?
While described by some as a “constitutional coup”, the postponement now has the legal dressing it needs to be formal. Lawmakers heatedly debated it into Monday night, with some being forcibly ejected from the parliamentary chambers, and eventually voted to delay the elections until 15 December. No party has an absolute majority in Parliament, but the alliance between the ruling party, Benno Bokk Yaakaar, and Wade’s PDS was sufficient.
But outside the corridors of power, “there’s a fog around the alliances and the deals that are taking place. Therefore everything is difficult to understand,” said Coly. He has decided not to vote. “That in itself is a statement. I feel utter disgust regarding politics,” he said.
Regardless of where the chips may fall, Ndiaye is planning to migrate outside of the continent because money is tight for people like him and he does not believe the oil and gas windfall will change that.
“Whether it’s Sall or Wade or whoever, I am struggling. They are wasting time and making noise,” he said.
Tensions remain high in the capital.
In WhatsApp messages seen by The Continent, civil society groups have called for “civil disobedience” including a halt to economic and educational activities.
On the streets around the National Assembly building, groups of heavily armed security enforcers visibly stand and any hint of a growing gathering has been met with tear gas.
*Names have been changed