The vast majority of qualified presidential candidates in Senegal as well as a large citizen collective rejected, Friday February 23, the dialogue proposed the day before by the Head of State, Macky Sall, to set the date of the election and try to get out of a deep crisis.
“We oppose any dialogue on this issue and we demand that a date be set before April 2,” Boubacar Camara, member of a collective of sixteen candidates, told the press. “We are calling for mobilization,” said another candidate, Aliou Mamadou Dia. The collective, which represents sixteen of the nineteen applications validated in January by the Constitutional Council, is working on an action plan to be carried out on Monday and Tuesday, while the dialogue would take place, he said.
For its part, Aar Sunu Election (“let’s preserve our election”, in Wolof), which brings together dozens of civil society organizations, describes the dialogue envisaged by the president as an “attempt at diversion” and judges it “unacceptable”. It demands that the election take place before April 2.
“Hot Potatoes”
After Macky Sall’s highly anticipated speech on Thursday evening, the ball is in the court of political and social actors. It is up to them to say whether they agree to suspend the date for a dialogue that Mr. Sall said he wanted to carry out on Monday and Tuesday, with the hope of reaching an agreement on Tuesday evening.
The Senegalese were supposed to go to the polls this Sunday. President Sall decreed the postponement of the election on February 3, at the cost of one of the most serious crises experienced by his country in decades. The postponement, denounced as a “constitutional coup” by the opposition, caused a commotion in public opinion and demonstrations which left four dead. The Constitutional Council finally ruled against Mr. Sall and the National Assembly.
After this constitutional veto, and despite a shared aspiration for clarification in an electorate largely attached to the democratic exercise and respect for the calendar, Mr. Sall not only left the date pending, but considered it more likely that the Senegalese would not vote not until his term officially expires on April 2.
In power since 2012, Mr. Sall dispelled doubts about whether he would leave his post on that date. He, who had justified the postponement by fear of electoral disputes and violence such as the country experienced in March 2021 and June 2023, insisted on his desire for appeasement and reconciliation. “On April 2, my mission ends at the head of Senegal,” he said, stung by the fact that his attachment to democratic principles was the subject of a “trial of intent,” in his country and abroad.
But for the date, Mr. Sall, subject to multiple national and international pressures to organize this election as quickly as possible, will have discussions Monday and Tuesday, first with the candidates then with other political and social actors. He will listen to “what the dialogue will say” and “whether consensus can be reached on what happens next.” In the absence of agreement, it will be up to the Constitutional Council to decide, he said.
“The president reassures the country,” headlined the government daily Le Soleil. On the contrary, he “puts hot potatoes back on the dialogue”, declared the newspaper Vox Populi.
An amnesty law?
“Our position is [before] April 2, otherwise it’s a crisis,” Malick Diop told AFP for Aar Sunu Election. The collective fears the exceptional situation of power vacuum in which the election would be organized. Aar Sunu Election, which mobilized several thousand people last weekend in Dakar, is maintaining its actions, including a new rally on Saturday in Dakar and a ghost town day on Tuesday, he said.
Candidate Thierno Alassane Sall accuses the president of maneuvering. Mr. Sall will select divided participants for his dialogue, he said on social media; then he will pretext the lack of consensus “to reintroduce and exclude whoever he wishes” from the list of candidates “and stay until the transfer of power” beyond April 2.
“To make things easier, Macky Sall is offering us an amnesty,” adds Thierno Alassane Sall. The president considered the possibility of provisional releases, pardons or an amnesty law, from which Ousmane Sonko and Bassirou Diomaye Faye could benefit, among others. Ousmane Sonko, the main character in a standoff with the State which has given rise to several episodes of deadly protests since 2021, has been imprisoned since July 2023 and has been disqualified from the presidential election. But the candidacy of his second, Bassirou Diomaye Faye, also detained, was validated by the Constitutional Council.
