Rarely has a woman been so talked regarding in politics in Senegal: Aminata Touré is stirring up trouble in the corridors of power by attacking head-on the president she served and, through him, “patriarchal attitudes”, she assures.
It has already ruined the tiny parliamentary majority on which President Macky Sall was counting until the presidential election of 2024, towards which all minds are turned. She intends to continue to shake the device and cherishes the project to compete in the presidential election, if necessary once morest this same Macky Sall who maintains a total uncertainty regarding his intentions.
“What we are talking regarding here is a woman who challenges a great of this world,” she told AFP in her oceanfront villa in Dakar.
“Someone has to challenge this man,” adds Aminata Touré, speaking of the president of whom she was prime minister for less than a year between 2013 and 2014 and who, she says, betrayed her.
Aminata Touré, 60, says she was loyal for more than ten years, from the time she left the United Nations to join the team of the man who was not yet president, until September 12, 2022 when , at the last minute, Macky Sall preferred another for the post of President of the Assembly, the second person in the State.
Macky Sall had promised her the job if she agreed to lead the July election campaign for the Benno Bokk Yakaar presidential coalition, she says. He dumped her because he knew she would object to him serving a third term, she said.
The subject is set to dominate the debate in the coming months. Macky Sall, elected in 2012, re-elected in 2019, remains unclear regarding his plans. The Constitution limits the number of terms to two. A candidacy would risk causing great tension, as that of outgoing President Abdoulaye Wade did in 2012, in a country renowned as an island of stability in West Africa, but no stranger to political violence.
– Knives drawn –
War is now declared between Aminata Touré and the presidential camp.
She invokes the principles that have guided her since her first youthful engagements, including in a Trotskyist organization.
Her detractors decry her as part of a system whose rules she would not accept despite never having won a significant mandate. The legislative elections with Aminata Touré as head of the list left the presidential majority diminished.
The fight once morest injustice and for women’s rights has always been part of the struggles of this daughter of a doctor and midwife.
The one described as a tomboy as a child started working for a family planning organization. She joined the United Nations Population Fund in the mid-1990s.
“She was always bold and courageous when it came to standing up for what she believed in,” recalls Leyla Sharafi, who worked for her at UNFPA.
After her studies in France and her professional years in the United States, she returned to join Macky Sall. Minister of Justice between 2012 and 2013, she is at the origin of a law allowing Senegalese women married to foreigners to transmit their nationality to their children, as was possible for men.
– “Like a sister” –
Senegal is seen as a good student of parity in politics; 44% of seats in the new Assembly are held by women, a record in West Africa. But patriarchal attitudes and laws remain deeply rooted.
Aminata Touré believes that a man would not have been treated like her. “We do not offer women the same opportunities to occupy positions of power,” she wrote in a column in the Guardian. “Patriarchal attitudes persist”.
She left the presidential group in Parliament with a bang, causing the president to lose the absolute majority by one vote. Accusing the Head of State of having chosen a relative to chair the Assembly, she presented a text once morest nepotism. The presidential group is threatening to have her removed from office.
Benno Bokk Yakaar continues to consider Aminata Touré “like a sister”, said a spokesperson, Pape Mahawa Diouf, but “we will defend our majority until the end”.
“We missed the seat of President of the Assembly, so we have to aim higher. President, this is the next challenge,” she said while maintaining some ambiguity regarding this candidacy.
Are the Senegalese ready to elect a woman president? “We will see, we will ask the Senegalese people the question”.
