Macky Sall will not run for a third term

2023-07-03 21:20:36

After months of dithering, Macky Sall has finally announced that he will not run for a third term in the 2024 Senegalese presidential election. France 24 looks back on the highlights of his presidency and the lively debate sparked by the possibility of a new application.

For months, he had been unclear regarding a possible third term. Senegalese President Macky Sall, in power since 2012, finally announced on Monday July 3 that he would not be a presidential candidate in February 2024.

Ardently hoped for by his supporters, the possibility of a new candidacy had for months caused a lively controversy in Senegal, his detractors accusing the president of wanting to exploit in his favor the rules of the new Constitution of the country, which he himself even passed in 2016.

Macky Sall for his part let it be understood that the Constitutional Council had decided this question and that, from the point of view of law, nothing prevented him from representing himself.

Macky Sall’s “message to the Nation” comes in a particularly tense context between the presidential camp and its main opponent, Ousmane Sonko, whose conviction in a sex scandal provoked riots of rare violence in early June that caused 16 dead.

Development and social reforms

Elected president on April 2, 2012, Macky Sall then campaigned once morest his former mentor, President Abdoulaye Wade, himself in the running for a third term.

The former Prime Minister (2004-2007), at the head of his own party, the Alliance for the Republic (APR), opposed the presidential candidacy, which he considered unconstitutional. Managing to federate a large part of the opposition, he offered himself a comfortable victory (65.80% of the vote), promising a governance of “rupture”, centered on social justice, structural reforms and development projects. .

Among its flagship reforms are the family grant – an allowance paid to 300,000 poor beneficiaries, recently expanded and upgraded in the context of inflation linked to the war in Ukraine – as well as all-out infrastructure projects: airport works, railways, new town of Diamniadio, construction of the Dakar stadium, road axis to Mali…

Although the economy has experienced clear progress in recent years in Senegal (with a GDP rising from 17 to 27 billion dollars over the last ten years), the unemployment rate remains high, above 22%, primarily affecting young people.

On the international scene, the president has distinguished himself by a proactive diplomacy, advocating the cancellation of the African debt, the strengthening of the fight once morest terrorism or even the rejection of military coups. During the rotating presidency of the African Union (February 2022-February 2023), he defended African interests in the face of the war in Ukraine as well as Africa’s candidacy for the G20.

Constitutional reform and third term

Among the other major focuses of Macky Sall’s first term was constitutional reform. While he had declared to be “in favor of limiting terms of office in time”, Macky Sall had promised during the campaign the return of the five-year term with immediate effect. However, during the organization of the referendum on this new text, adopted in March 2016, he had finally announced that he would go well to the end of his seven-year term, as recommended by the Constitutional Council. This decision was then debated, some jurists claiming that the opinion of the institution was only advisory and that the president was not required to follow it.

Dormant following the president’s re-election in 2019, the subject resurfaced during his vows of December 31, 2020. Asked by a journalist regarding the possibility of a new candidacy, he replied “neither yes nor no”.

“This debate, I will deal with it in due time (…). Today is work”, he declared a year later during an interview on France 24. Claiming to be “deeply democratic”, he then assured that he would “never take an anti-democratic or unconstitutional act”, while recalling the position of the Constitutional Council according to which his seven-year term “is legally beyond the scope of the reform since it was only valid for the future” .

Social tensions

Since these ambiguous remarks, the controversy has continued to grow between the president’s supporters, who called on him to run, and his opponents, who accused him of wanting to cling to power. In this context, the two-year prison sentence of Macky Sall’s main rival, Ousmane Sonko, for “corruption of youth” in an alleged rape case set fire to the powder, provoking two days of deadly riots in this country, long considered an island of stability in West Africa.

At the same time, in recent months, several organizations such as Amnesty International and Reporters Without Borders have warned of “the context of restriction of freedoms” in the country.

“The question of the third term added to the uncertainty we are currently experiencing in Senegal,” said Alioune Tine, founder of the Senegalese think tank Afrikajom Center, which specializes in the defense of human rights.

“Article 27 of the Constitution might not be clearer: ‘No one may exercise more than two consecutive terms’. Macky Sall affirmed for his part that he had the right to a second five-year term. We are relieved that he finally gave up,” he concludes.

Maintaining the suspense until the end, the Senegalese president had received, on Saturday, two days before his long-awaited announcement, the 475 mayors and 37 presidents of departmental councils, signatories of a petition in favor of a new candidacy. During his speech, he had signified to them “his deep gratitude”, failing to grant their wish.

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