Published on : 25/06/2022 – 11:00
Tension has risen sharply in recent weeks in Senegal with the disqualification of the national list of incumbent candidates in the legislative elections of a major opposition coalition. Three people died at the end of the day on June 18 when a demonstration not authorized by the authorities provoked violence. Opposition politicians and dozens of people were arrested. The legislative elections scheduled for July 31 promise to be tense.
The political and social context a few weeks before this electoral meeting is tense and the widely shared feeling is that of an impasse which runs the risk of a repetition of a cycle of protests, repressions and therefore violence. This feeling emerged at the end of a virtual round table that WATHI organized on June 22 on the issues of these legislative elections.
For us, it was initially a question of examining the political offers of the coalitions of parties launched in the race, of appreciating the interest of these legislative elections for the voters and for the political actors and of wondering regarding what might change these elections according to the results of each other. In the meantime, pre-election controversies and decisions by the institutions responsible for validating party lists have taken precedence over all other considerations.
The virtual round table to which we had invited four attentive and informed observers of the Senegalese political and institutional scene, highlighted the limits of the electoral provisions which have undergone many major changes in recent years: the introduction of sponsorship by citizens to filter the candidacies for the various elections, the implementation of the law on gender parity but also changes in the process of examination and validation of the lists of candidacies. Clearly, the declared desire to improve the electoral process did not produce more serenity and confidence between the political actors.
Is the fundamental problem that of a crisis of confidence in the institutions involved in the electoral process, as we see in many other countries in the region?
So yes. It should first be noted that the Senegalese electoral framework is quite tried and that it has made it possible to organize credible elections regularly over the years and even two decades. We must also remember, and one of our guests did, the journalist and political analyst Barka Ba, remember that the elections in Senegal have rarely been as calm and peaceful as we tend to think. Violence around elections is not new, although it has always been relatively limited compared to many African countries.
But with regard to the current process, Mamadou Seck, who has extensive experience of electoral processes, like the academic Mamadou Lamine Sarr, professor of political science, highlighted inconsistencies and decisions that are difficult to understand, such as this dissociation between the list of incumbent candidates and the list of substitute candidates presented by the coalitions. While there is obviously no reason to contest the decision of an institution which decides in the last resort, the Constitutional Council, the undeniable result of the series of astonishing errors committed by the coalitions of parties themselves, then decisions of the Directorate General of Elections and the Constitutional Council, it is a political deadlock that creates a dangerous impasse.
In the short term, we need a political dialogue to avoid the aggravation of tensions, you seem to say
Yes, we don’t see any other options. Again, we must be careful not to underestimate the possibility that a situation that we think we can control escapes at some point from all control, that of government authorities with law enforcement, like that of their political rivals, opposition leaders frustrated by the turn of the electoral process. Mrs. Rockiatou Gassama, President of the Senegalese Council of Women, did not fail to recall during the exchanges that Senegal was surrounded by a “ring of fire”, with serious security and political crises in the region. Now is not the time for this pole of stability to start playing with fire too.
The virtual round table, in partnership with the Konrad Adenauer foundation, can be found on the YouTube channel
