Rédaction Africa Links 24 with pierre Dieme
Published on 2024-02-29 09:14:43
His last and vain maneuvers aimed at changing the rules of the game, not during the course but at the end of the game, prove to those who still doubt that he has lost his grip and therefore all contact with reality. The outgoing president Macky Sall, long considered a “political game master,” now finds himself caught in his own game. Reputedly an expert in manipulating the State-Party to establish his personal power, he is now cornered into playing a double game by affirming that “the law must prevail” while manipulating the fundamental law that is supposed to be a Constitution tailored and retailored for autocratic purposes!
However, our “constitutional monarch” is mistaken about both the country and the time, as today’s Africa is not the Africa of yesterday. While the entire continent, with its diaspora in the West and East, watches closely the major electoral crisis unfolding in the oldest French colony in Africa, it is simply because it exposes the fundamental contradictions of the contemporary world.
The evident collapse of the so-called “West African democratic model” confirms that there can be no exceptions to the laws of history, neither in Senegal nor elsewhere in Africa and nowhere in the world… Let’s evaluate this based on facts. How could a young “liberal” politician, elected by direct universal suffrage, in a dozen years of “republican” power, transform into a bloodthirsty and ruthless dictator? Answering this question with common places such as “power drives people mad…” or that “politics is the art of deception and lies” would be too simplistic to enlighten the African or foreign public.
If we recall that the first president of Senegal’s “peanut republic,” L. Senghor, founder of the State-Party system, ruled for twenty years before installing his heir, A. Diouf, who in turn ruled for two decades before being dismissed while seeking an additional mandate. And that the advent of Me A. Wade marked the mere substitution of the PDS State for the defunct PS State, despite the referendum adoption of a “new” Constitution in 2001. Indeed, except for the ideological labeling of the State-Party, shifting from “democratic socialism” to “democratic liberalism,” nothing fundamentally changed in the autocratic nature of the president’s personal power.
To the point that at the end of his two terms, Me Wade attempted, under the guise of yet another constitutional maneuver, to impose a third term using his parliamentary rubber stamp for the benefit of his son Karim, then “minister of everything”! Only a massive and unexpected popular uprising saved us from this “liberal” crime. Finally, last but not least, in the absence of his own son, his political heir, Macky Sall, will ascend to the “supreme magistrature.” The latter will soon follow in his master’s footsteps, notably by renouncing the necessary “re-foundation of the State and society” to which he had formally subscribed by signing without reservation the Democratic Governance Charter of the National Conferences.
An eloquent proof of this will be provided later by a young tax expert named Ousmane Sonko, in his book “Oil and Gas in Senegal: Chronicle of a Spoilation” (2017). It will be revealed that upon taking office at the “Governor-General Palace,” the new Head of State, learning of the terms of the contract between his government and the shady private company Petrotim of the infamous Frank Timis, simply replaced the name of his brother Aliou Sall with that of his predecessor’s son, Karim Wade, as the manager of this ruinous pilfering enterprise! This is the starting point for the merciless confrontation that will pit the former Tax Inspector, now the sole and only deputy of the “Ndawi Askan Wi” Coalition (2017) against President Macky Sall.
Since then, this adversity has grown to the point that at the end of this term, during which Sonko’s singleton figure gradually imposed itself as the main, if not the only representative of true opposition. It was decided to confront this troublemaker and his supporters from the Pastef (Patriots of Senegal for Work, Ethics, and Fraternity) head-on. Hence, a series of politico-legal provocations accompanied by a wave of savage repression resulting in dozens of deaths by firearms and hundreds of political prisoners under various whimsical pretexts (March 2021)… Moreover, in 2022, during the renewal of the National Assembly, all the titular candidates of the national list of “Yewwi Askan Wi” (YAW), the coalition he led, were arbitrarily disqualified. Despite this deceitful move, at the end of this biased legislative scrutiny, the outgoing majority found itself in an unfavorable runoff for the first time, with numerous alternates from the YAW list elected. An unprecedented occurrence in the parliamentary annals of the country…
Following this unforeseen historical turning point, panic definitively seized the leader of the APR State-Party, who made the fateful decision to put an end once and for all to this deadly threat to his regime, but instead a source of hope for the people, especially the youth. Thus, starting in June 2023, a series of operations to dismantle Pastef and liquidate its political leadership were launched: mass murders and imprisonments across the country, the banning and dissolution of the party, the closure of its national headquarters, attempts to seize its accounts and audio-visual means, etc. Nevertheless, this campaign of white terror aimed exclusively at the officials and activists of Pastef ended in a pathetic failure, as it had the exact opposite effect to that intended: strengthening and consolidating the spirit of resistance within the party’s ranks and amplifying support and solidarity among the population; not to mention the attention and sympathy in the African and international opinion…
Moreover, as the presidential election drew nearer, the combined pressure from our fellow citizens and other African compatriots, along with the feigned or sincere disenchantment of what is commonly referred to as the “international community,” ultimately forced the outgoing president to publicly renounce his candidacy for a third unconstitutional term, putting an end to his shameful “neither yes nor no,” while reaffirming his alleged “right to run.” Understand who can… At any rate, now “out of the game,” while persisting in behaving as the “game master,” this outgoing president, already on the threshold of the exit, intends to continue changing the rules of the game during the match…
His last and vain maneuvers aimed at changing the rules of the game, not during the course but at the end of the game, prove to those who still doubt that he has lost his grip and therefore all contact with reality. Why release hundreds of political prisoners without trial and at the same time imprison Ngagne D. Touré? How dare he propose yet another “dialogue” after having done as he pleases with previous “consensuses”? Why wait until the end to present a “bill of amnesty” that strangely resembles a certain “Ezzan law” of sad memory, when everyone knows that it primarily, if not exclusively, aims to whitewash himself, his close ones, and the clique of insatiable predators around him?
Moreover, the presence by his side, or rather at the helm, of his former mentor, the former leader of the previous State-Party, with his offspring sequestered in the sinister Qatari shadow, especially for the ultimate juridico-political dirty tricks, all this should be enough to dismiss any political offer from the so-called “liberal” or “socialist” camps, whatever it may be. You have already demonstrated your notorious incompetence. The only, unique, and ultimate decision that your compatriots await from you is to announce the date of the first round of the presidential election, within the temporal limits set by the Constitutional Court. Everything else is mere nonsense or lies!
The most likely hypothesis is that the outgoing president and his old and new governing cliques are manipulating us, or, as vulgarly said, laughing at our expense. Who is the outgoing president making fun of? An imminent response in the coming days. BY DIALO DIOP
Read the original article(French) on Dakar Matin
