On June 11, 2012, I made a point of alerting Macky Sall’s new regime, with a headline: “But Macky, where are we going?” There were so many rookie mistakes, so many arrogant gestures, and power seemed to be slipping away from the new head of state who had replaced President Abdoulaye Wade! And yet, Macky Sall not only had a good deal of experience of affairs of State, having already held senior government positions, but also that his team included personalities with a pedigree that spoke for itself. Warnings were considered to be the work of birds of ill omen. We would insist to the point of telling them: “You risk the wrath of the People!” (May 8, 2017). History seems to stutter in Senegal, but this time with the allure of tragedy.

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President Bassirou Diomaye Faye and his Prime Minister are novices in the management of government affairs, and will not be able to rely too much on many of their ministers to make up for their shortcomings. Most of their collaborators have only had a secretary or driver under them until the day they became members of the government. To think that these ministers are at the head of heavy administrations with several ministries grouped together, in the spirit of reducing the size of government! What’s more, the Diomaye-Sonko tandem finds itself caught up in its great promises. Denial is becoming the daily and obligatory lot for these two heads of the Executive. But the most difficult thing for this pairing is that the Prime Minister is behaving like “an opponent in power”, to use the fine phrase, the title of a scathing book by journalist Abdou Latif Coulibaly on the governance of President Abdoulaye Wade, published in 2003.

The urgency is certainly not a popularity test

Prime Minister Sonko’s first public appearance was at a conference at Dakar’s Cheikh Anta Diop University, co-hosted with French politician Jean-Luc Mélenchon. The event turned out to be a fiasco, as it revolved around a debate on homosexuality, which was highly damaging to the image of Senegal’s new authorities. Is the government trying to make up for this by organizing a day dedicated to a national human investment operation called “Set Setal National” on June 1, 2024? Once again, the mayonnaise didn’t stick. People seemed to have their minds elsewhere.

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The latest find was a gathering organized on the esplanade of the Grand Theatre in Dakar, on Sunday June 9, 2024. Spectators to this open-air theatre were brought in at great expense and motivated, more than usual, to fill the place. The event was dedicated exclusively to the youth of the Pastef party! This party demonstrated a greater capacity for mobilization than the crowd gathered yesterday in Dakar from all over Senegal. The Prime Minister, who masterminded the event, was awkwardly sectarian, preferring to commune with his party comrades rather than all other Senegalese citizens. And yet, no doubt many voted for the candidate of the “Diomaye Président” coalition, without being members of Pastef. After all, a head of government can only be accountable to his supporters. Was he afraid of meeting young people who were not automatically his supporters? The acts of discontent already expressed by large sections of the population can no longer be counted. A disenchantment that presages a violent divorce between Ousmane Sonko and the many young people who followed his political processions and caravans when he was Macky Sall’s main opponent, is making itself felt. Is the Prime Minister aware that these countless young people have expectations that cannot go unfulfilled for too long? What has the new government offered them to give them hope? Certainly nothing yet! Perhaps we’ll wait for the Prime Minister’s general policy statement.

The hardest part is that people are being chased through the streets of Dakar and have seen their economic activities, such as small delivery jobs or small shops, fought by the new government or municipal authorities who are members of Pastef. The social context is made even more difficult by the fact that these people were counting solely on these activities to earn a living, and certainly to prepare for the upcoming Tabaski feast. In general, economic activity is slowing down, and many day laborers who used to earn their daily bread on construction sites are now unemployed, because the government has decided to suspend these worksites until it has clarified certain land allocations. The government is risking social anger. What’s the logic of igniting hotbeds of tension as soon as you’re in power, especially with a population whose support you’ve obviously already won? Strategically, shouldn’t we have waited until we’d finished giving something to the socially underprivileged before subjecting them to a policy of restraint or austerity, or even having hit the haves in the first place? The economic gloom is real, and the government is failing to reassure consumers with impossible announcements about lower prices for staple foods or electricity. Frustration is spreading. The Prime Minister has finally admitted his powerlessness on this issue, contrary to his election promises.

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The disenchantment is real, all the more so as young people had believed hard in the promises that they would find work the day after taking power. So, they waited for their assignments to this or that job! And to make matters worse, the clumsy outbursts and actions of the new government authorities are easily mocked. The image of the government authorities is very poor. Ousmane Sonko is confused or caught out by his many promises and declarations. Intellectual circles, who believed in his promises to fill major public jobs by means of calls for candidates, are disillusioned. Their embarrassment was even greater when they discovered that the “Project” for the systemic transformation of Senegal for which they had campaigned, at the cost of many human lives, did not yet exist! It was a real deceit.

It’s becoming arduous to be a friend of Ousmane Sonko!

It is worth noting that an essential and fundamental act of public governance, such as the decree on the distribution of state services, which theoretically would have been signed on April 5, 2024, was not made public until last Friday, June 7, 2024, i.e. more than two months later. Even though public opinion clamoured for it; even though the document appears to be riddled with anachronisms! We won’t insult them by believing that the highest authorities of the State were still working on the text all this time, in order to agree on the attributions of the different administrations. In opposition, they said they didn’t need a period of grace and pointed out the shortcomings of the regime they were fiercely criticizing. But the most difficult thing is the melodrama currently being played out by the Prime Minister. Every time the government does something, its critics come up with a scathing retort in the form of a video or publication in which the Prime Minister says, supports or advocates the exact opposite.  Ousmane Sonko, who was too prolix, not to say too talkative for a politician, finds himself systematically confused by his own words, deeds and gestures. As long as he was an opponent, he could wade into populism to the point of losing himself in his contradictions, because supporters could be indulgent. But now, as Prime Minister, he is losing all credibility and putting his friends in a very uncomfortable position.

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The reality of power makes him realize what’s at stake and converts him to the idea that he can’t do without the “system”. MP Guy Marius Sagna can’t swallow the big one. The debate on indebtedness, which the Pastef party found inappropriate and harmful to Senegal, was put on the back burner, as was the debate on the new currency advocated a short while ago. So are they resorting to the indebtedness that they always condemned, and are now indebting the country in the worst possible manner. Worse still, the government is unorthodoxly borrowing.

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The first bond issue proved devastating for the government’s credibility. No one knows how the intermediary bank JP Morgan was chosen, or at what price and cost the bonds were issued. The reservations expressed by Birahim Seck of the Forum Civil are quite legitimate. Promises of good governance are being undermined by strong suspicions of illegal interest-taking, given that former Senegalese executives of JP Morgan are members of the Pastef party.  How can you reprofile a debt at a rate of around 6% for a new price of 7.75%, a rate which, incidentally, seems too expensive for Senegal’s borrowing habits? The simple fact that the Minister of the Economy and Planning, the prolix Abdourahmane Sarr, has suddenly disappeared from the radar shows the seriousness of the situation.

Sonko, the perfect fuse for Bassirou Diomaye Faye

In a presidential regime like Senegal’s, in the spirit of the French Fifth Republic, the Prime Minister is a veritable fuse for the Head of State. It’s true that President Bassirou Diomaye Faye owes his election primarily to his Prime Minister, but the situation in which he finds himself with an intrusive, not to say dominant, Prime Minister is bound to cause problems. The Prime Minister’s over-exposure, alongside a retreating Head of State, will ultimately prove fatal to Ousmane Sonko. He is the target of all discontent and risks ending up giving the impression that “Ousmane Sonko is the problem”. Especially as President Faye remains courteous with the religious and customary authorities – with everyone, one might even say – at a time when the Prime Minister is multiplying sources of tension and petty quarrels with the media, activists, the political class and economic and social circles. And, without the slightest regard for the principle of the separation of powers, he takes the liberty of announcing that he is “sweeping out Justice”!  The more Bassirou Diomaye Faye shows himself to be passive and, in the background, the more Ousmane Sonko takes up space and doesn’t seem to set any limits for himself, pushing the limits to the point of making crude intrusions into areas such as diplomacy and military matters. As if to show that he’s the real “Boss”! A Prime Minister cannot remain for long the “boss” of a President of the Republic even where he had him elected!

By Madiambal DIAGNE / mdiagne@lequotidien.sn

  • Translation by Ndey T. SOSSEH