The first round of the presidential election was due to be held on 25 February 2024, but, in the end it will be held on 24 March 2024. Since 3 February 2024, Senegal has been in the most perilous of situations, and the uncertainty continues. The political class continues to play with fire, and to scare us.

It’s crazy! Did they undertake all this, only to end up with Ousmane Sonko, Bassirou Diomaye Faye and their hundreds of thugs free and even amnestied, and the dissolved Pastef resurrected? Did they undertake all this to find themselves with Amadou Ba still the candidate of Benno bokk yaakaar (Bby), who is attracting excited crowds of militants and supporters? Did they set out to do all this only to find themselves with Karim Meïssa Wade and Ousmane Sonko still out of the running for the presidency, because they failed to get the Constitutional Council to reshuffle the list of selected candidates?

Read the column – Maïmouna and our Guilty Conscience

Macky Sall’s ordeal was to realise that many of his supporters could no longer follow him in his absurd hostility towards his own candidate Amadou Ba, and that he felt almost forced to renew his support for him. Surely it was becoming impossible for him to stand up in front of the world and call for a vote for another candidate! In defence of his collaborators and party comrades, whom he may have perceived as betraying him, he never clearly told them of his intention to reject Amadou Ba’s candidacy, which he previously sold to them publicly with strong arguments. Perhaps it was up to others to guess what Macky Sall had in mind! So, it would be hard for him to gloat on the evening of an Amadou Ba victory if he failed to stand by his side during the campaign. An opposition victory would also be his own defeat.

Read the column – Forgive Ousmane Sonko? Yes, but Senegal Deserves a Repented!

We seem to be in the same situation as in France, where the history of the Fifth Republic sometimes reveals a lack of enthusiasm on the part of the outgoing President in favour of his protégé. François Mitterrand paid lip service to Lionel Jospin against Jacques Chirac in 1995, and the same Jacques Chirac did minimum service for Nicolas Sarkozy against Ségolène Royal in 2007. In Kenya in 2022, Uhuru Kenyatta played against his own camp by choosing to support his opponent Raïla Odinga, to the detriment of his own Vice-President William Ruto.

Ousmane Sonko’s every flower for Macky Sall is an insult to morality!
The people of Senegal are stunned to discover that Ousmane Sonko has a new friend in Macky Sall after his release from prison. Going forward, he is sparing him his ferocious insults, diatribes and murderous quips, which are now aimed exclusively at the villainous Amadou Ba. The rehabilitated Pastef leader went so far as to tell his troops: « We mustn’t give in to emotion and we mustn’t fight the wrong battle. Senegal still needs Macky Sall’s wisdom, and Amadou Ba is far worse than Macky Sall. I can imagine how embarrassed Macky Sall would be to hear this! In fact, in my book Amadou Ba, the last step, published in November 2023, I recount how Macky Sall and his regime made Amadou Ba pay for trying to save his head or protect the former young tax and property inspector whose trade union and political activities were giving the state authorities a hard time. All of Amadou Ba’s setbacks with Macky Sall stemmed from accusations of alleged collusion with Ousmane Sonko. Ousmane Sonko’s family should also be feeling a certain unease, especially his mother, Khady Ngom, who has never ceased to express her gratitude to Amadou Ba for various courtesies; or his wife Anna Diamanka, whose hand was asked for on behalf of Ousmane Sonko by Amadou Ba himself. No doubt he is being cynically ironic when Ousmane Sonko lauds Macky Sall. I refuse to believe that he could be sincere! And as no burden would be too heavy for the poor mule Amadou Ba, the latter whom Ousmane Sonko has spared since he entered politics, he suddenly charges him at will. At the Ziguinchor stage, he declared without batting an eyelid: « Amadou Ba did everything he could to keep Diomaye and me in prison. Amadou Ba organised all the attacks on me in recent years. »

A great humiliation for the victims and all those who defended Macky Sall and/or the State of Senegal against Ousmane Sonko

Trying to pacify Senegal by releasing the Pastef party thugs and their leaders is undoubtedly a miscalculation. It cannot be said enough that Senegal was peaceful throughout the months that Ousmane Sonko and his henchmen were in prison. If there was a brief upsurge in violence on 9 February 2024, it was precisely because the presidential election, initially scheduled for 25 February 2024, was postponed, without any convincing reason. In other words, the barbaric attack on journalist Maïmouna Ndour Faye on 29 February 2024, who everyone knows was being threatened by Pastef party troops, is undoubtedly a dramatic consequence of this wave of releases of groups of troublemakers. Who thought of the victims when they granted amnesty to the terrorists? 

Read the column – Macky and the Transport Revolution

It is announced that these victims will be identified and compensated by the State. Tell me what responsibility the State has to see citizens ransacking the property of other citizens, killing them, injuring them, insulting them and dragging their reputation through the mud. Before his departments finish taking stock of us, the countless victims, Macky Sall will have already left power… Who will set a scale to compensate us for our pain and suffering? The judges, police officers and gendarmes, who have fulfilled their duty to protect the State, feel humiliated. The situation will be even more regrettable if these hordes of demolishers resume their service with sinister acts against people, private and public property, but above all against institutions. Every time they beat us up, we’ll remember that it was Macky Sall who left us with this gangrene and who is now taking it easy in his exile in Morocco. Ousmane Sonko has already prepared his people to violently contest the results of an election that Bassirou Diomaye Faye would not win!

Should this release be another obstacle in the path of Amadou Ba’s campaign? There is every reason to believe so, but there is a certain virtue to it. If voters were to choose Bassirou Diomaye Faye, they would do so with full knowledge of the facts. No one will be able to claim that they voted blindly and knew nothing about the candidate, his ideas, his shortcomings or failings, as an excuse or extenuating circumstance. Indeed, the involvement in the campaign of the main leaders of the « Diomaye President » campaign gave a better idea of the unpreparedness and vacuity of the discourse of these people who aspire to the highest offices. Every time their foal opens his mouth, many voters realise the heresy of thinking of entrusting the country’s destiny to such a person. « Perhaps it would have been better if he had never spoken again », lamented a member of the campaign management team. In the end, the spin-doctors are going to expose their candidate to a minimum, to avoid him uttering anything outrageous. Gaffer is also the picturesque side of an election campaign.

Not a word of compassion for the dead victims, but Ousmane Sonko, narcissistic and egocentric to a fault, pushes the indecency to the point of talking about his great comfort in prison with a (presidential?) « suite » that was able to accommodate wedding nights with a new wife, the third in line. He tells us nothing, because the whole of Dakar was able to see from the video calls of the dismal Malian fixer, Ousmane Yara, the red colour of the armchairs in Ousmane Sonko’s prison « suite » at Cap Manuel prison. Poor Bassirou Diomaye Faye was cloistered in a 9 square metre room (Ousmane Sonko dixit) until he called Amadou, Macky Sall’s son, for help! As he himself says. Time to confess. Ousmane Sonko, for his part, revealed that he had discussed with and asked President Macky Sall to remain in power. He thus confesses to being part of the group of conspirators behind the postponement of the presidential election. In so doing, he is publicly acting out his Cap Manuel protocol, though he used to mock the Rebeuss or Doha, his rivals Idrissa Seck, Khalifa Ababacar Sall and Karim Wade. As if to rub salt in the wound, Ousmane Sonko and his gang consider themselves to be victims, and some are calling on the State to make reparations. Ousmane Sonko took Senegal to the Court of Justice of Ecowas to claim compensation for damages he suffered, to the tune of 1,500 billion francs, i.e. 25% of the country’s annual budget.

A beautiful legacy damaged

« When you miss your exit, it’s as sad as not succeeding in your mission » (Carlos Ghosn). Macky Sall will always be blamed for having sought to torpedo the electoral process, for having asked his parliamentary majority and his party to endorse all of Karim Wade’s initiatives aimed at preventing the presidential election from being held. If this election was able to take place, it is because they did not succeed, held back by the strong institutions of the State of Senegal. We can congratulate ourselves on the fact that in Senegal, a head of state, however powerful he may be, cannot confiscate the democratic process. We saw it with Abdoulaye Wade in 2012, and again with Macky Sall in 2024. However, it is impossible not to be enraged by the fact that President Macky Sall, who had managed to carve out one of the finest images of himself in Africa and the world, is now having to line the walls, simply because he has tried one wrong move too many. This is all the more regrettable because friends had to try to stop him, not to say save him from himself and a harmful entourage. When you see the quality of the politicians who wanted to sing with him the song of the postponement of the presidential election, you realise just how far-fetched it is. Some, like me, will be able to console themselves by considering that he was no longer in his spirits. This is no doubt a convenient explanation. But never mind!

By Madiambal DIAGNE / mdiagne@lequotidien.sn

  • Translation by Ndey T. SOSSEH / Serigne S. DIAGNE