In some circumstances, we would not like to be right too soon. But in those that our country is facing, I could say that nothing surprises me in the way this regime is desacralizing the sacred and perverting institutions, without any decency. The cavalier decision to dissolve the National Assembly buries hope for some. For others, it is an additional argument for the election campaign. For those who, like me, expected nothing less than the worst, the deceptive measure that weakens republican institutions only confirms an already clear trajectory: Pastef is outside our republican arc. It is a dangerous party for democracy and the Republic, which it devitalizes in favour of an agenda of rupture with the institutional order erected in 1960, in which the political parties have confined themselves, despite their divergences and episodes of violence. In the opposition, the choice of insurrection as a mode of political action, the numerous attacks on civil peace, anti-parliamentarianism, sacrificial speeches, calls for the murder of the head of state, the refusal to comply with the Law and the denial of contradictory debate had led to eruptive violence in the country and the dissolution of this anti-republican movement.

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The amnesty law, the underground negotiations and the determination of a large section of the social body to break with the alternation between the government parties to try the Pastef experience and make Senegal taste its populist moment, led this formation to power. But populism – just like fascism – knows how to benefit from the infrastructures of democracy to come to power before fighting ardently to deconstruct it by illegal acts and crude manoeuvres.

The first acts taken were in violation of our laws. In particular, the decree that dismissed the President of the Supreme Court. Then there were the scabrous appointments, the inflammatory speeches for those who are supposed to be in charge, the recurring attacks on secularism as well as the discourteous remarks of certain leaders towards the opposition, religious brotherhoods, the inappropriate positions towards our strategic allies such as Saudi Arabia, Morocco and France.

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In many circles of influence internationally, Senegal’s voice is discredited; public and private decision-makers cannot understand how the lowering, first in terms of discourse and then in methods, has been able to affect our country in such a short time. The State of Senegal has always embodied prestige and respect abroad, but certain appointments and especially the remarks of great irresponsibility of those in power have seriously damaged the country’s image on the international scene.

To return to the dissolution, the law is unequivocal. The National Assembly can be dissolved after two years of legislature according to the terms of article 87 of the Constitution. But the flimsiness of the arguments invoked refers to incompetence, as well as to a lack of seriousness. How can one invoke a usurpation by the Assembly of constitutional powers devolved to others? How can one dare to invoke the argument of the absence of a budget orientation debate? Finally, how, in a democracy, in front of all the televisions in the world, can one reproach the Assembly for exercising its constitutional power to reject a bill?

What is confirmed for those still in doubt is the open manifestation of a guardianship; we were treated to a nominee candidate; now comes the time for a proxy leader. A man prevented by his own turpitudes from competing in universal suffrage allows himself the luxury of having at his disposal a signatory of decrees for his pleasure. Senegal has just enriched modern political science, because this Senegalese model of a named person who commands is unprecedented. Our country has the capacity to rise very high when circumstances require it, but it also harbours this facetious art of sinking into ridicule.

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Pastef is not a republican party. In five months, its leaders have violated several laws without much embarrassment in front of a crowd of ignorant people with a childish din and in front of intellectuals and activists of the « civil society » who are waiting for symbolic rewards. The most obvious violation of the law is that relating to article 55 of the Constitution, concerning the Declaration of General Policy, by means of laughable quibbles. The whims on the Internal Regulations satisfied, the person concerned disappeared like the Arlesienne. His bluff led to the betrayal of the given word and to the trivialization of the presidential signature and the institutions.

Personally, I told all my friends that he would not do this Dpg. The person concerned knows that he does not know, that he cannot; that it is painful for him to argue, or even to hold a banal conversation in the official language of our country. However, assuming one’s responsibilities is a mark of dignity and decency with which the noblest souls are endowed. The nobility of the exercise of the State cannot transform what is damaged and insignificant. An ordinary man can never rise to the greatness required by the service of the State. 

Arbitrary arrests, violation of Article 55 of the Constitution, bans on leaving the country contrary to our laws, various threats against politicians, the press and some citizens, insults to our foreign partners are only the first acts of incompetent but above all anti-republican people. The rest will be more brutal because populism works through several levers, two of which seem useful to recall: permanent conflict and the use of crude manipulation. They will try, in order to mask their economic shortcomings already exposed by the IMF, to restrict public freedoms, to use the weapon of foreign conspiracy via the internal fifth column, to disseminate fake news and finally to discredit any opposing voice. Pastef has already shown how resistant it is to contradiction and how its ground and social media flock can be violent and rude.

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But their will will face the demand of the sovereign People in terms of democracy, expression of freedoms and respect for universal suffrage. No need to be a fortune teller to predict the failure of Pastef for three reasons. The People have been fermented in the free choice of their leaders’, authoritarianism cannot be imposed on them. Pastef has shown its technical incompetence and political immaturity in less than a semester; Its leaders have neither the state culture nor the technical competence required to govern successfully. Finally, they do not know how to fight intelligently and subtly, given their lack of political knowledge and their ignorance of history. Reality is the enemy of populists and demagogues; faced with the many and diverse problems of citizens, they have no solutions. They are called to pass a short time and disappear from the political chessboard.

My concern, however, is the residual violence that is raging in the social body in light of four years of chaos promoted by Pastef. Today’s leaders’ risk being the next targets of the crowds they had thrown into the streets in the name of « Mortal Kombat ». The end of the Pastef adventure risks being brutal. Everything will have to be rebuilt behind it: a Nation, a State and an ambition, because these people are leading Senegal to moral ruin and economic bankruptcy.

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Post-Scriptum: Friends from here and elsewhere have expressed surprise at the silence of academics and intellectuals who were once bold in drafting petitions and collective platforms on the sacredness of the Constitution, respect for one’s word, and liberticidal excesses… I know my country’s elite well enough not to be surprised by their cowardice, their opportunistic positions, their miseries and their little arrangements. Their silence in the face of the imprisonment of Imam Ahmed Tidiane Ndao, the activists Bah Diakhaté, Ahmed Suzanne Camara and Cheikhna Keïta, the summons of two journalists for having reported information that to date is not denied by those concerned, the violations of the law, the various denials and the threats targeting the press and the republican opposition do not surprise me. Many among this elite were the third line of a coordinated offensive to fight a man and his regime.  We must regret the lack of transparency and courage in the dissemination of ideas and in the expression of the place from which one speaks. An intellectual has a freedom guaranteed by the Constitution to take political and ideological positions, however radical they may be, in a democracy; but his honour lies in the courage and dignity of assuming responsibility as well as taking responsibility for oneself.

By Hamidou ANNE – hamidou.anne@lequotidien.sn 

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