Opposition leaders fail to live up up to their word once more, and won’t apply their own standards to themselves.

Almost all of these new opposition parliamentarians aspire to become the President of the National Assembly of Senegal! The list is very long: Barthélemy Dias, Ahmed Aïdara, Birame Soulèye Diop, Oumar Sy, Cheikh Abdou Bara Dolly Mbacké, Mamadou Lamine Thiam.  Maybe other final candidates will come out of who knows what hats? Some feared that the upcoming election of the Executive of the new National Assembly would be a headache for President Macky Sall and his coalition, Benno bokk yaakaar (Bby),  but we see that the opposition also has its fair share of this ordeal. All blows are allowed between allies who discover themselves as worst enemies. I admit that I smile, because I could see it coming. In a column dated May 16, 2022, I warned: « The deep divisions, which emerged following the nominations in the legislative elections of July 2022, should challenge any voter. By sealing what they call a strategic alliance, the leaders of Yaw and Wallu Senegal announced that their brainchild’s intended mission is to impose cohabitation on President Macky Sall. Only, if by chance they manage to obtain the parliamentary majority the day after the election of July 31, 2022, will these opponents who tear themselves apart, with invective words not to say rip their guts, for positions on the nomination lists, agree on the name of a Prime Minister and/or a President of the National Assembly and on the names of the members of a government team?  It will be hello mess. The confusion would be even greater if the electoral coalitions appeared as vulgar conglomerates of political figures, without any structural link or political agreement of government or on any program. Indeed, the formula is quite simple, to get together for the maximum number of seats of deputies and we will see after. »

It is exactly this spectacle that we are witnessing! Would they manage to save what could still remain of their credibility in relation to all the commitments and professions of faith, of selflessness and to place the fate of the populations above all concerns? Their latest agenda is to multiply the parliamentary groups and thus obtain the maximum number of positions to be able to offer a highly paid seat to each of the contenders. Like what, the opposition too would not deprive itself of feeding on the beast!

Ousmane Sonko Cannot Lecture Barthélemy Dias or Macky Sall

It is in the same vein as the other denial of the opposition to the word given and hammered, with touching sincerity, before the people who, each time, have been called to witness. In the run-up to the local elections of 23 January 2022, the Yewwi askan wi (Yaw) Coalition adopted a charter that was trumpeted as a major and decisive step forward in cleaning up public life and transparency. This charter included an irrevocable commitment to put an end to the accumulation of elective mandates. In these columns, we applauded the initiative, especially given that since July 5, 2021, we had asked for the adoption of reforms of the laws governing public life in order to put an end to the accumulation of elective mandates. Ousmane Sonko’s Pastef party had been at the origin of such a proposal in the Yaw charter.  Moreover, the day after the legislative elections of July 31, 2022, Abass Fall, one of the main leaders of Pastef, reminded through many media that this provision was non-negotiable and threatened sanctions against any recalcitrant. In the end, they will, once again, not keep their word! It must be said that it will be difficult for Ousmane Sonko, admittedly not elected for the new legislature, to lecture Barthélemy Dias, Mayor of Dakar, or Ahmed Aïdara, Mayor of Guédiawaye, or Birame Soulèye Diop, Mayor of a district in Thiès, or Bara Gaye, Mayor of Yeumbeul, or Oumar Cissé, Mayor of the city of Rufisque. Indeed, Ousmane Sonko, elected Mayor of Ziguinchor, since January 23, 2022, for more than eight months continues to combine his mayoral functions with those of parliamentarians, until the end of the legislature, precisely on September 12, 2022, with the installation of the new National Assembly. Or would Ousmane Sonko make his own, the adage « Do what I say, not what I do? »

To remove this thorn from their feet, members of Pastef have just found the alibi that a provision prohibiting the accumulation of mandates should be regulated by a law but not by the mood of the people. Is this a matter of mood or solemn commitment?  Yet, of course, eminent personalities advocated in an angelic paradigm, the primacy of ethics over the rule of law itself. By speculating on a possible new candidacy of President Macky Sall in 2024, they indicated without blinking that the question of such a candidacy should not be of a legal but rather a moral nature. For, the morals and ethics of a man, who leads or aspires to lead his fellow citizens, should be placed above all else. We could say that now under this register, there is a draw! It will remain that we will always have to believe that as opponents, they can take liberties with the most elementary laws and moral rules but that they will be virtuous once in power! We were used to the opposite. As with the opponent François Mitterrand, author of the book The Permanent Coup, in which he did not forgive anything to Charles de Gaulle and when he came to power in 1981, threw everything to the nettles and wallowed in everything he denounced. Or perhaps Abdoulaye Wade and Abdou Diouf?

However, we observed that all the fiery speeches on virtuous governance were quickly forgotten. In the face of municipal governance, opposition councillors have shown mismanagement and nepotism by distributing obviously fictitious jobs, at least unnecessary, to their friends and comrades. This is indeed the case at the Dakar City Hall, where Barthélemy Dias has discovered a new soul as an employer of unemployed activists. Municipal councillors of Ziguinchor equally rush in with the stretchers against the recruitment made by their mayor and especially to castigate his multiple trips by plane, with his following, at the expense of the taxpayer of Ziguinchor. Worse, in less than half of a year, scandals have seriously splashed many mayors of Yaw, linked to the predatory management of the land of their local communities or cases of misappropriation of social assistance and other relief intended for the needy. We could say that it has started well! More seriously, at the City of Dakar we note that between March and May 2022 Barthélémy Dias officially spent (without a call for tenders it is said) 2 billion. That is to say more than what sent Khalifa Sall to prison, for his management from 2010 to 2014!

A legislature set to be the shortest in Senegal’s parliamentary history

We can nourish big fears for the 14th legislature which opens next Monday, September 12, 2022. The strong representation of the opposition could augur debates and measures that would improve the conditions of public governance.  But there is a high risk of disillusionment because by going through the lists of parliamentarians, we realise that in terms of intellectual and social profiles and competence, the quality of parliamentary representation does not appear to be much better than in previous legislatures.  It is added that the discussions will be chaotic because there are many, the boastful who will sit in Parliament and who are not enlightened by any light, and who base their political action on bad faith, lies, denigration, insolence and the populism of doubtful worth. The skirmishes are thus set to reveal situations of dishonour for the National Assembly. Already, fist-fight sessions between members in the corridors of the National Assembly were deplored, but this time around we risk regretting them within the Hemicycle itself. Certainly, but the legitimate ambition of a continuous improvement of the quality of the Senegalese democratic system should prohibit it.

On another note, the new legislature should not last more than two years, this is to say the constitutional duration strictly to allow the early dissolution of the National Assembly. Indeed, the person (whoever he will be) to be elected at the end of the presidential election of 2024, will be well led, not to say obliged, to dissolve the National Assembly in September 2024.  In the event that President Macky Sall wins, he will have to seek to take advantage of the new political dynamic triggered with his re-election to seek to give himself a parliamentary majority more solid or more convenient or more comfortable than the very volatile one, with 83 parliamentarians out of a total of 165 members. Another President of the Republic, coming from the opposition or even from the political camp of President Sall, will absolutely need to have his own majority, his « own » parliamentarians, to ensure their fidelity and loyalty.  In this case, we should nevertheless remember that the dissolution cannot take place the day after the installation of the new president because the Constitution of 2016 has fixed a prohibition of dissolution, of a temporal nature. Thus, we will be at the same deadline of September 2024 to be able to consider the dissolution of the National Assembly. Or would this new president apply a certain Abdoulaye Wade « jurisprudence »? President Wade was confronted with this situation in 2000, when he was just installed as head of Senegal. At the time, the prohibition set by the Constitution was of a different order. The dissolution of the National Assembly could only be possible if a motion of censure was adopted. However, the Socialist members who dominated the Assembly elected in 1998, wanted to save their seats and had refrained from any idea of voting a motion of censure and swore to President Wade not to create any difficulty or conflictual situation for him; better, to vote without flinching all proposed laws. President Wade could not suffice this to hold such a National Assembly until May 2003, at the end of the legislature.  Especially since he had a great need to house his political staff! Thus, he had initiated a constitutional reform to adopt a new Constitution, that of 22 January 2001. The subterfuge enabled him to hold new parliamentary elections on 29 April 2001.

For the record, President Wade wanted to compensate parliamentarians who had just abruptly lost their mandate by deciding, for example, to pay them a nest egg that could represent the equivalent of the parliamentary allowances that they could expect if the legislature had been carried out to its end.  President Abdoulaye Wade had the social intelligence to « dress up » the case under the pretext of helping MPs repay debts contracted. He did not stop in such a good way to accommodate himself as he pleased « his » National Assembly, and would push the cork to postpone the scheduled 2006 parliamentary elections to 2007. The parliamentarians had thus voted a law to extend their own mandate. President Wade affirmed, in a solemn message to the Nation, that he wanted to merge the legislative elections with the 2007 Presidential election to « reduce the costs devoted to them and thus free up funds to help the people most affected by floods ». It was the Jaxaay plan, we remember! For President Wade, « it is not reasonable for a poor country to spend in 2006, the sum of 7 billion for elections and the same amount in 2007 ».  However, we saw that in 2007, the Presidential election was held on 25 February 2007 and the legislative elections on 3 June 2007. A significant fringe of the opposition boycotted the famous 2007 parliamentary elections.

President Macky Sall, newly installed in April 2012, did not need to resort to the weapon of dissolving the National Assembly. The mandate of the deputies was to expire three months later. The parliamentary elections had been scheduled for 17 June 2012, but it took a consensus with the political class to set them for the date of 1 July 2012.  He thus obtained a majority to supplant the one that was favourable to his predecessor. President Abdou Diouf, installed on 1 January 1981, after Léopold Sédar Senghor had handed him power, refrained from dissolving the National Assembly and manoeuvred every difficultly with the « socialist barons » until the legislative elections of 1983, to finally have « his parliamentarians » elected.

Moreover, the configuration of the new National Assembly cannot allow the President elected in 2024 to have such a constitutional reform adopted by parliamentarians. He can only resort to a referendum but the gestation and adoption by referendum of a new constitution would require more time from the new Head of State, who will be installed in April 2024. In other words, he will resign himself to eagerly awaiting the fateful deadline of September 2024.

By Madiambal DIAGNE / mdiagne@lequotidien.sn

  • Translation By Ndèye Tapha SOSSEH – Déma SANE