On the installation of the movement of executives of Taxawu Senegal, December 5, the former mayor of Dakar took the podium. Always monotone, a smiling face, and a regular flow for an easy speaker. The dragging voice does not alter the firmness of the speech. It is the mark of Khalifa Sall, a formidable politician, capable of defeating any opponent without seemingly touching them, without noise but with a political rage. To those who are doubtful, he reminds us: « I am a clandestine person. I like to work in the background. » Beneath his placid exterior, he is a formidable fox of political surfaces. I remember his victory over the former head of government in the 2014 local elections. She ruled by words; she paraded herself and was sure of victory before melting down on election night against the relentless machine of KhalifaSall. A clear victory without blunder, all in silence. A cold-blooded political « murder », which began the descent into the political abyss of the iron lady who, since then, continues to be recycled, before being lost permanently in a dissidencethat she hoped resounding but sadly has remained anonymous. The « executioner » of Mrs. Touré’s ambitions is neither Macky Sall, nor Amadou Mame Diop, nor Mansour Faye, it is Khalifa Sall, who gave the death knell to her ambitions. In sports, she looks like an overrated athlete, who will end up in the footnotes of Senegal’s political history.

Let’s get back to Khalifa Sall. I have always been transparent about our personal relations, which are marked by great affection and mutual esteem. He is a beautiful person, a good man, a democrat and a republican. It is considering all this that I have also never made a secret of my disapproval of his alliance with a bunch of excited and dangerous populists.Nothing should bind Taxawu Senegaal to these people with antiquated methods. The words of the former mayor of Dakar during the meeting with his officials, by their consistency and their measure, show the extent of the distance that should separate his movement from the fascists of the party Pastef. One is within the republican framework, the other has no use for the Republic. It is in the promotion of chaos and civil war. Khalifa Sall, in the space of a quarter of an hour speech, showed that no leader of the Pastef party has the minimum required to be even a simple militant of Taxawu Senegaal. The trajectories, the training, the methods are different. When Mr. Sall says: « There is no more debate in this country. Politics is not about shouting or insulting. Politics is activism, it is a permanent contradictory debate, » Mr. Sonko and his henchmen should be cramped in their shoes, they who have erected insulting, threatening, lying, as a method of governance. They who have normalised the practices of thugs in the public space.

I think that Taxawu Senegaal is better than being relegated to a fan zone status of the Pastef party and its leader who is entangled in a judicial case and in a multitude of other violations of republican principles. Khalifa Sall‘s movement should get out of the Yewwi askan wi quagmire, an officine of bitter, revanchists, anti-republicans, seditious, rogue deputies, public insulters whose engine is a fascist party, to finally build a serious discourse, to establish a clear positioning, to go meet our fellow citizens, to campaign for the benefit of its leader in view of the Presidential election. Taxawu Senegaal has a cumbersome ally who fights without faith or law for the exclusive benefit of one man’s ambition, without denying neither lies, manipulation, or verbal and physical violence. Politics is not an arena for gladiators, but a space for building an active utopia in the service of social transformation and the general interest. Many Senegalese who are not satisfied with the leadership of Benno bokk yaakaar; even more of them realise the irresponsibility of the opposition embodied by Pastef. Khalifa Sall must offer his hundreds of thousands of voters a horizon and an alternative in the wake of his upcoming rehabilitation. Senghor’s country deserves better than a bunch of unscrupulous adventurers as the only alternative to the current regime. Khalifa Sall recalled his socialist DNA. He invited the left to a common path. He reiterated his anchoring in the conclusions of the National Conferences. These are beautiful things that must be transformed by the theory and practice on the ground to offer a remedy and distance Pastef which, it must be recognised, currently holds the string in the opposition. Senegal deserves an opposition of quality, which raises the level and shows responsibility while remaining firm in its challenge to power. The power in Senegal must be in the hands of republicans only.

By Hamidou ANNE / hamidou.anne@lequotidien.sn

  • Translation by Dema SANE