Our country has the charm of producing situations out of nothing that will prove to be puzzles in the hands of big, spoiled children who play to further discredit public debate and limitlessly weaken political speech. These situations and postures put the average citizen in a state of total exasperation and embarrassment, when confronted with what acts as representation on the political scene. Tortuous officials, who spend their time denigrating and denying on questions as banal as each other, have the upper hand. They don’t hesitate to open it up, even though they drag out all the flaws that should mean that nothing they develop is taken seriously.

The permanent circus that politicians of all stripes maintain in our country is repulsive, especially given that all the positions taken are coupled with the cowardice of people who never take responsibility for themselves. The ping-pong between smoke experts and counterfeit manufacturers offered to us by Aminata Touré and Bougane Guèye to refuse the authorship of a letter addressed to the Head of State by a league of failures, to make it a polemic at the centre of public debate is so ridiculous that we end up making a religion of people who have no understanding of the issues of the day.  Frail egos who see themselves above everything, jockey to create a controversy around a letter that a lame league of around forty failed people will have written. This letter, which resulted from an audience with the President of the Republic, so that our spoilt children blame each other and some of them struggle, should never have had a response. The hearing should not have held, because there was no point in listening to voices tested by the rigor of a verification system and which in terms of representativeness at the national level hardly have the weight of their speech. I underlined with great mischievous joy the slaps that the sponsorship stage was able to give to many actors in our public life. Many of our great lords, who saw themselves as too great, came up against a wall of realities which revealed to them that their agitated energy and zeal at every opportunity that their media existence presented to them does not mean that they are representative or could even win an election in their neighbourhood council.

It’s a result of endless logorrhoea on television sets and the airwaves. It is also by writing hollow and often insipid texts which tragically mimic the diaries of upset adolescents that they manage to remind themselves in an untimely way of the national community. It is by putting on a show as we have seen in recent days that they arouse a little interest in the general public, a civilization where “clickbait” content and controversies to create an excited buzz. It is not a serious political vision that they share, it is not serious and concrete ideas on the functioning of our institutions that they profess.

Nothing in the outings or speeches of this political caste sincerely evokes a consideration of the general interest or collective issues. It all comes down to vexed interests and privileges thwarted in the face of the reality of the political game, of political entrepreneurs who have no merit other than that of agitating in a public space without finding real respondents to face them. In the operation to charm public opinion, we saw some of our illustrious failures ask the President of the Republic to allow Bassirou Diomaye Faye, candidate for the presidential election, to “compete” on equal terms in the Presidential election, by being released from prison.  The insult to the separation of powers passed over in silence, because we cannot forget that many of our noble guardians of respect for republican rules make it important to always speak of the need for a transparent and independent Justice. One objective is to erase a series of serious facts which had to destabilize the functioning of the State of Senegal and threaten its authority, to the point that Ousmane Sonko in the lead and many of his henchmen were placed in detention for serious acts of public order disturbances and association with terrorist enterprises.  If we want, on the fallacious pretext that a candidate on whose head such accusations weigh, be authorized to strut in the streets for the sake of democratic play, we could empty all the prisons in the country while we are at it.

Let’s come back to the sponsorship wall, since that’s also what it’s about. If in three months, a person and his political machine are not able to collect more than 40,000 signatures from their compatriots, in due form, should we waste time suffering from the errors and whims of such individuals on an electoral campaign as serious as that for the presidential election? Should we give voice and interest to people who initiate things, and are hardly able to take responsibility for them, and constantly lie to public opinion? Can Senegal allow itself, with the current challenges in the functioning of its economy, in the management of its energy shift with the exploitation of hydrocarbons and in the security of its territory and its maritime facade, that the public speech is constantly taken hostage by conjurers with no talent other than that of a loud mouth? Some will say that the democratic game is made in this way. We cannot deprive individuals of their voice, no matter how vile their opinions may be. However, this is one game that cannot be allowed to flourish.

By being assailed by “shambles” and thinking that any outrageous behaviour must be open to discussion, this Republic and its first custodians end up losing their soul. It is regrettable that at a time when the State should be the strongest, in this country we continue to weaken it through political calculations, adjustments for small interests and above all that we continue to grant importance to individuals whose worst common mistake we have made as a national community has been to allow them a political and media existence.

Our activists for democracy and unfiltered inclusiveness always forget the financial blow of an election on the meagre resources of the Senegalese taxpayer. We cannot imagine the nightmare of an election with fifty braggarts and agitators. The printing of ballot papers or even the management of the security of this contingent is already dizzying.

The fiasco of the 2017 legislative elections, with 47 lists competing for a seat in Parliament, is still fresh in our minds.

By Serigne Saliou DIAGNE / saliou.diagne@lequotidien.sn

  • Translation by Ndey T. SOSSEH