Until now, we were accustomed to an overwhelming majority facing a very weak opposition in the National Assembly.It even happened that the Socialist Party, after elections, « stole » deputies from PDS during their mandate and ended up depriving the party of a parliamentary group.When a president is elected, the following legislature is expected to give him a majority.This mechanical majority allows the executive to govern in some form of security, drafting laws and getting them passed without much risk.The deputies of the majority party transform into law the political orientations defined by the Head of State.This reality, while consistent, has its perverse effects on the functioning of democracy and the plurality of opinions in the management of public affairs.Parliamentarians have never been ayatollahs of freedom in all conscience in our country.

Abdoulaye Wade had changed the constitution many times, turning it into a scribbling book matching his personal desires. The deputies had by the same token become not elected officials, but « Playmobil », competing in servility to a man whose every outrageous decision they rubberstamped.

The Pope of Sopi is gone, but the political staff has not changed much, nor have their morals. One need only to consult the list of deputies who signed the petition to oust Macky Sall from the Perch and see their position today to get an idea of the convictions that govern these men and women and the problematic nature of political practices. Few stick to principles. Posturing according to the interests of the moment takes precedence to morality. Under our skies, one changes allegiance as easily as one changes sabador. In the successive oppositions, the same concerns persist, perhaps proof that they were not generally more virtuous than those they criticise.

Among those who criticised the National Assembly, cast aspersions on elected officials and castigated their uselessness, some were elected in 2022 after a chaotic process. They immediately distinguished themselves by their carelessness, irresponsibility and propensity to desecrate the function of an elected representative of the Nation. I remain shocked by the behaviour of these men and women during the installation of the XIVth Legislature. I have infinite respect for the republican institutions, they represent the thread of our country’s history as it builds itself as a State and strengthens itself as a sovereign Nation. But I have so little consideration for the stowaways who embody some of our institutions while they are inhabited neither by democratic conviction nor by republican ethics. The most vulgar and dangerous of them, moreover, seek only to destroy the institutions in order to reign over a field of ruins.

To me, the Republic is a spirituality, a mystique beyond the written procedures and rules to which we submit to make a People. Some of those who desecrated the Parliament on September 12 knowingly violated the sacred, because deep down, what we are as a Republic disturbs them. They embody the anti-republican current that has taken over a some in our nation and has broken into our institutions to destroy them.

The Legislative elections of last July offered a new configuration to the Parliament. The most representative political forces are balanced and propel public rivalries into the National Assembly, sometimes without nuance or seriousness. The parliamentary system configuration of the National Assembly confirms my doubts about the numerous proposals, notably of the National Conferences, to make this body the beating heart of the national political life. After a debate with myself of more than two decades, I believe I can decide: I am opposed to the parliamentary system. In my opinion, it is a regime with a great risk of crisis because it consecrates the power of political apparatuses and partisan allegiances to the detriment of the national interest and subjects a country to the weight of alliances and misalliances between people who are not always of high virtues.

In France, from where we draw our constitutional model, the Fifth Republic was a regime of appeasement in the face of the tragic end of the Fourth Republic, where party logics almost caused the country to sink into civil war against the backdrop of the war in Algeria. After the crisis of 1962, Senghor adopted the current model and since then, we have not experienced a Senghor-Dia episode. It is not really a revolutionary innovation but a choice of appeasement with the idea of stabilising the democratic system. What is our system? A President of the Republic who is above the parties, who embodies the national unity and the continuity of the Republic and who is in line with a historical logic to the detriment of the petty quarrels that are the result of political gamesmanship. Our current model is certainly not the most relevant, but in view of the context and the daily economic and social emergencies, it is appropriate to our current trajectory and challenges.

By Hamidou ANNE / hamidou.anne@lequotidien.sn

  • Translation by Dema SANE