Electoral Tensions in Senegal: Can the Country’s Democracy Survive the Legislative Storm
The consultation meeting between parties and coalitions of political parties initiated last Saturday by the Minister of the Interior and Public Security of Senegal, with a view to the early legislative election on November 17, was ignored by the leaders of the opposition, who fear that the measures just taking for this purpose will foreshadow a guaranteed fiasco for the anti-Diomaye, and a possible remodeling of the Senegalese political landscape. These opponents, who are united within the Alliance for the Transparency of Elections (ATEL), already sense a trap set by the government coalition by not consulting President Diomaye Faye of the Constitutional Council before developing’ the electoral calendar, the controversial distribution of seats to be filled in the departments and the non-consensual setting of the period for receiving, processing and publishing electoral lists, among others. For Minister Jean-Baptiste Tine, it is nothing more than a futile rush by politicians in controversial distress, in order to justify their argument in the upcoming local elections, and to discredit the national Assembly in the future.
No concession is too much to avoid the country of Teranga from the risk of political apnea
He invites them to get rid of this self-interested attitude, by joining the “election team” while there is still time. We will see in the coming days if this advice from the Lieutenant General and Interior Minister of the Sonko government resonates with the ATEL “rebels”, and if the issue does not kill the electoral game that everyone wants to see happen. . the transparency and political purity that has always made Senegal one of the most successful democracies on the continent. Having said that, the unfettered desire of the current authorities to have a parliamentary majority at the end of next November’s legislative elections should not lead them to adopt a contemptuous or even contemptuous attitude towards the reservations expressed by this Alliance which brings everything together of even hundred political. parties and movements. Because no concession is too great to avoid in the country of Teranga, there is a danger of political apnea that obscurantist forces could take advantage of to stop Senegal’s beautiful democracy. President Bassirou Diomaye Faye knows very well that it is easier to use his prerogative of public power to dissolve the National Assembly, than to organize early legislative elections as a result and especially to win them, in a country like Senegal where we never is safe. of a bad electoral surprise.
We hope that all parties will put a little… sugar in their tea
There is even more doubt that it will be allowed among the activists of the Yewwi Askan Wi government coalition as alliances are formed in the opposition camp to “fight” with their candidates on November 17, with the aim of obtaining a comfortable parliamentary majority that could make The Sonko government is more open to political blackmail than ever, against a backdrop of impeachment threats. The bets are therefore open, and we hope that all parties will put a little … sugar in their tea so that this important meeting for the democratic vitality of Senegal turns into a disaster, and that we do not testify on both sides of the radicalization of views that could lead to a boycott of the vote or to passing by force that would permanently tarnish the image of the democratic show from French-speaking West Africa.
“The country”