Senegal: Presidential Elections 2019 - The Shining Example of Democratic Transition Immersed in Muddy Power-Politics

Abstract

Whereas Senegal has long been sold as a showcase of democracy in Africa, including peaceful political alternance, things apparently changed fundamentally with the Senegalese presidentials of 2019 that brought new configurations. One of the major issues was political transhumance that has been elevated to the rank of religion in defiance of morality. It threatened political stability and peace. In response, social networks of predominantly young activists, created in 2011 in the aftermath of the Arab Spring focused on grassroots advocacy with the electorate on good governance and democracy. They proposed a break with a political system that they consider as neocolonialist. Moreover, Senegal's justice is frequently accused to be biased, and the servility of the Constitutional Council which is in the first place an electoral court has often been denounced.

The Impact of Islamist Terrorism on Africa's Informal Economy: Kenya, Compared with Ghana and Senegal

“…They proposed a break with a political system that they referred to as neo-colonial, including a judiciary accused of being biased and a constitutional council committed to the government. Their new paradigm represented a globalized and connected generation which reactivated the liberation theories of Frantz Fanon and Thomas Sankara (Kohnert & Marfaing, 2019).…”

‘Enlightened’ West African Dictatorship Challenged by State Capture? Insights from Benin, Togo and Senegal

“…They proposed a break with a political system that they considered as neo-colonialist. Moreover, they denounced Senegal's biased justice and the servility of the Constitutional Council vis à vis the government (Kohnert &Marfaing, 2019).…”

“…Sonko appealed especially to Senegal's youth because of his rejection of the traditional political class, embedded in a system of endemic corruption, and his anti-colonial stance, advocating for example abandoning the CFA Franc (Sylla, 2021). Alongside Sonko, Khalifa Sall and Karim Wade remained disqualified (Aljazeera, 2022;Kohnert & Marfaing, 2019).…”

“…Y'en a marre published list of grievances for the next presidential five-year term. They demanded President Macky Sall to resign from the presidency of his party (APR) in order to organize a transparent and credible audit of the electoral lists and institutional reforms, including the independence of justice (Kohnert &Marfaing, 2019). Because the mobile telephone penetration rate had exceeded 100 % already in 2016 the movement was able to act largely independent of traditional media (CIIP, 2018).…”

'Technology of Freedom' or 'Technology of Inequality'? Smartphones, Activism, and the Digital Divide in Senegal

“…In the emic conceptualization, I learnt that night, 'political' meant an affiliation to a political party. Given that political transhumance, defined by Kohnert and Marfaing (2019, 360) as the "political nomadism from one party affiliation to another, depending on the attractiveness of 'pastures'" was relatively common in Senegal (Kohnert and Marfaing 2019), it usually meant an affiliation to the party currently in power, or to successful opposition parties. Apolitical activism would then, negatively defined, be any type of activism that is not linked to a political party.…”