"I am truly upset when I read what is happening in Senegal today. I have known the country well since 1979, having spent considerable time there, and I am very fond of it still. Senegal should be proud of its democracy and its stability, which is at times so precarious elsewhere on the African continent. Senegal can be proud of its people, its culture, and particularly of its attachment to universal values.
The Senegalese Constitution of 1963 was revised in 2008: it only authorizes two successive terms of office for the President. Today, Abdoulaye Wade, the current president, would like to convince the Senegalese that his first term of office from 2000 to 2007 doesn't count because he was first elected under the former constitution! With the complicity of the Constitutional Court, this interpretation has been accepted and Wade is a candidate for a third presidential term.
This decision was what set off the youthful population. Riots broke out to protest against the new candidacy of the outgoing president and the non-validation of the candidacy of singer Youssou N’Dour for lack of valid supporting signatures although 13 other candidates, including the socialist leader Ousmane Tanor Dieng, and various former prime ministers have been validated.
Whether or not one challenges the partiality of the members of the Constitutional Council, whether or not one finds the profile of candidate N’Dour surprising, whether or not one challenges the official possibility given to the outgoing president to run for a third consecutive term – all of this is nothing compared to the blow given to democracy, so dear to the Senegalese, by this decision.
Senegal is one of the rare examples of democracy in Africa since its independence in 1960. Three presidents - Leopold Sédar Senghor, Abdou Diouf as well as Waye - have shown the whole world the contrary of the cliché too often applied to African nations: dictatorship, corruption and bad governance.
It should be remembered that the current president fought long and hard to gain office. He lost several presidential elections (1978, 1983, 1988 and 1993) but finally overcame in 2000 and was then re-elected in 2007. Today, by imposing his candidacy, he has taken the risk of endangering democracy.
In recent years, Senegal has reached an unbearable rate of corruption and odious, ignoble enrichment of certain members of the governing political class who jeopardise the spirit and the letter of the Constitution. No one today can be ignorant of the ways of president-kings from whatever country or continent. We all know how the story and the regime end: nepotism, cronyism and corruption are the forerunners of the fall. The autocrats and particularly their entourage have only one credo: defending their power and maintaining it to keep from being held accountable in court.
The next president must clearly be the one chosen by the Senegalese people in democratic elections in which everyone has the opportunity to vote and the votes are counted fairly and accurately.
Peace, economic and social development, the role of Senegal in Africa and in the world must not be sacrificed to maintaining power, whatever the cost.
The responsibility of the current opposition to those in power is to mobilise voters to go to the polls, not simply to demonstrate in the street.
May democracy and universal suffrage win over Senegal and the entire African continent."
