Senegal-Alliance of Sahel States: the ECOWAS challenge
In a press release released this Tuesday evening, February 6, ECOWAS said it was “
following with concern the evolution of the situation in Senegal
” and “
advises against any action or declaration
” that could go “against” the Constitution and “
encourages
” the political class to “
restore the electoral calendar
”. It will take “
all necessary measures to support
” Senegal and “
maintain
” its “
democratic tradition
”. This is indeed THE new challenge on which ECOWAS is perhaps gambling its survival. While Macky Sall announced and obtained the postponement of the presidential election which was to be held in three weeks, his opponents denounce the “
authoritarian drift
” of the Senegalese president. This postponement comes after the putschist regimes of Mali, Niger and Burkina announced their withdrawal from ECOWAS which, precisely, requires them to organize elections. If the situations are not the same, the moment in any case poses a major challenge to the regional organization.
ECOWAS offices in Abuja, Nigeria, February 27, 2023. © MICHELE SPATARI / AFP
By: David Baché
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Is it a question of saving the credibility of a weakened electoral process? Or a ploy to stay in power? Senegalese President Macky Sall has in any case postponed the presidential election and extended his own mandate.
The last West African country to have taken such a decision is the Mali
of Colonel Assimi Goïta, whose presidential election was - by chance of the calendar - also scheduled for this month of February.
Macky Sall came to power through the ballot box in democratic elections and not through a double military coup, he reiterated his commitment not to seek a new mandate and a political camp opposed to his own -even asked for the vote to be postponed. In Mali, finally, no new date has been announced since the postponement was announced four and a half months ago.
No matter, the windfall is too good for the supporters of “neo-Pan-Africanism” who are exultant and now classify Macky Sall in the category of “putschists”. On social networks, montages of the Senegalese president wearing military fatigues, or the nickname “Mackyavel”, are circulating.
The Senegalese opposition denounces the "
authoritarian drift
" of the head of state at a time when the military regimes of the countries of the Alliance of Sahel States are slamming the door of ECOWAS, which was pressing them to organize elections to restore the constitutional order.
Read alsoSenegal: the Assembly votes to postpone the presidential election after the forced evacuation of opposition deputies
This simple concordance of times poses a challenge to the entire sub-region and ECOWAS, regularly accused of using “
double standards
”, is perhaps gambling its survival on its future decisions.
As of Monday, on Senegal, the ECOWAS Commission expressed “its concern about the circumstances which led to the postponement” and called for “
the organization of a transparent, inclusive and credible election
. » The Guinea-Bissau president, who chaired ECOWAS until last summer, did not have the same reflex: Umaro Sissoco Embaló immediately “congratulated
”
Macky Sall for his “
wise decision
”, “
with the aim of move towards more inclusive future elections.
»
“The problem for ECOWAS is that those who hold power respect limits”
Baba Dakono, researcher at the Citizen Observatory on Governance and Security (OCGS) in Bamako
RFI: After the postponement of the Senegalese presidential election, what type of reaction can we expect from ECOWAS?
Baba Dakono
: It's very difficult. I think that this announcement of postponement, which was followed in your by the Senegalese National Assembly, took many actors by surprise. Including ECOWAS, which was already in turmoil due to the political situation in the region, with the announcement of the withdrawal of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, in addition to the coup d'état in Guinea... ECOWAS was already experiencing numerous difficulties in managing these crises. With the Senegalese political crisis, there is an increase in difficulties and it will be very difficult for ECOWAS to manage this situation, especially since it occurred within a constitutional framework, with a president who was democratically elected.
Could ECOWAS decide on sanctions against Senegal, as it did with Mali or currently with Niger?
This is what is expected from many African actors, who have always denounced the fact that ECOWAS did not intervene when there were presidential mandates which went beyond the mandate initially provided for by the Constitution. We have seen heads of state who have modified the Constitution to provide third terms. It was a situation denounced by African actors who believed that there were sanctions in the event of military coups, but that these situations considered as “institutional coups” were not sanctioned by ECOWAS. . Today, the organization is perhaps faced with its destiny in a context where the West African populations are waiting for sanctions or even just condemnation of these actions which go against, from the point of view of view of these populations, of the consolidation of democracy.
Are those who designate Macky Sall as an “institutional putschist”, those who put him in the same category as the military in power in Mali, Niger or Burkina Faso, right?
Not necessarily, because in these countries of the Alliance of Sahel States (AES), these are military coups, these are regimes in transition. For the Senegalese case, it is a crisis, we will say, of democracy, a political crisis which continues. This postponement of the presidential election constitutes an episode of this political crisis.
In any case, ECOWAS is playing big on the way in which it will manage these different cases, which fall on it at the same time...
Today, the problem on the continent is: how to ensure that those who hold power, whether through feats of arms or through elections, can respect a certain number of limits. And among these limits precisely, that the end of a planned mandate is the end of power.
ECOWAS press release pic.twitter.com/bBEVEqhYtD
— Ecowas - Cedeao (@ecowas_cedeao) February 6, 2024
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