ALBERTO ROJAS
Updated Wednesday, February 7, 2024-01:10
Tourism Senegal wants to become the African Caribbean
Africa Violent protests in Senegal over the conviction of the opposition leader leave at least 9 dead
The president of Senegal, Macky Sall,
who should already be leaving after completing two full terms
, as mandated by his Constitution, will extend his stay in office for at least 10 more months. The Parliament of Senegal decided to delay the presidential elections, originally scheduled for February 25, until December 15. It had never happened before since the country's independence in 1960. The president, who by law could no longer run for a third term, has not cared that
the streets have dawned full of barricades
nor that a large part of the very active civil society Senegalese is against this movement.
A total of 105 of Senegal's 165 parliamentarians
voted last night in favor of the postponement
, after a heated debate in which there were blows in the chamber and security forces threw out some opposition deputies who tried to stop the votes. The opposition accuses the current president of maneuvering to get a third term.
Sonko arrest
To fully understand the political volcano of Senegal, we must go back to July 28, 2023, when the opposition leader Ousmane Sonko, with an anti-colonialist and pan-Africanist speech,
was arrested on charges of "corruption of minors"
and sentenced to two years in prison. After two hunger strikes in prison and after the government dissolved his party, African Patriots of Senegal for Work, Ethics and Fraternity (PASTEF), Ousmane Sonko presented his candidacy for the presidential elections on February 25 from prison. 2024 officially.
The Supreme Court of Senegal and the Electoral Commission overturned that decision and Sonko, already deprived of the possibility of running, named an alternative candidate, Bassirou Diomaye Faye, and said on his social networks: "We
must defend fair, free and independent justice
. "
for the right to live in a country without fear of being arrested and imprisoned without justification. The subsequent demonstrations in Dakar left more than 20 dead.
The crisis has increased in intensity every day since then. The decision of Macky Sall, who should leave the Presidency on April 2 according to the country's Magna Carta, has returned the protests to the streets. The authorities have taken down the internet to avoid calling for more demonstrations.
Double nationality
Macky Sall defends the delay of the elections due to another political decision: "A candidate whose dual nationality (French and Senegalese) was revealed after the final list was published," he said. He was referring to the opposition Karim Wade, a minister and son of former president Abdoulaye Wade. D
ual nationality is prohibited in the Senegalese Constitution to run at the polls
. Sall pointed out that the fact that this was not detected reveals "an alleged case of corruption of two judges" that called into question the candidacy selection process.
Sall launched this message a day after the Senegalese Democratic Party (PDS), of the opposition Karim Wade, presented a "law proposal"
to specifically request a delay in the vote due to "serious intolerable failures"
in the electoral process, reports the Efe agency. The vast majority of the opposition, however, has positioned itself against the electoral postponement and has described Sall's decision as a "constitutional coup d'état."
Human Rights organizations such as Civius Media denounce the violence and political persecution by the government: «Several protesters have been arrested, including the opposition leader Aminata Touré, while the police used tear gas against the protesters. "The authorities also
suspended the WALF television channel
and blocked internet access, severely limiting free communications in the country."
Senegal is a country with enormous influence in Spain, not only because of our contribution to cooperation and development,
but because the country
is part of the so-called Atlantic migratory route
. Any social alteration has an immediate consequence in the increase in cayucos that leave for the Canary Islands, as already happened, for example, with Covid and the unemployment it caused later. Last 2023, 39,910 people managed to reach the Canary Islands from the African coast, most of them from Mauritania and Senegal. Many of them then continue their journey to France or Belgium, but more than 82,000 Senegalese people are already registered in Spain.
Repression
The leader of the Republic of Values party, Thierno Alassane, assures that Senegal "opens an extremely difficult period because, as of April 2, when the deadline for the departure of the current president expires, anything is possible. The country is not going to remain stable. "The President of the Republic is wrong if he believes that he will be able to govern countries
that are bleeding due to repression
."
Aly Ngouille Ndiaye, another opposition candidate, noted: "The Senegalese Constitution is clear in its terms.
We are in a situation of anarchy
, which we will attack through the usual channels: the Supreme Court for the decree due to excess of power and also the Constitutional Council on the constitutionality of the law that has just been voted on. "We rebel against the delay of the elections."