Presidents of Senegal, from right: Senghor, Diouf, Oued and Sall (Getty)

Senegalese often consider the arrival of their current president, Macky Sall, to power in 2012 as a defining moment in the country's history, embodying the hopes of young people rebelling against corruption and tyranny. But his expected exit from the Presidential Palace will not be the same as his entry into it, carried on his shoulders, as cries of anger extend through the streets of the capital, Dakar, and the glow of complaint about the postponement of the presidential elections strongly competes with the glow of 60 years of Senegalese exception in the context of coups.

Sall benefited from two successive missions, which took him about 12 years, during which he accompanied a number of presidents of the region, both future and departing, as he lived with two Mauritanian presidents, two in Gambia, 4 Malian presidents, 3 in Guinea-Bissau, 3 in Niger, and two others in Guinea-Conakry. .

He witnessed elections, coups, and crises in the neighborhood around him, and saw his friend, former Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, being taken to prison, and his Gambian counterpart, Yahya Jammeh, being led to a worse end, before they were joined by Guinean Alpha Conde, and 3 presidents from Mali, who were forcibly forced out of power. After them, their countries often entered the furnace of political and ethnic crises and conflicts.

Over the past 60 years of its life, Senegal has been able to be a democratic exception, although it was not devoid of flaming margins in a separatist war in the Casa Massa region that accompanied the emergence of the country, and continued to fade from time to time, in addition to the current political and constitutional crisis that raises widespread internal and external fears that... It undermines the calm and stability of the country.

A century and a half of elections

Senegalese society has a traditional organizational structure, which it inherited from the eras of kingdoms and local leaders. Although dictatorship and oppression were the prevailing method in managing the relationship between leaders and followers, according to what Arab and Western literature presents regarding the Negro community, it gave it a continuous and stable organizational structure.

On this social structure capable of organization and leadership, the French established the first attempts at democratic construction under a colonial authority “strange in face and tongue” when the first municipal elections began in 1864, by designating no more than 4 municipalities throughout the country: Dakar, Gori, Rivsk, and Saint Louis.

The Senegalese have also elected local representatives and a representative in the French Parliament since 1946, like the inhabitants of the French colonies in general, and they were also among the peoples who chose “yes” to remain under the sovereignty of Paris, which was quickly removed - at least nominally - in 1960 with the country’s independence. A new parliament was chosen in preparation for the election of a President of the Republic, so that the days would be in the hands of the politician and writer Léopold Sédar Senghor, who belongs to a religious and ethnic minority, the Manding group.

The capital, Dakar (Al Jazeera)

From Senghor to Sal

Senghor tightened his grip on power, thought, and culture in Senegal, and reshaped the public identity in this Muslim-majority country. Throughout his rule, which lasted 18 years, he was able to lead power and society with a unilateral, one-party culture through the National Union Party, which was founded in 1958, before Its name changed to the Socialist Party in 1976, adopting the slogan of the International Socialist Organization, as part of a path to establish political pluralism and end the one-party system.

Later, Senegal witnessed the first multiparty elections in its history, during the year 1978, in which Senghor faced the opposition politician Abdallah, who would later take power, but Senghor won more than 80% of the votes over his rival, Abdallah Wade.

Former President Senghor (Getty)

Throughout his rule, Senghor was the strong man who chose his team and imposed his vision. He was always trying to appear to the Senegalese as a founding father and a guiding thinker, seeking for them to bear his strong grip in the spirit of fatherhood, and to bear his political unilateralism in the spirit of a thinker and intellectual who went into every detail, and his words continued through The national anthem "Red Lion" is eternal in the memory of Senegalese.

Senghor's rule was not without difficult periods, especially when he clashed with his Prime Minister, Mamadou Dja, with 4 other ministers: Valdio Ndiaye, Ibrahima Sarr, Joseph Mabaye, and Aloui Toul. While the public prosecution did not request any punishment, the court imposed a 20-year sentence on the defendants who were not released until 1974, after spending a full 12 years in the notorious Kidigaway prison. Senghor did not accept the intercession of major international figures such as the great leftist thinker Jean-Paul Sartre. Nor did former French President François Mitterrand and dozens of others.

During those bitter years, politics had one colour, face and tongue, and because time moved quickly, Senghor was preparing for a safe exit after an assassination attempt in 1974, and then began the path of constitutional transition, where his intelligent student, of tall stature, Abdou Diouf, assumed his succession.

Diouf was scheduled to complete the remainder of Senghor's mission, before the door opened for presidential elections. As for Senghor himself, he believed that his brilliant student would not only complete the mission, but would continue to embody Senghor’s theory of governance and relationship management.

Diouf's 24 years were not harsh on the young Senegalese democracy, but they were harsh in their economic conditions, and in the size of the crises that the man faced internally and externally, but in the end they were the foundation on which Senegalese democracy was built after that when the door was opened for the political and trade union forces to express their expression. itself more clearly.

Former President Diouf (Getty)

During this period, a number of politicians who had emigrated outside the country returned to the country due to the Senghor hot years, and the man continued to manage his political paths until his election as head of a second mission in 1988, when the political crisis reached between the regime and its opponents, especially his stubborn rival, Abdullah Wade.

At this time, when the economic conditions and the political crisis worsened, and a state of emergency was imposed and the police sector was dissolved, a deep ethnic crisis also broke out between Mauritania and Senegal, resulting in hundreds of deaths and tens of thousands of displacement from both countries, leaving the banks of the Senegal River marked with one of the ugliest stories of passers-by, after... The banks were reading the details of life among the passers-by and chanting, “I do not think that the surface of the earth is except from these bodies.”

Diouf's power ended at the end of the century after his defeat in the second half at the hands of his rival Abdoulaye Wade, during whose reign Senegal witnessed a tremendous transformation in its economic path, based on a rugged democratic movement, which ended with the dropping of his project to remain in power as long as possible, where he stood. His companion in power, Sall, is a stumbling block in the path of “Gorky,” or the old man, as the Senegalese call him.

Sall drank from the same cup, when the masses forcefully forced him to abandon the third mission project, and the road does not seem very clear for his successor, the current Prime Minister Amadou Ba, and these elections come after the Senegalese street resolved the unauthorized “ambitions” of President Sall regarding continuing in power. For a third mission.

But the peculiarity of these elections comes in the absence of the opposition leader, Othman Sonko, from the nomination race, due to a judicial ruling from the Supreme Court, which has become a tool in the hands of power, according to Sonko’s supporters.

Throughout Sall’s rule, which extended for nearly 11 years, a large number of his opponents found themselves facing the judiciary and painful imprisonment, as happened with the son of former president Karim Wade, and the mayor of Dakar, the current competitor in the elections, Idriss Seck, in addition to the most controversial man in the local media. Sonko.

Current President Sal (Getty)

Democratic Assad: the army, religion and parties

During this long, tumultuous march towards democracy in an African space rife with coups, it can be said that the peaceful transfer of power in Senegal was also the “Red Lion,” standing on three basic lists:

Trimming the army’s nails and civilizing it:

This was one of the most important reasons for the peculiarity of the democratic experience in Senegal, in which civilian rule was stable for 63 years.

With the exception of the coup attempt in which former Prime Minister Mamadou Dia was accused, in 1962, which led to his arrest for 12 years, the Senegalese army has remained outside political circulation, mainly due to the “clarity of the army’s tasks,” according to the words of Colonel Tala Nining, the former assistant chief of staff.

It is not possible to talk about trimming the army’s nails without referring to the profound French role in shaping the political scene in Senegal. The French bases, residing in this country throughout 40 years of independence, were an essential part of stabilizing the regimes, in addition to rooting awareness in the political and societal elite. This has limited the desire to struggle over power. In addition, Senegal has a long tradition of stability, or what can be considered an “ancient time” of civilization.

- The strength and longevity of political parties:

Some political parties have had a struggle for more than 80 years, and Senegalese do not find it difficult to form parties, but rather the actual difficulty is in convincing the street. However, more than 120 political parties and human rights and civil groups were able to establish over the past year. A strong alliance against the current president, and the alliance returned again between the opposition leaders, which enabled it to reduce the representation of the presidential alliance from 120 to 85 deputies, in the face of 80 deputies from the opposition forces, which restored the balance of power in Parliament.

There are approximately 300 political parties in Senegal, a very large number that can always fragment absolute political power, permanently stir up alliances and conflict, and prevent political life from becoming more active.

- The role of Sufi orders:

which represent a fundamental pillar in the stability of Senegal. These orders have often provided an impenetrable barrier to the civil strife experienced by many African countries. Presidents and presidential candidates must express a level of appreciation and respect for the sheikhs of Sufism, and they also contribute to the management of the matter. Religiously in Senegal, they are also an essential part of the state of stability, as their followers owe absolute loyalty - for the most part - which enables them to absorb many reactions and permanently endure the thorns of societal violence.

- Effective civil society:

Civil society, unions, youth activities, and students have long contributed to consolidating peaceful circulation and confronting military tyranny. Thus, these institutions had a major role in achieving political pluralism at the end of the seventies, and their role was essential and effective in overthrowing the country’s three successive presidents. Since Senghor's departure, by always standing in the face of an absolute presidency, as happened with President Diouf, or by blocking the way to the dream of the third mission that both Wade and the outgoing Sall sought.

The "Dafa Doi" movement - which means enough in Arabic and was founded in 2011 - played a fundamental role in mobilizing the Senegalese street against the former and current presidents, which restored the strength and effectiveness of the opposition forces that had relied in recent years on the strength of non-partisan youth.

Anti-authority demonstrations organized by the F24 movement (French)

Recently, a number of other Senegalese civil society coordination groups have played prominent roles in the confrontation with the authorities, and one of the strongest and most active of them is the F24 coordination committee.

Between these three sides, the Senegalese live in a strong and tumultuous democracy, with deep and ongoing conflicts. They also have a tremendous ability to manage this conflict and to seize the wicks of crises through the judiciary and elections, or through reconciliations that are often supervised by the leaders of Sufi orders.

Unlike other citizens of the African continent, the Senegalese are proud to be the “only survivors” so far from the ship of coups that have deviated the atmosphere of politics and security in this continent, the cradle of nature, wealth, and coups.

Source: Al Jazeera