Campaign diary

Presidential election in Senegal: seven candidates present their emblematic measures

The presidential campaign is in full swing in Senegal.

The candidates are crisscrossing the country with their caravans to present their programs to voters in preparation for the election on Sunday March 24.

Setting up a women's bank, investing in university or even encouraging young people to become farmers: at the RFI microphone, they highlight a measure emblematic of their project.

Logbook of this first week of the campaign, with seven of the nineteen candidates in the presidential election.

The Senegalese are called to the polls on March 24.

© Leo Correa / AP

By: Guilhem Fabry

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Déthié Fall wants to strengthen Senegal’s food sovereignty

Among the 19 candidates in the running, Déthié Fall wears the colors of the Republican Party for Progress (PRP).

He began his campaign in Dakar before meeting the inhabitants of Kaolack then Tambacounda.

He was expected this Friday March 15 in Bignona and Ziguinchor in Casamance, in the south of the country, to present his program entitled “A Senegal good to live in and beautiful to see”.

Déthié Fall notably campaigns in favor of food sovereignty in Senegal.

From the point of view of agriculture, Senegal is today experiencing a paradox for the simple reason that we have an import of more than 1 million tonnes of rice per year and we have a cereal bill which is around 300 billion per year.

 »

In addition to rice, corn, wheat and many other products are imported today,”

recalls the candidate.

And this importation contributes considerably to the increase in prices and consequently to the high cost of living that our compatriots experience today.

While we have on the national territory, in the Senegal River valley, 240,000 hectares which are available.

 »

Déthié Fall thinks that it is “ 

important to encourage young people to return to agriculture: to show and give references to young people who have cultivated land and who have succeeded, to show that they can have a decent life from of this profession, and allow Senegal to turn this page of strong food dependence.

 »

El Hadji Mamadou Diao wants to better target investments

El Hadji Mamadou Diao is at the head of the “Senegal on the Move” coalition.

He is the former general director of the Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations and the current mayor of Kolda, in Casamance.

He passed through the Matam region, in the northeast of the country, this week, and will travel to Sine Saloum and Casamance early next week.

In this month of Ramadan, the candidate concentrates his campaign activities in the evening and until late at night.

El Hadji Mamadou Diao suggests better targeting investments so that they have more impact on the population, for example through the establishment of a Women's Bank.

We wanted to put people at the heart of public policy concerns,”

explains the candidate.

This is a diagnosis that we have made at the level of black Africa most often: there are a lot of investments that we will call structuring but which have no impact on the experiences of the populations, which fact that there is a paradox between the investments that we can note in our countries and the lifestyle of the populations.

So what we want is to put all opportunities in terms of education, health, security and entrepreneurship to the benefit of the populations.

By having a special window for young people and women.

 »

“ 

A women's bank makes it possible to better promote entrepreneurship among women,”

argues El Hadji Mamadou Diao

.

What we want is to have an instrument that already captures their own contribution mechanisms, with of course a significant contribution from the State, so that this financing instrument can have a positive impact.

Because they are all in processing or in commerce but they are unable to have suitable credits or suitable credit rates, so that is why economic activity always keeps them in this precarious situation. . 

»

Read alsoSenegal: the lightning electoral campaign continues, in a tense political climate

Aliou Mamadou Dia wants to invest in school and university

Aliou Mamadou Dia wears the colors of the Party of Unity and Rally, the PUR.

This international civil servant has notably worked for the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in Togo and Cameroon.

It was in Dakar that he launched his campaign before joining Louga and Saint-Louis on Thursday March 14.

He was this Friday in the Matam region, in the northeast of Senegal, before then heading to Kédougou, in the southeast of the country.

At the heart of his “Human and Prosperity” program, Aliou Mamadou Dia wants to invest in schools and universities.

“ 

We need to provide the best possible education for our country.

All developing countries have developed through education and training.

It is unacceptable to me that sons and daughters of our country go to school in temporary shelters, that teachers are in lamentable working conditions.

 »

“ 

Cheick Anta Diop University, the first university in West Africa, was closed for nine months.

Students expelled from the social campus and the educational campus.

This is not normal

 ”, believes the candidate who intends to “ 

boost research

”, in particular by injecting “

consequent resources 

”.

 We want to ensure that our universities are among the best universities in the world and that we put our students in conditions of performance.

Because I want young Senegalese, our students, to compete with young people around the world.

This is what we want to do for our country

.

»

Candidate Mamadou Lamine Diallo wants an overhaul of institutions

Mamadou Lamine Diallo wears the colors of the Tekki coalition, which means “ 

to be useful

 ”.

The current vice-president of the National Assembly of Senegal notably visited Tambacounda, Vélingara and Kolda this week, greeting voters aboard a double-decker car, as the other candidates also do.

He will campaign in Dakar and Thiès next week.

Among his proposals, Mamadou Lamine Diallo pleads for a renovation of institutions.

 We must strengthen the Senegalese democratic model by reducing the powers of the President of the Republic, and by rebalancing legislative, executive and judicial powers.

We have seen what it means to have absolute presidentialism, with the difficulties we had in being able to go to the presidential election.

The famous constitutional coup of February 3 by President Macky Sall.

This is not good for Senegal or for Africa, for that matter.

This is why it is imperative to reduce the powers of the President of the Republic, affirm the National Assembly, modernize the State, depoliticize the administration, strengthen the justice system, make it more independent.

Which means that we need a constitutional change and also a change in the law, and therefore immediately set up a commission made up of specialists to allow us to submit this new Constitution to a referendum at a given moment, finally what I Call me the Third Republic.

 »

Read alsoPresidential election in Senegal: the various candidates send their electoral caravans from Dakar

Boubacar Camara defends free and compulsory education

Boubacar Camara wears the colors of the Construction and Solidarity Party, Jengu Tabax, of which he is president.

This international consultant opened his campaign on Sunday March 10 with a meeting in Pikine, a suburb of Dakar.

Before presenting his program the following days in Thiès, Bambey and Diourbel.

Among its emblematic measures, Boubacar Camara offers free and compulsory education for all Senegalese.

“ 

Our flagship measure is the education revolution, with total support by the State of Senegal.

We want to make education free until the age of 25.

And then, we will make education compulsory until the age of 16 with a monitoring and sanction system.

 » For this, he wants to “ 

invest 8,000 billion CFA francs in the form of a sovereignty fund on education which will be supplied by various sources including the fallout from natural resources.

 »

Boubacar Camara promises additional infrastructure to “

recover children who have not been able to go to school 

”.

Today, there are peripheral areas which have problems, especially for the education of girls

,” recalls the candidate.

We will focus on that, there will be a catch-up component.

We will ensure that the entire territory is covered.

For us, it is an essential revolution to have flourishing human capital. 

»

Daouda Ndiaye defends universal access to care

Daouda Ndiaye represents the “Action” movement.

He is professor and head of the parasitology department at Cheick Anta Diop University in Dakar.

It focuses on local travel.

He met women and youth groups in Keur Massar and Rufisque, in the suburbs of Dakar, on Tuesday March 12.

His campaign then took him to Lambaye, in the Diourbel region, and to Mbacké.

If elected, he wants to establish universal access to care. 

We have a program that will provide universal access to care for all Senegalese people, whether people with reduced mobility, whether women, whether children under 5 years old or the elderly,” assures

the candidate.

Free quality care for those who do not have the means, therefore those who are vulnerable, so that every Senegalese can be properly cared for regardless of the resources at their disposal, without forgetting a prevention program at all levels and to all.

 »

“ 

For the moment, until now, most of the means of prevention and access to care come from abroad.

So, we will increase the infrastructure so that all regions of Senegal and all departments can have quality and high-level hospitals, equipped according to international standards.

Inputs will be guaranteed, particularly medicines.

We are going to increase the number of health personnel and also focus on health education at all levels, from primary school to university, whether in French-speaking schools or in daaras, because these daaras are also part of the education system in Senegal.

 »

Mahammed Boun Abdallah Dionne meets fishermen in the center of Dakar

After campaigning in Guédiawaye on Monday March 11, Mahammed Boun Abdallah Dionne visited the Ouakam Fishermen's House the next day, in the center of Dakar.

Fishing is one of the most important sectors for our country.

We are lucky to have 718 kilometers of coastline here on the Atlantic and 17% of the population is employed in the fishing sector.

So it is important to work with them for sustainability

 ,” declared the former Prime Minister of Macky Sall, dissident candidate of the Benno Bokk Yakaar coalition.

He also launched a call to come together around his candidacy, rather than that of the ruling coalition candidate Amadou Ba.

I called on the country's active forces to join me in the defense of the Republic and democracy.

The majority has its place at the level of the inter-coalition that I am proposing, that is to say that the people of the left and also the people of the majority have their place within the platform that I call the bloc republican and democratic.

May the Senegalese people decide and the best wins.

»

Read alsoPresidential election in Senegal: mixed start to the electoral campaign

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