A supporter of Sonko holds his picture during the recent presidential election campaign (French)

In an African environment that often adopts the gun as a symbol of change, the Senegalese were able, with determination and in a peaceful manner, to push a young man to power in the 12th election in the country’s history.

On Monday, March 25, 2024, the ruling coalition in Senegal officially acknowledged the victory of opposition candidate Basserou Diomaye Fay (44 years old) in the presidential elections, making him the youngest of the five presidents who have ruled Senegal since independence.

The result of the elections was not normal, as the country witnessed an atmosphere of tension after attempts to postpone it by President Macky Sall until the Constitutional Court ruled that the elections be organized as soon as possible. It seemed surprising to observers that the opposition candidate won a landslide victory in the first round, even though he had only been released from prison. Only ten days before the polling date.

The march of change

The architect of this change is a young man who decided to confront authority at the beginning of his political path and paid the price dearly, as he was accused, convicted, and imprisoned in cases he described as malicious, and when he was excluded from running for the presidency, his companion in ambition and imprisonment offered him an alternative to run for elections.

The conditions of the job allowed Ousmane Sonko, in his capacity as an expert in the tax institution, to gain extensive insight into what he calls professional and administrative abuses and dysfunctions in state institutions. Since then, he has carried the banner of change and exposing corruption, and he became confronted with the ruling authority that rewarded him by stripping him of his job, so he decided at that time to go into battle. In its broadest fields.

Sonko founded the "African Patriots of Senegal for Action, Ethics and Fraternity" party, known by the abbreviation "Pastef". Young people were the backbone of the founding group, and his speech focused on the issues of youth and marginalized and poor groups of society.

This found great response and overwhelming support to the point that some called Sonko the Che Guevara of Africa, or the Thomas Sankara of Senegal, which attracted the attention of large sectors of those thirsty for change and enthusiastic about youth leadership, according to the comment of one of the analysts of the Sonko phenomenon.

A photo dating back to 2019 when Ousman Sonko was a presidential candidate (Getty)

Sonko became a member of Parliament in 2017, then filed his candidacy for the presidency, becoming the youngest presidential candidate in 2019, finishing third with 15.67%, and after the runner-up was appointed to an official position, Sonko became the leader of the opposition.

The road was not paved, of course, for Sonko and his companions. Rather, the ruling authorities in Senegal made tremendous efforts to hinder Sonko and his “Pasteif” party from achieving progress at the expense of the ruling coalition and its allies.

Real fears emerged among the authorities after the failure of the ruling coalition and its loss of the absolute majority in Parliament for the first time in the history of the Senegalese elections, which prompted them to search for other ways to stop the advance of the youth of change and reduce the areas of expansion of Sonko and his young party.

Political assassination attempts

On March 3, 2021, Sonko found himself in court on charges of raping a worker in a health massage center. The man denied the charges against him, and as a result, massive demonstrations took place led by his supporters, leaving a number of dead and wounded.

As a result of these popular protests and mediations, he was released, but prevented from participating in the legislative elections in July 2022.

The opposition leader considered this matter “an act that was planned at night, and we know its purpose, which is to assassinate me morally and exclude me from the political competition.”

In the incident of his inability to run in the parliamentary elections due to what the relevant authorities said were technical problems, Sonko also expressed his dissatisfaction, saying, “All of these are attempts to weaken the opposition and target a key symbol in it.”

Sonko rejected the justifications given by the institutions supervising the elections, especially since no one else faced this problem, which he considered a personal targeting of him. The court later returned and acquitted him of these charges.

Again, in June 2023, violence erupted in the capital, Dakar, following Sonko's two-year prison sentence for "corrupting the youth."

According to observers, Sonko's mobilization of youth instilled doubts into the ranks of the ruling coalition for fear of the exodus of large numbers of young people to the opposition camp. This is an early reading by the ruling coalition of this dilemma, but it did not succeed in proposing a balanced solution.

These accusations did not discourage Sonko from insisting on continuing on the path of change, and they also gained him great popularity due to the weakness of the charges and the weakness of their evidence and plot.

The accusations leveled against the head of the "Pasteif" party, Ousmane Sonko, gained him great popularity (French)

Dissolution of the "Pasteif" party

On July 7, 2023, Senegalese Interior Minister Antoine Diome announced the dissolution of the Pastif party, shortly after Ousmane Sonko was accused of “conspiring to ignite a rebellion,” a charge that would later prevent him from running in the upcoming presidential elections.

The Minister of Interior called for the party's property to be liquidated in accordance with legal provisions. The ECOWAS Court of Justice upheld this ruling. Then Sonko's lawyer, Juan Branco, said, "The ECOWAS Court of Justice gives Macky Sall permission to destroy his opponent."

Before the dissolution decision was issued, a judge in a court in the capital, Dakar, ordered the imprisonment of the Senegalese opposition figure, charging him with charges that included calling for rebellion, undermining state security, association with a terrorist group, conspiring against state authority, committing acts aimed at harming public security, causing serious political unrest, and theft. .

Sonko's lawyers and supporters have described the charges as fabricated, a "farce" and politically motivated.

For a third term

After the parliamentary elections that took place in 2023, the ruling coalition tried to pass an interpretation that the calculation of the two presidential terms begins with the amendments to the constitution in 2019, in order to allow President Sall to run for a third term.

The security services confronted the Senegalese street that rejected the authority’s directions with a machine of repression, and the opposition’s activity increased with more demonstrations (Reuters)

These attempts sparked the opposition, led by the head of "Pasteif", who sparked widespread protests in which a large number of demonstrators were killed.

The security services confronted the Senegalese street that rejected the authority’s orientations and its use of the machine of repression, and the opposition’s activity increased with more demonstrations despite the material and human losses.

In light of the turbulent region and the state of uncertainty that struck Senegal, the president was silent about answering the question of running for a third term, from which it was understood that he intended to run, and thus go towards bending the neck of the constitution, which are the fears that the Senegalese opposition warned against.

According to Africa 4 Press, the heads of city councils and heads of district councils officially announced their support for President Macky Sall by asking him to run. 512 officials signed a petition calling on President Sall to run in the 2024 presidential elections.

Decisions to buy time and legitimize postponement

When all these attempts failed, the president and his camp began to postpone the elections in an attempt to gain time and arrange many of his camp’s papers, so the decision was passed through Parliament.

Outgoing Senegalese President Macky Sall (Reuters)

In an interview with the Associated Press, President Sall said his decision to intervene was necessary to prevent worse electoral chaos.

He added, "I do not want to leave behind a country that will immediately plunge into great difficulties. I say now that I will work to create conditions that allow the country to be peaceful. Let us all have comprehensive discussions before we go to the elections."

But the Constitutional Council annulled the decision, and directed that elections must be held before the end of the president’s term on April 2, 2024.

In the latest attempt, which was described as an attempt to legitimize the postponement, President Sall called for holding a national dialogue in which the differences and timing of the elections would be agreed upon. He proposed the beginning of June 2024, but the proposal was rejected by 16 out of the 19 presidential candidates.

The Constitutional Council also rejected it again, and considered holding elections before the end of the president's term inevitable, which besieged the president from all directions to declare his submission to the law and the desire of the Senegalese street.

Many Senegalese looked to Sonko and Basseiro Faye as a lifeline to save democracy that is facing danger (Reuters)

Saving a democracy in danger

The head of the Senegalese research center "Africagom" Abion Teny says that the Senegalese suffered a shock between 2012 and 2023, and this produced a strong feeling against Macky Sall's regime, a feeling of frustration and a desire for revenge.

He continues that many Senegalese looked to Ousmane Sonko and Basiro Faye as a lifeline to save the democracy that was facing danger in their country, and the political crisis also revealed gaps of weakness in the president’s camp.

When the opposition faces forms of harassment and attempts to disappear and disperse, it usually surrenders to the siege and harassment imposed by the ruling regimes in Africa.

But Sonko and his comrades in "Pasteif" dealt in a different way. They did not give up participating in presidential elections despite being thrown in prison, and they were able to exploit the weaknesses of the ruling coalition to their great advantage.

The people punish the ruling coalition

Senegal adopted political pluralism and the peaceful transfer of power in 1978, and thus it preceded the rest of the African countries that adopted political pluralism in 1990.

In 2024, it recorded a new breakthrough in renewal and change and confirmation of acceptance of the people’s desire if they want to have a say, and perhaps it will also inspire Africa this time.

Newly elected President Bassero Diomai Faye has relied on the overwhelming popularity of Leader Sonko among the youth, stressing that his battle is the battle of his comrade.

He got what he wanted, and voter awareness played a big role in that, as many voters stated in a newspaper poll when asked who they voted for that they were “proud to have voted for Faye so that Sonko would win.”

The Senegalese democratic wedding has ended, in which the outgoing president did not run for the first time and the elected president was not a former government official.

In addition to being the youngest president in Senegal's history, Basserou Faye is a man of the common people and does not come from the country's elite classes.

According to observers, these elections were an eloquent lesson presented by the Senegalese people to the peoples of the continent, in the fourth democratic transition and the second real transformation since 1978, the slogan of which was peaceful change through the ballot boxes and not through the barrels of cannons.

Source: Al Jazeera + websites