As many of you might have seen in our newsletter or in the news, Senegal saw several days of intense demonstrations and protests at the start of June during which at least 15 people were killed, more than 500 people were arrested and much property was looted, burned and destroyed. Throughout its history, Senegal has been known for its democratic stability in West Africa, so these types of clashes are far removed from the norm. We discussed these protests in our June update, but did not provide any background on the cause which is what we hope to provide for you in this post.
The current president of Senegal is Macky Sall. Sall was first elected in 2012. At that time, the length of a presidential term was seven years and there was no limit on the numbers of terms a president could serve. In Senegal’s history, there have only been four presidents: Leopold Senghor served from 1960 to 1980, Abdou Diouf served from 1981 to 2000, Abdoulaye Wade served from 2000 to 2012 and Sall has served since 2012. In 2016, Sall introduced a constitutional referendum which reduced the presidential term to five years and introduced a two-term limit.
In 2019, Sall was re-elected for his second term. One of his challengers in 2019 was Ousmane Sonko. Sonko was the youngest candidate to run and ended up coming in third place, collecting roughly 16% of the vote. Sonko continues to be very popular amongst Senegal’s youth and is considered Sall’s greatest opponent for re-election. Sall has stated that he believes his first presidential term should not count against the two-term limit seeing as the referendum did not take place until the middle of his first term.
In March 2021, Sonko was accused of rape and arrested. Those in Sonko’s camp have rejected these charges and say they are politically motivated. Sonko’s arrest led to several days of riots, which much like this year, garnered headlines from across the world.
This charge and the resulting journey through the court system has been drawn out over the last 27 months. Anytime Sonko was due in court, there was the potential for further riots. On these court days, it was not uncommon for the government to issue bans on motos (which allow a lot of people to gather quickly) or for bus transportation to be shut down. However, any protests that did occur were usually fairly small in size and duration. That was until June 1st of this year when the courts finally reached a verdict. Sonko was acquitted on the rape charge, but was found guilty of the charge of corrupting youth, which includes using one’s position of power to have sex with someone under the age of 21.
Sonko was sentenced to two years in prison and due to this conviction, he would be disqualified to run for the presidency in 2024. An arrest warrant was not immediately issued and still has not been issued to this day. Sonko remains essentially on house arrest. Again, Sonko’s proponents say this points to these charges clearly being politically motivated since the government does not seem interested in having him arrested, but only in disqualifying him from running in next year’s presidential election. During this time, Sonko’s party was calling for Sall to publicly announce he will not seek a third term.
On July 3rd, it was announced that Sall would give a speech the following evening regarding his intentions for the 2024 election. In response, Sonko called for his supporters to take to the streets if Sall indicated he would seek a third term. However, Sall announced that he would actually not seek re-election, while maintaining that he has the constitutional right to do so if he wished to. This was surprising and welcome news to many who were bracing for further riots.
Since then, the country has been peaceful. However, Sonko has still not actually been arrested. Some of my students at the English center told me that they think this is the only thing keeping his supporters peaceful and that his arrest would lead to heavy demonstrations again. There is also some skepticism as to whether Sall is truly stepping out of the race. Only time will tell.
-Adam
