quoted on the internet - This gargantuan billboard for (former) President Wade, overlooked the
beach and a main motorway in Dakar. Luckily for (incoming) President
Macky, square centimetres of billboard space does not necessarily
translate into votes.
In with the New...
Sunday was the 2nd round of voting for the country to finalize the outcome for the presidential election. The day was calm. All the contentious energy had been expended with the riots in the first round. We are still amazed that we saw the unfolding of those riots right outside our door. The results of that first round eliminated 13 opposition candidates down to 1 - Macky Sall. With all the opposition support behind Macky - it was up to the Senegalese people to declare their intentions. The polls closed at 8:00 and we turned on the television to watch one of the 4 channels we get. At around 9:30 this ticker came across the tv screen and from what I could translate - I "thought" it was saying that Abdoulaye Wade had contacted Macky Sall to congratulate him. It was showing numbers already coming in - in favor of Macky Sall - 3 to 1. Just about that same time we started hearing honking and hollering. And some firecrackers. We decided to investigate - thinking maybe there would be people congregating at The Place de L'Independance but as we walked to the end of our street and looked over - it was actually quite empty. All the 'excitement' we saw on the tv was taking place in another neighborhood where Mr Sall lives - to be expected of course. However, at that corner was a night guard for a building listening to the news. I think his smile speaks for itself.
The following day I captured a number of newspapers at the kiosk.
And on Monday - while walking around - while I may not have understood anything in Wolof or very fast speaking French - you could always catch either the name Macky or Wade - yes the change in presidency was the talk of the country! We don't quite understand when if any - an inauguration takes place and in what form the 'title' is officially handed over - but we'll keep you posted. If anything I had better get a t-shirt in the market to commemorate the occasion.
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(story from the NY Times)
A Turbulence-Free Election in Senegal
Issouf Sanogo/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Supporters of Macky Sall were celebrating his lead in early counting.
By ADAM NOSSITER -Published: March 25, 2012
President Abdoulaye Wade headed to cast his ballot in Dakar on Sunday.
The challenger, Macky Sall, and his wife, Marieme Faye, cast their votes on Sunday.
Election workers tallied votes at a polling station in the Medina neighborhood of Dakar, Senegal.
For months, the president, Abdoulaye Wade, who has been in office since
2000, had appeared to be going the route of his regional peers in
proclaiming his invincibility and seeking a third term in defiance of a
constitutional limit of two.
But that quest appears to have failed. The Senegalese Press Agency
reported Sunday night that Mr. Wade had called his opponent, Macky Sall,
a onetime protégé of his and a former prime minister, to congratulate
him on his apparent victory at around 9:30 p.m. local time.
The seaside neighborhood around Mr. Sall’s house rang out with the
cheers of his supporters, loud horns and blaring music. State television
— hitherto a propaganda machine for Mr. Wade — showed scenes of
jubilant crowds packing the streets downtown here in the capital to
celebrate Mr. Sall’s victory.
Mr. Wade’s attempt to cling to power — the latest in a succession of
such efforts by West African leaders — had aroused fierce opposition in
this small coastal nation with a tradition of playing by democratic
rules.
The runup to the first round of voting in February
had been punctuated by protests, which were small in scale but
determined, and marked by a large coalition of opposition politicians
vowing to unseat the president.
In addition, Mr. Wade’s age — he is at least 85 but probably older and
is among the last of the independence-era African politicians still
active — had provoked Senegal’s youths into an independent opposition
movement that coalesced around fiercely critical rap songs. Two of this
nation’s defining characteristics — its young population and its
distinctive musical culture — were mobilized against Mr. Wade, who showed increasing authoritarian tendencies.
As a result, Mr. Sall had been favored for weeks to beat Mr. Wade in Sunday’s second round of voting.
Mr. Sall, a 50-year-old geologist-engineer who is as subdued as Mr. Wade
is flamboyant, finished second in the first round, with 26.6 percent to
Mr. Wade’s 34.8 percent.
But more than a dozen other contenders had united behind Mr. Sall,
urging their followers to vote for the challenger, and analysts had not
expected the president to increase his first-round total enough to
defeat the man whose early political ascent he had nurtured.
As it has often done in the past, Senegal seemed once again, on Sunday,
to be providing a calm lesson in democracy to its turbulent peers in the
region. Mr. Wade apparently wasted no time in conceding defeat. Just
last week, a troubled neighbor that seemed to have righted itself
democratically over the last two decades, Mali, appeared to tumble back into military dictatorship following a successful coup.
Senegal is one of the few nations on the continent never to have
experienced a military coup. At least twice in its history, the military
had an easy opportunity to seize power. But it did not do so, and the
army here is considered firmly in the democratic camp. In addition, free
elections have been held here since the late 19th century.
Definitive results from the second round of voting are not expected
until later in the week, but already Sunday night Mr. Sall was heavily
outscoring Mr. Wade in numerous polling places, according to the
official Senegalese press agency. Mr. Sall even defeated Mr. Wade in the
latter’s own voting station in one of the capital’s upscale
neighborhoods, by nearly four to one, according to the press agency.
Politics here is often a matter of unswerving loyalty and unquestioned
allegiances, and Mr. Sall earned an exile in the political wilderness
when he violated those codes. On Sunday, he appeared to have gained
revenge — a prospect savored in recent weeks by the protest movement.
Stolid, soft-spoken and deliberate, and from a working-class background
in the provinces, Mr. Sall angered Mr. Wade nearly five years ago when,
as his hand-picked president of the National Assembly, he summoned Mr.
Wade’s influential son, Karim, to explain himself over the management of a grandiose Islamic conference here in the capital.
“He told me, ‘That was a political error, and political errors must be
paid in cash,’ ” Mr. Sall recalled in an interview at his home last
month, describing how the incident had led to his dismissal.
Mr. Sall is promising a more subdued style of governing, less spending
on prestige projects of limited value to a largely impoverished
population, a strict limit of two terms and greater attention to
agriculture. Most Senegalese work in the country’s fields and farms, yet
it still imports most of its food, partly because Mr. Wade has
neglected agriculture in favor of spending on new highways and a modern
airport, among other things.
“The current administration wastes a lot of money,” Mr. Sall said in an
interview on Saturday. “I’m for a style of governance that is more sober
and efficient.” In addition, institutions such as the Parliament and
the judiciary have largely been rubber stamps for Mr. Wade. Mr. Sall
promised a change, “a new republic, in which the equilibrium between
institutions is respected.”
Mr. Wade, who is French-educated with numerous university degrees, had
at least 200 ministers over the course of his 12-year rule, six prime
ministers and was sharply criticized for projects like spending $27
million on a towering statue to the “African Renaissance” on a hill
overlooking Dakar.
“Senegal, in a transparent election, has proven once again that it is
and remains a great democracy, a great country,” Mr. Wade’s press
secretary said in a statement Sunday announcing his concession.
Quietly, Mr. Sall criticized his former mentor’s grandiose style — long
motorcades of expensive cars, a new state airplane, big-ticket spending — in the interview in his home last month. He suggested the contrast with his own style would be evident.
“His problem is organization,” Mr. Sall said. “He doesn’t adjust his
ideas to reality. He’s a dreamer, and he thinks he’s the most brilliant
of all the chiefs of state.”
Disillusion with Mr. Wade and his high-spending entourage was evident at polling places in the capital Sunday.
“They live in luxury, and we are struggling,” said Ibrahim Diedhiou, a
shipping agent who was voting at a school in the seaside Mermoz
neighborhood. “They do nothing to create jobs,” he said, alluding to an
unemployment rate Find Friends
that in some estimates surpasses 50 percent.
“We must have a break with this immobilism,” said another voter, Amadou
Mustapha Gaye, a secretary to a school principal. “Wade is stubborn.
He’s built some bridges, but our measure of development is potable
water. We gave him everything. And now he’s hung on for 12 years.”
