Opinion
As reported on The BFD last week, Senegal, long one of the few stable democracies to survive in a post-Colonial Africa dominated by thugs and riven by tribal hatreds, is descending into the whirlwind of yet another failed African state.
Trouble has been brewing for months as the ruling party sought to indefinitely postpone presidential elections due by the end of this month. The arrest of the main opposition leader led to riots in Dakar.
Senegal’s former prime minister Aminata Toure, now a leading opposition figure, was arrested on Sunday (Feb 4) in the capital Dakar amid protests against the indefinite postponement of the presidential election, reported news agency AFP. Meanwhile, chaos erupted in the capital city as hundreds took to the streets over the delay and clashed with the police.
Hundreds of opposition party supporters and police clashed after Senegalese President Macky Sall announced an indefinite postponement of a presidential election set for February 25, a day before official campaigning was due to begin.
WION
Instead of backing down, the government clamped down. Last week, it imposed an information blackout on the country. A private TV channel had its signal suspended, and mobile internet was also cut off.
The unrest is only getting worse.
The death toll amid protests in Senegal over the postponement of the presidential elections until December has climbed to three, as concerns grow that one of the remaining democracies in coup-hit West Africa is under threat […]
The death of one young man amid reported protests in the southern city of Zinguinchor on Saturday evening took the number of those killed since Friday to three, according to Cartogra Free Senegal (CFS), a civil society platform tracking casualties.
“We tried to save him when he arrived at hospital and unfortunately he died in intensive care,” Ndiame Diop, the manager of Ziguinchor hospital, told Reuters, saying it was not possible to determine the exact cause of death without an autopsy.
A spokesperson for the interior ministry did not respond to a request for comment. The ministry has so far confirmed only one death, a student in the northern city of Saint-Louis on Friday. Reuters has not been able to independently confirm a reported second death: a 23-year-old merchant on the outskirts of Dakar, according to CFS.
The government is standing firm.
President Macky Sall has said the delay is necessary because electoral disputes threatened the credibility of the poll, but some opposition lawmakers have denounced the move as an “institutional coup.”
As the public outcry mounts, the West African regional bloc ECOWAS and foreign powers have urged Sall to put the country back on a regular electoral footing […]
Opposition lawmakers and presidential candidates who reject the postponement have filed legal challenges and said they will refuse to recognise Sall as president after his original mandate expires in early April.
The postponement bill backed by parliament included the extension of his tenure until his successor is installed after the election now reset for December 15.
The violent uncertainty is threatening to tear the country’s democracy apart.
“If President Macky Sall does not restore power to us on April 3, we will set up a parallel government of national unity,” opposition lawmaker Guy Marius Sagna said on the radio on Sunday.
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The last thing Africa needs is another civil war.