This Sunday will be the second round of the presidential election in Senegal. Our columnist Macaire Dagry sent us this commentary which we are publishing to help our readers better understand this event, the context in which it will take place, and to grasp its specifics.
Despite a solid political experience, Wade has just made seven mistakes that could be fatal for him. He now knows he is playing a very tight game with an uncertain outcome for his re-election.
First mistake. Like Gbagbo in Côte d’Ivoire, Wade overestimated his political skill and underestimated the determination of the Senegalese people who are yearning for change.
Second mistake. Wanting to impose his son as his successor in disregard of all the democratic rules of the country, and despite numerous protests and indignations from the population; it seems that with age and the wear of power, this former defender of democracy has also succumbed to the irrationality of personal power.
Third mistake. Like Gbagbo, he was misled by polls that didn’t reflect any reality on the ground. Like Gbagbo in Côte d’Ivoire, his advisors led him to believe, based on several polls, that he would win the presidential election in the first round. According to them, he still had the people’s trust, and the opposition was divided and incapable of posing a real threat to him.
Fourth mistake. Based on these polls that predicted a comfortable win for him in the first round, unlike in 2007, Wade and his team ran a mediocre election campaign, poorly prepared and especially out of touch with the criticisms from his electorate and the entire Senegalese people. What was supposed to be a simple formality turned out to be a real catastrophe for the pride of a man whom no one in his entourage dared to tell the truth. This painful reality forces him to find solutions to reverse the electoral power dynamics in the second round. He knows that his chances of achieving this are very limited, if not nonexistent, against the entirety of his opponents who have all rallied around Macky Sall.
Fifth mistake. He heavily relied on the massive vote of the powerful Mouride brotherhood, which did not dare to risk showing its preference for a finished and contested man. Positioning itself for a man, now part of the past, could be a serious threat to it regarding the future and could allow the competing Tijaan brotherhood to gain favor with the new power. This could have led to a bidding war of influences underpinned by religious leadership.
Sixth mistake. Wade relied too much on the divisions and personal ambitions of his opponents. Hence, he did not foresee Macky Sall, who very skillfully ran an excellent electoral campaign focusing on the weaknesses and shortcomings of Wade’s twelve years in power. Since leaving Wade’s party, Sall managed to build a credible personality as a statesman, traveling throughout the country since 2009. This strategy led Sall to distance himself from the other seven candidates with whom he signed an electoral solidarity pact that he did not honor. He understood that he needed to campaign while the other opponents were protesting in Dakar against Wade’s candidacy.
Seventh mistake. As the outgoing president, he failed to reassure the Senegalese people severely affected by unemployment, especially among the youth and women. The frequent power and water cuts that lower the morale of Senegalese people did not seem to be a priority for Wade during this election campaign. The price of rice, a staple food in Senegal, has doubled along with other essential goods. Far from the people who had twice expressed their trust in him, he remained insensitive to their distress. His advisers made him believe that he was still loved by the people. He has now realized firsthand that reality is quite different; brutal and unforgiving.
Today, most Senegalese people are asking themselves: why continue to vote for a man whose only concern is his son’s political future? Meanwhile, the ordinary people “endeavor” to survive, trying to escape poverty and the indifference of their political leaders.
by Macaire Dagry
