Faye’s Headache of Keeping Poll Promises and Kingmaker Sonko

SUNDAY MARCH 31 2024

Senegal's president-elect Bassirou Diomaye Faye speaks during a press conference in Dakar, Senegal on March 25, 2024. PHOTO | REUTERS

By KEMO CHAM

In his first speech after his landslide victory, Senegal’s incoming President, Bassirou Diomaye Faye promised to stay the course of his party’s pre-election campaign promises.

On top of the list of these promises contained in his campaign manifesto, christened Project Senegal, are fighting corruption, creating employment opportunities for the youth, and significantly reducing the cost of living, a major concern for the majority of the 17 million Senegalese population.

Diomaye, as he is popularly known, also promises to review oil and gas mining agreements, among other things.

But an even more thorny issue surrounding the new president is his promise to revisit relations with former colonial master, France. His party, the African Patriots of Senegal for Work, Ethics and Fraternity (Pastef), has said the new administration wants to terminate the country’s membership of the 14-nation West African monetary union, which is pegged on the Euro, and which many Senegalese believe has allowed France to control its former colony since independence.

Pastef was led by Ousmane Sonko who, like Mr Faye, was in jail until two weeks ago. Mr Sonko emerged from jail and publicly endorsed Mr Faye, earning him a great dose of popularity. With that, some say Mr Faye’s victory is largely a credit to Mr Sonko, who himself has nursed presidential ambitions.

In this election, Mr Sonko had been removed from the ballot paper owing to his struggles with legal issues, including an earlier accusation of sexual violence.

A lot of the discussions before and during the elections centred on the French connection, but, tallying with high anti-French sentiment partly fuelled by events in neighbouring countries, where the militaries have usurped power in the face of growing insecurity in the region. Senegal had been the odd one out of the former French colonies, having never experienced a coup since independence.

But, for many Senegalese youth, the outcome of the election marks the true independence of their country. And, by this they mean that they should be able to determine their destiny, going forward.

The 44-year-old president-elect is expected to be sworn in on April 2, the day the term of outgoing President Macky Sall officially ends.

He said in an address to the media on Monday night, after his victory became clear, that for the Senegalese people, his election represented the choice of a break with the past to give substance to the immense hope raised by plans put forward by his movement, which led to his election victory.

The statement was as much an assurance to the Senegalese people as it was for the West African nation’s development partners.

“I pledge to govern with humility and transparency, and to fight corruption at all levels,” Mr Faye said, adding: “I pledge to devote myself fully to rebuilding our institutions.”

In order for him to achieve all this, the president-elect must step on some toes. And the challenge is that many of these toes belong to people outside his party, who aided his bid to the presidency.

They include political parties who just wanted to see the back of outgoing President Macky Sall’s Alliance pour la République (APR) party.

A notable one of these is Karim Wade’s Senegalese Democratic Party (PDS), which threw their support behind him at the last minutes to the election.

Mr Wade has a bad reputation of accountability during the 12-year rule of his father, Abdoulaye Wade, founder of the PDS.

Mr Faye, a lawyer by training, graduated from Senegal’s National School of Administration in 2004, then became a tax inspector. It was there that he met his political mentor, Ousamane Sonko, who made his name among Senegalese youth through his tough stance against corruption in tax administration.

Mr Faye would later join Pastef, formed and headed by Mr Sonko. He would eventually rise to the rank of secretary-general of the party in 2021.

Pastef was at the heart of the political unrest that marred President Sall’s second term, beginning in 2019, due to their anti-establishment stance that galvanised Senegal’s mainly youthful population. his is what led to their incarceration for separate offences.

Sonko’s endorsement of his former deputy in the run-up to the delayed election was crucial, but a little short on rabble-rousing emotion.

“My choice of Diomaye is not a choice from the heart, but from reason. I chose him because he meets the criteria that I have defined. He is competent and has attended the most prestigious school in Senegal,” Sonko said in a video message.

“No one can say he is not honest. I would even say that he is more honest than me. I entrust the project into his hands,” Sonko said.

According to Faye’s biography on his campaign website, he was often the top of his class growing up. He graduated from high school on Senegal’s southern coast in 2000, then studied law and got a master’s degree from Dakar’s Cheikh Anta Diop University.

In 2004, the devout Muslim passed the competitive entrance exam to Senegal’s National School of Administration which trains the former French colony’s top civil servants, where he specialised as a tax inspector.

He was arrested in April 2023, a few months before Sonko was also held, and charged with contempt of court and defaming magistrates, charges Faye had denied. Crucially, unlike Sonko, he was not barred from running in elections.

The election came after months of unrest sparked by the decision of President Sall to reschedule it. The initial date was February 25.

The publication of the candidates list sparked allegations of corruption within the Constitutional Council, prompting President Sall’s move, which he claimed was necessitated by his desire to prevent crisis after the election. But his decision ended up creating the crisis he claimed he wanted to avoid.

Scores of people were killed and dozens of others arrested and jailed, among them Mr Faye and Mr Sonko.

When Mr Sonko was dropped from the list of candidates, Pastef, which was outlawed, selected Mr Faye as Plan B.

A lot of the credit of his victory in last weekend’s election goes to Mr Sonko, who campaigned vigorously for his protégé.

A lot of the views expressed by Mr Faye are believed to have emanated from Mr Sonko.

Concerns, therefore, abound about the potential of the two men falling out, given the influence of Mr Sonko.

In his address on Monday, Mr Faye paid tribute to Mr Sonko, but made no mention of his role in the new government, something everyone in Senegal appears eager to hear about.

The new president also spoke about rebuilding “our institutions,” echoing President Sall’s APR slogan, which was a statement promise to place the motherland before the party’s interest. To many Senegalese, the outgoing president went against that slogan.

But Mr Faye seems intent on being true to his words, at least for now. Reports on Tuesday indicated that he had resigned his positions in all bodies within Pastef. His stepping aside from its decision-making bodies augurs well for pro-democracy and accountability campaigners who see it as a much needed separation of party from the state machinery.

If he keeps his word, it would mean ridding the financial registers of all political party activists and other vested interests.

President Sall was accused by his critics of reneging on his promise to fight corruption and the impunity from which certain people close to his regime benefited. Therefore, some Senegalese are concerned that Mr Faye’s declaration of reconciliation in his speech should not be a sorting exercise that only creates sacred cows.

As for his relations with Sonko, it is certain to suffer if he goes against what the political godfather has espoused all these years.

Convinced that Sonko’s detention and the banning of Pastef were part of a ploy by President Sall’s government to eliminate strong rivals from the election - all accusations rejected by the government — several party members including Faye put their names forward.