Will Senegal Get a New President? An Analysis of the February 2012 Elections

By Jennifer Browning, MPA

Senegal’s elections are today. After months of mass protests against the current President Abdoulaye Wade’s candidacy, election day has finally arrived, amidst great anticipation and uncertainty. Many people are worried that President Wade, who is at least 85 years old, will win a controversial third term and worse, use his next term to install his son, Karim Wade. I am going to Harlem soon where there is a large Senegalese diaspora to follow news on the RTS (Radio Télévision Sénégalaise) and other Senegalese channels if available.

As is often stated, Senegal is the only country in West Africa that has had uninterrupted elections without military rule since Independence. It is considered by the international community to be a stable democracy that has escaped the fate of its neighbors.

Above, President Abdoulaye Wade, Feb. 23, 2012, approximately 85 years old.

And regional instability is a fact. I lived and worked in Senegal for three years until returning to the U.S. for graduate school last July 2011. During one nine month period (August 2008- March 2009), three of the five countries bordering Senegal experienced a coup. The fourth (internal) neighbor, The Gambia, has been ruled since 1994 by a dictator.

Senegal’s democracy stands in stark contrast to this trajectory. Senegal has achieved political stability, almost too much one could argue. For the first forty years, Senegal had only two different Presidents, Léopold Sédar Senghor followed by Abdou Diouf who both were part of the Socialist Party. Wade, leader of the Socialist Democratic Party, was the first opposition leader to be elected President in 2000. Despite the lack of power sharing in its first forty years, Senegal’s democracy stands as a great achievement post-colonialism in West Africa. Here we will not explore the possible contributions by the international community to some of this history of instability. Rather I want to focus on how the protests in Senegal have shown the importance of Senegalese people’s agency and commitment to democracy.

In late spring 2011, President Wade attempted to amend the constitution in a flagrant attempt to facilitate his victory today. He wanted to lower the percentage it would take to win the first round of the election (to win easily over a divided opposition) and create a Vice Presidency position (people worried for his son). On June 23, 2011, the biggest protests in a decade occurred in front of National Assembly in downtown Dakar and accompanied to a lesser extent, in cities throughout the country. The protests were successful in forcing Wade to withdraw his reform. They marked a turning point, and suddenly most radios and television stations aired aggressive critiques of Wade.

Protests on June 23, 2011 in Dakar against Wade’s proposed constitutional amendments.

I liked what candidate (and former longtime Minister of Foreign Affairs under Wade) Cheikh Tidiane Gadio said on a television interview I saw while visiting Senegal in early January 2012. To paraphrase loosely from my memory, Gadio stated, “June 23 has shown that Senegal can handle its own problems. Senegal does not need the international community to solve its domestic problems.” Certainly, the protesters handled the threat to their constitution with a mass mobilization and succeeded in forcing Wade to back down from the constitutional amendment.

Equally interesting, rappers have played a crucial role in the resistance against Wade. Senegal has one of the world’s most important hip hop scenes, and nothing mobilizes the youth in Senegal like smart, politically charged rap. A contingent of rappers formed the group “Y en a marre” or “We’ve had enough/We are fed up” to protest Wade’s candidacy and to call for voter registration and citizen participation in the elections. While this group along with M23, the Movement of the 23rd of June, have been very successful at mobilizing huge protests and using social and traditional media to get out their views, they do not officially endorse a candidate in the opposition.

Y en a marre rappers and protesters in Dakar.

A major obstacle to their movement has been the divided opposition. The protesters agree that Wade has to go, but there is no agreement on who should replace him. At a panel I attended at Columbia University a couple of weeks ago, Professor Mamadou Diouf highlighted three leading candidates Moustapha Niasse (who was a former strongman of the Socialist Party), Idrissa Seck (current Mayor of Thies and former Prime Minister under Wade for the Social Democratic Party (PDS)), and Macky Sall (who followed Idrissa Seck as Prime Minister under Wade).

Several opposition candidates, most famously the international music star, Youssou Ndour, were not allowed to run in the controversial decision by the Constitutional Court, who also issued a decision that Wade could run for a third term. I want to emphasize that the exclusion of Youssou Ndour’s candidacy has probably made him more important than if he had been allowed to run. I was in Senegal when he announced his decision to seek the Presidency early January 2012. While his declaration made international headlines, my impression was that most people take him seriously as a musician but not as a candidate. They often cited that he little formal schooling and therefore not qualified. However, his exclusion from being a candidate has made him an even more vocal critic and visible participant in the mass protests.

Youssou Ndour at a protest in Dakar where he was injured.

The constitutional court decision on January 27, 2012 that allowed Wade to seek a third term has been highly criticized by the opposition. However, Awadi, a leading rapper and intellectual in Senegal, may have found the most clever way of mocking the legality of President Wade’s candidacy. At the end of his new music video, Mame Boye, if you scroll to minute 2:46, Awadi creates a parody of the ataya tea drinking custom to criticize Wade’s bid for a third term. After meals in Senegal, people drink Mauritanian mint tea, ataya. In this highly ritualized tradition, you are offered a first cup of tea which is more bitter and then as the tea cooks down more, you are offered a second cup of tea which is sweeter.

For those that do not speak French, I will try to translate what unfolds...

In Awadi’s video, we have an old man (representing Wade) next to a younger, paler man (representing Karim whose mother is French and who speaks little Wolof, the dominant African language in Senegal). Wade asks for a second cup of tea, but the other young men making the ataya point out that he already drank his second cup. They then point to the “ataya constitution” that the old man has posted on the wall, clearly limiting everyone to two cups. Wade insists that he did not get a second cup, prompting a young man asks if he is losing his memory (a reference to his advanced age). So Wade finally asks for a third cup. When they refuse, he takes down the constitution and stands on it, saying, “Fine, I said only two; well, I take it back” referring to when he at one time said he would only stand for two terms. The ending caption says that “any resemblance to actual persons or events was entirely on purpose and not accidental. And that what is coming next [i.e. the elections] should really be watched.”

Awadi also mocks Wade’s attempt to install Karim in power by having Wade say when he learned that Karim bought the real Mauritanian tea, “ I will tell your mom that you did a good job./ Je dirais a ta maman que tu as bien travaillé.” In reality, Wade uttered this now famous phrase when praising Karim for his mdirection in organizing the Organization of the Islamic Conference meetings in Dakar in March 2008. The management of the OIC meetings was later criticized as being corrupt.

Local elections setback for presidential succession plans.

Despite the strong and highly mediatized protests by Y en a marre, M23, and other opposition groups, many people will vote for Wade. There have also been large protests in favor of Wade, although some people claim that Wade pays these supporters to show up. But Wade does have many legitimate supporters, and faced with a divided opposition, people may choose the evil that they know rather than the one they do not.

However, I believe though that if elections are transparent today, no candidate will get a majority and elections will thus advance to a second round with just two candidates, Wade and an opposition candidate. This may give the opposition the unity it has been lacking around one candidate.

I don’t want to see the hope broken for youth who have protested in this movement and tried to take charge of their democracy. I want what I want for my own country, that we believe the system can still be changed and we act to change it.

I’m off to Harlem.

The Leadership Merry-Go-Round: The mystery behind the ever-changing Japanese prime ministers

Masayuki Kameda, MPA


Former Brazilian president Lula da Silva once joked about Japanese prime ministers that you say “good morning” to one and “good afternoon” to another. Granted, it’s an exaggeration, but Japan is the only country in which the head of state delivering a speech at the annual UN General Assembly has been different in three consecutive years: Taro Aso in 2008, Yukio Hatoyama in 2009, and Naoto Kan in 2010. And this year, it will be the newly appointed Yoshihiko Noda, the sixth prime minister that Japan has seen in the last five years.

While many point out Japan’s political culture of habatsu (inner party factions) or the fickle public and the media as the main reasons for the instability of Japanese leadership, one fundamental factor that is often overlooked is the short election cycles of the house and party leadership.

In a way, clinging onto the position of prime minister in Japan is like having to compete in and continually win a popularity contest held every one or two years. The average time between national house elections are roughly two years, with ballots cast every four years for the lower house and every three years for half of the the upper house. Each election has a direct impact on the longevity of the prime minister, as the cabinet (headed by the prime minister) is chosen by members of both houses following the election. If the ruling party loses in the lower house elections, the opposing party naturally chooses a different house member from among its ranks to serve as the new leader. This occurred in September 2009 when Taro Aso of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) was replaced by Yukio Hatoyama of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) following a general election which resulted in a historic landslide victory for the DPJ.

And if the ruling party loses in the upper house elections, even though by law the prime minister doesn’t have to change (since the lower house – still controlled by the ruling party – can override the decision of the upper house in choosing the leader), the prime minister is often coerced to resign by his or her own party members as a way of taking the responsibility for the defeat. For instance, Shinzo Abe (prime minister from September 2006 to September 2007) stepped down a month after his party’s devastating loss in the upper house election, facing a stalemate in the legislature and criticisms from both inside and outside his party.

Moreover, the prime minister doesn’t even have to lose an election in order to be replaced. Merely the fact that an election is coming up creates incentives to oust the prime minister. Sometimes, before a national election the prime minister is pressured by his or her own party members to step down if the cabinet’s approval ratings are too low. This way, the party can go into an election with a more popular leader. This occurred twice in the past five years. Facing plummeting approval ratings, Yasuo Fukuda (prime minister from September 2007 to September 2008) submitted to voices in his party which argued that they will not be able to succeed in the lower house election scheduled to take place within a year with him as the head. The same happened to Yukio Hatoyama (prime minister from September 2009 to June 2010), resigning just one month before the upper house election.

In addition to these national elections, each party has its own rules for electing its party leader. For instance, the term of the party leader for the DPJ, the current ruling party, is two years. And if the leader steps down before the term expires and an election is held to replace him or her, the newly elected leader only serves the remainder of the predecessor’s term. For instance, the new Prime Minister Noda’s term is limited to the remaining one year that he succeeded from former Prime Minister Kan’s term. If he is to serve for over a year, he will have to survive another party leadership election that is scheduled to be held next year. And even if he does succeed in defending his position in a party leadership election in 2012, he will have to face a general election of both houses in the summer of 2013.

Of course, critics are correct that the habatsu and the capricious public also carry some responsibility. In this unhealthy political climate, even if election cycles were elongated, things may still remain the same. After all, the recent change in leadership was brought forth not by an immediate election but because of Kan’s inability to get things done. Plunging approval ratings, interparty power struggle, and the legislative stalemate resulting from a divided parliament all made it extremely difficult for Kan to continue.

However, it is also true that short election cycles have been and will continue to be an obstacle for any prime minister to stay in office for an extended period. And while political culture is extremely hard to change, the election cycles can be revised. In order to end Japan’s unfortunate record at the UN General Assembly, and more importantly, to allow the prime minister to develop better long-term strategy for Japan as well as close relationships with other world leaders, this fractious election system must be reconsidered urgently.