civil society win?

Senegal's challenge

News surfaced this week of the president of Senegal failing—repeat failing—to cancel the presidential election tomorrow. This is news because the original election date was four weeks ago when he did postpone the vote. According to reports, the relatively resilient democratic society in west Africa refused to tolerate President Macky Sall’s anti-democratic actions.

Eighteen million people, 98% Muslims, inhabit the former French colony we now call Senegal. It’s that fascinating country on the Atlantic coast of Africa with a tongue, the separate nation-state of Gambia seeming to insert itself into the middle. At times since the French surrendered governance in 1960, The Gambia and Senegal were a single country but not so for the past thirty plus years.

Senegal, if known to most Americans, is the terminus of th Paris-to-Dakar off road race which began in 1978. While the event now transpires in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia because of safety concerns along the west African route, it conjures up a magical adventurous time before Chinese arrived in Senegal or global transits had become as ho-hum as they are in our contemporary world. Dakar, in short, still has a mystique.

But the country also has a relatively strong recent commitment to the voice of Senegalese in electing a president. Elected first in 2012, Sall completes his second term next month as president. The outgoing president originally argued last month a need to prevent a corrupt individual from achieving the office, delaying the presidential vote until 24 March and leading to questions about whether he would allow it at all. Sall backed off from any no-election position within a few days. He released Bassirou Diomaye Faye, a major candidate from prison in order to run for office among seventeen candidates, along with Karim Wade.

Perhaps the strongest figure in politics is Ousmane Sonko, who is ineligible for the highest job since he confronts a rape charge; the society apparently would not tolerate even the prospect of his election. But he is younger than most of the political elite and talks of reforms but now has a stigma around him. Another unfulfilled aspirant, Karim Wade, is the son of a former president, but the younger man refuses to surrender his French citizenship for only Senegalese.

Senegal’s primary political debates surround job creation, economic advancement, and the future for the nation. An exporting economy with many service sector jobs, it imports some petroleum and manufactured goods while exporting refined petroleum, food stuffs, and ore. China and several European states are sources of imports while Senegalese exports go to Mali, Switzerland, India, and China in that order. Unemployment as a whole is 4.12%, according to the World Bank, while young men clock in at less than 4%.

None of this is earthshattering news except that the election will apparently happen tomorrow. This is how democracies operate. This is the norm. This is a functioning society without the spiraling drama.

In a world of ever so prominent declines in democracy, one ought observe carefully Senegal’s past four weeks. Not only is a democracy newsworthy in the former Africa but the nature of Senegal itself is notable.

I ran into a relatively recent U.S. ambassador to Senegal yesterday afternoon at a National War College event. I mentioned the recent turn of events to which he raised his eyebrows but said ‘we are hopeful’. I asked why, then he responded ‘because Senegal has such a strong civil society’.

What is civil society? It’s not business nor is it government but often refers to families and non-governmental sectors. Women play a strong role in civil society across the globe. I would add it’s also intangibles like expectations of rule-following. It’s folks who understand and respect laws. It’s people who expect everyone else to abide by laws, though no society is completely free of corruption (some are close but not Senegal). It’s citizenry expecting a predictable outcome, asking ‘why’ when that doesn’t occur, it’s recognising that institutions are not perfect but nor are conspiracies always the answer. It’s making known their societal displeasure when individuals put their personal preferences unquestionably above society’s.

Senegal could go wrong tomorrow; it happens. But it’s refreshing to see something work relatively well in a society developing, still pushing its boundaries and expectations forward. Colonialism and French rule wasn’t that far in the past but Dakar and the Senegalse have come a long way down a participatory path.

Thank you for reading this column. Thoughts on Senegal’s quest? Thoughts on any other society’s tests? I welcome any and all of them. I thank the paid subscribers and welcome anyone supporting our expanded measured, thoughtful discussion. Please circulate if you think this of interest to others.

It was rainy all morning but the sun is making a guest appearance this afternoon. Hip hip hooray.

Be well and be safe. FIN

Central Intelligence Agency, CIA Factbook: Senegal 2024, retrieved 23 March 2024 at https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/senegal/

Ruth MacClean, ‘Senegal’s Presidential Elections: What You Must Know’, nytimes.com, 19 March 2024, retrieved at https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/19/world/africa/senegal-election-2024.html

World Bank, ‘world Bank Indicators: Senegal’, retrieved on 23 March 2024 at https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.UEM.1524.MA.ZS?locations=SN