Free and real way to political change in Senegal. The PASTEF party, under the leadership of Ousmane Sonko, as prime minister, and the president, Bassirou Diomaye Faye, has swept the early legislative elections on November 17. The political hegemony of the presidential movement has culminated in obtaining a qualified majority of 130 seats of the 165 seats in the National Assembly, that is, 80% of the seats. Although both leaders won the presidential elections on March 24, PASTEF’s legislative work was limited by the absence of a Senegalese parliamentary majority.
The result, which breaks with more than a decade of pro-government tendencies and fracture of social justice and political freedoms, has been congratulated by the two main opposition leaders: the mayor of Dakar, Barthélémy Dias and Amadou Ba, former prime minister. Instead, the coalition, Alliance for the Republic-Yakaar of the country’s former leader, Macky Sall, and which obtained only 16 seats, has denounced in a press release an alleged “massive fraud organized by PASTEF.”
Pressure on the National Assembly
Since last March 2024, Faye was elected president of Senegal and Sonko as prime minister of the African country, the legislative ropes have tightened and prevented the implementation of the plans of the new Senegalese government. The legislative chamber was last set up two years ago and, until then, the parliamentary majority fell to the opposition coalition previously led by the deposed president, Macky Sall.
In September of this same year, a constitutional reform proposed by PASTEF was stopped cold due to pressure from the opposition. The proposal sought to dissolve the Higher Council of Regional Governments and the Economic, Social and Environmental Council, a body criticized for its cost, which is around US$24 million a year. The vote in Parliament concluded with 83 votes against and 80 in favor. The legislative initiative was blocked at the expense of a civil society with an air of change.
Faced with the blockade and with five years of the legislature ahead, PASTEF decided to dissolve the Assembly and bring forward the legislative elections as the only way to continue governing fluidly, with a desired parliamentary majority, and thus implement all the measures promised during the electoral campaign. . In conversations with elDiario.es, Senegalese actor Thimbo Samb expressed that “PASTEF is the hope of young people in Senegal. “If they don’t do it right and keep their promises, it will be a disaster.”
“The early elections were a risky move because the two major coalitions that were running, apart from PASTEF, were openly opposed. It seems that it has gone well for them and right now they have free rein in both the Executive and the Legislative to operate and implement the reforms they seek,” explains Alfonso Masoliver, a journalist based in Senegal, in conversations with this medium.
Fishing and migration shape the relationship with Europe
On May 27, 2024, the European Commission classified Senegal as a non-cooperative country in the fight against illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing, two months after the political change. At the beginning of November of the same year and due to the failures observed, the European Union decided not to renew the fishing agreement. A decision that could be unilateral but that, from Dakar, they celebrate.
“The European Union says that it was the European Union itself that did not want to renew the agreement, while the Senegalese government points out the opposite,” notes Masoliver. Furthermore, he believes that he is more inclined to believe the government’s version: “the conditions that the Senegalese government demanded were not acceptable to Brussels.” The agreement was signed during the previous Macky Sall government and “it would have been unthinkable for this to happen with Sall,” adds the journalist.
Regarding immigration, there does not seem to be any changes after the arrival of the new government. “I don’t think there is going to be any big change. Of course the Faye-Sonko duo is going to have to reduce the drama somehow,” notes Masoliver. Furthermore, the journalist adds that to see a decrease in the canoes that are launched on the Atlantic route, the new Executive “will first have to see if its policies work and if youth have a future in Senegal. Meanwhile, if the country continues in the current socioeconomic situation, which cannot change from one day to the next, there will be no changes in terms of migration.”
What’s more, 2024 has become the year with the most migrant arrivals to the Canary Islands in history. The data from the Ministry of the Interior’s immigration balance sheet published on November 18 put the number of arrivals to the islands in an irregular administrative situation at more than 40,000. In all of 2023, 39,910 arrivals were registered. Despite the decrease in the month of September, only in the first half of November has the figure recorded in all of September been exceeded, with just over 5,200 people.
Lessons for both the European Union and Senegal
“The European Union is going to have to learn. Stop looking so much at money and look for what positive factors can be found from the new government,” explains Masoliver. The change of government brings a reconfiguration of Senegal’s relations with European countries and, especially with France, with the aim of recovering the management and control of its natural resources, among other issues. In 2014, the main gas blocks in the country were exploited by the American Kosmos Energy (with 60% ownership), British Petroleum (30%) and the Senegalese Petrosen (then 10%).
Not only can Europe be harmed by the new PASTEF policies, but also by the new foreign actors in the country. “If before Europe took ten out of 20, when new players such as Russia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates or Iran entered, now, instead of taking ten, it takes five,” adds Masoliver. “In economic terms, it is negative.”
Now, and with regard to the relationship between Europe and Africa, “the moment in which treatment is equalized, the moment in which Europe comes down from that pedestal and places itself with the rest of the countries, inequality disappears. If Europe knows how to manage it with a certain elegance and Africans know how to accept this equality of conditions without allowing themselves to fall into arrogance or pride, the result will be much healthier, more sensible and equitable relations between peoples,” he concludes.
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