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Popenguin-Ndayane is my residence.
This small fishing village on the Atlantic coast, about 100 km (62 miles) from Senegal's capital, Dakar, is a pilgrimage website for the nation's Christian minority.
For the previous 135 years, pilgrims – together with the Pope – have been coming right here to hope on the spot the place the Black Madonna is claimed to have appeared.
Some individuals consider that miracles occur on this village.
It’s a place the place sick individuals come to get effectively.
Politicians additionally come right here to get elected.
Their campaigns include intense mbalax music – Senegal's fashionable dance tunes – free T-shirts, and generally fistfuls of money and a promise that when you “vote for us, your despair will flip into hope”.
“Politicians suppose they will work miracles,” certainly one of my neighbors advised me with a touch of sarcasm.
Nevertheless, Senegalese voters haven’t been duped.
Mackie Saul's announcement
Voting is a convention that dates again to French colonial rule in Senegal: from poet-president Léopold Sédar Senghor to present president Macky Sall, there have solely been peaceable transitions of energy.
It’s a supply of pleasure for Senegal, which is surrounded by nations dominated by navy governments. Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali – one after one other – former French colonies in West Africa that grew to become democracies are falling; A domino impact that has saved this small coastal nation of about 17 million.
Senegal, situated on the westernmost tip of Africa, stands as a bastion of democracy.
However then got here that Saturday afternoon in early February, when, simply hours earlier than the presidential marketing campaign started, reporters have been advised the president would handle the nation.
Feeling troubled, colleagues known as me. We have been having doubts as we waited. Till the President was able to ship his handle we noticed an previous man taking part in a conventional musical instrument.
Hours had handed. It appeared like a nasty omen or maybe a distraction.
Then the nationwide anthem was performed and President Sail was current.
A coworker, her husband, and your complete nation — together with the household canine — stood silently, ears alert, listening because the president made historical past for all of the incorrect causes.
He was canceling the presidential elections and by doing so he was throwing Senegal into uncertainty.
'Constitutional coup plot'
The President claimed that the method of making ready the record of election candidates by the nation's Constitutional Council was flawed. He additional stated, the council's judges have been suspected of taking bribes to forestall candidates from operating within the election, thereby casting doubt on the result of the vote.
Some sighed in resignation. Others grew to become livid with anger. Our household canine began barking angrily.
Nevertheless, we noticed this coming.
A couple of months earlier than the vote, Sall – at all times an astute politician – had left unclear his intentions as as to if he would run for a 3rd mandate as president.
Julie Sagna watched Sal's speech at residence.
Even on the age of 32, he by no means took out time to vote. However when members of Senegal's safety forces stormed the Nationwide Meeting and drove out opposition members, they found they have been being stripped of a elementary proper they’ve lengthy taken with no consideration.
“I couldn't consider it,” she stated.
“The President is staging a constitutional coup to increase his time in energy!”
Sagna took to TikTok to battle again. Others clashed with safety forces.
After political maneuvering and road protests, the Constitutional Council stepped in and introduced a brand new election date of March 24.
It lowered the election marketing campaign interval to 2 weeks, however scheduled the vote earlier than Sall's mandate as president ended on April 2.
Election Marketing campaign
In the meantime, Sall, seeing his popularity declining on the worldwide scene, signed an amnesty invoice to free what human rights teams described as political prisoners. 1000’s of individuals have been launched, together with opposition chief Ousmane Sonko and his deputy Bassirou Diomaye Faye – election candidates representing the banned political get together PASTEF.
However the marketing campaign had began with out him.
The ruling get together candidate and former prime minister, Amadou Ba, took the lead in campaigning for voters.
Ba swept throughout the nation with a horde of bodyguards and a well-oiled machine of state equipment to help him. A number of prestigious PR corporations within the West have been additionally tasked with portraying him as a person of the individuals, prepared to offer stability.
A former tax inspector who grew to become Prime Minister, Ba is an skilled civil servant. However he was by no means elected to workplace. Throughout the 2022 parliamentary elections, he misplaced to the candidate of the banned PASTEF get together in his residence district of Parcels Assannies. But, regardless of that defeat, he’s President Sall's candidate of alternative.
He has been described by his critics as a “billionaire civil servant” – value billions of {dollars} within the native West African CFA franc foreign money, that’s – the opposition has accused Ba of being one other corrupt politician making an attempt to generate income by turning into president. Was.
Ba's former worker – and in addition a tax inspector – Bassirou Diomaye Faye is operating in opposition to him after not too long ago being launched from jail.
Throughout a week-long marketing campaign backed by opposition chief Ousmane Sonko, Faye has risen from unknown contender to political stardom. He was seen waving a conventional broom atop a automotive – symbolizing his intention to rid the nation of corruption and lead it to victory. As an anti-establishment candidate, Faye is asking for radical change within the political system.
For a lot of youth, together with Julie Sagna, Faye is a break from the previous that youth really feel they should take the nation ahead.
the place elections are received
In Mbour – situated not removed from the pilgrimage village of Popenguin-Ndayane – Faye held his last marketing campaign rally in entrance of a boisterous crowd.
Most of the members have been younger males. It’s unsure whether or not they are going to flip as much as vote within the elections on Sunday. Many individuals should not have voter registration playing cards.
One key demographic was lacking from Faye's rallies: Senegalese girls from rural areas.
Their vote can have an effect on the consequence.
“Elections are received in rural areas below village timber, away from the hustle and bustle of the capital or the noisy caravans of candidates,” a conventional village healer advised me.
Native girls in Popenguin-Ndayane talk about a rustic they really feel is not theirs. Document numbers of largely younger Senegalese males traveled to Europe illegally in 2023. They went searching for work regardless of the booming financial system at residence. The moms and sisters of Popenguin-Ndayane don’t wish to see their sons and brothers go.
Just like the Black Madonna, whom pilgrims come right here to worship, Senegalese girls can even carry out miracles at election occasions.
However, greater than the free T-shirts and money provided for profitable their votes, what they wish to see most is certainty in occasions of uncertainty.