Continuity or change?
The Senegalese are called upon to decide: they will vote this Sunday to elect the country's fifth president.
Among the twenty candidates, some of whom withdrew, Amadou Ba, the heir of outgoing President Macky Sall, and Bassirou Diomaye Faye, an anti-system contender, emerged as favorites.
A standoff with a still uncertain outcome, after three years of unrest and a recent serious political crisis following the postponement of the election, initially scheduled for February 25.
The competitors, who until now were both relatively in the shadows, insulted each other during the short presidential campaign of only two weeks, and now claim to be able to win this Sunday without going through a second round.
We take stock of the profile of these two adversaries, once former colleagues in the Tax administration, and who are now completely opposed.
Amadou Ba, a “servant of the State” in the tradition of Macky Sall
Outgoing President Macky Sall, in charge for 12 years and largely re-elected in 2019, is not running for re-election.
He passed the baton to the man who was his discreet Prime Minister a few weeks ago, Amadou Ba, 62, a former shadow ruler now thrust into the light.
To the great dismay of certain leaders of the presidential camp, who fear an assured defeat and oppose him with three dissident candidacies.
At the end of January, he was accused of having bribed two judges of the Constitutional Council, before Macky Sall finally confirmed him as his candidate and called the government coalition to order.
With this support, Amadou Ba has displayed a more offensive tone in recent days in the campaign, presenting himself as a continuation of the action of his predecessor and a “servant of the State”.
He also wants to build on the image of a level-headed man who masters his files to convince, presenting himself as a bulwark against “adventurers” and “amateurs” and promising to fight against “bandits”.
Head of government from September 2022 to early March 2024, previously Minister of Foreign Affairs until 2020, he was Minister of the Economy from 2013 to 2019, playing the leading roles in the implementation of the Emerging Senegal Plan, a vast program multi-year development plan.
“We don't need managers who need two years of apprenticeship (…) We need to consolidate what we have learned.
We need to go even faster and further,” he said during his last meeting on Friday.
He thus has the ambition to create a million jobs in five years and promised to be “president of youth employment”, while three quarters of Senegalese are under 35, as France 24 recalls. In particular, he wants to invest in agriculture, industry, infrastructure and renewable energies.
But we still need to convince voters after long years of crisis which have weakened the country.
Amadou Ba must indeed assume the crippling legacy of President Sall: persistent poverty, high unemployment, heavy debt, the departure by canoe of thousands of people each year for Europe... So many difficulties which have fueled social tensions .
And on the political level strictly speaking, the country has been plagued by episodes of unrest since 2021 caused by the standoff between Ousmane Sonko, head of the Pastef party and guide of candidate Bassirou Diomaye Faye.
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“A Constitutional coup d’état”: tension rises in Senegal after the postponement of the presidential election
In recent weeks, President Sall had maintained a vagueness about a potential candidacy for a third term, and the presidential election was postponed in an atmosphere of general confusion, giving rise to demonstrations punctuated by deadly clashes.
Over the years, dozens of people have been killed and hundreds arrested, damaging the country's image, unfairly according to the government.
Bassirou Diomaye Faye, the challenge of “system change”
Ousmane Sonko and Bassirou Diomaye Faye, detained for months, were released on March 14 after the opening of the campaign, an announcement greeted by scenes of jubilation in Dakar.
But Ousmane Sonko was disqualified from the presidential election and had to hand over to his right and second-in-command, whom he presented as his “little brother” and in whose service he put himself.
Bassirou Diomaye Faye, 43, is much less popular and charismatic than his guide, but he nevertheless displays his determination: he assured during a last rally on Friday that he was “ready” to become president.
“Diomaye mooy Ousmane” (“Diomaye is Ousmane”), insists the Pastef party and its supporters, who highlight “his charm and his insight”.
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“Macky Sall dictator”: In Paris, a Youssou N'Dour show disrupted by supporters of Senegalese opponent Sonko
During this short campaign, the duo attacked Amadou Ba by describing him as the perpetuator of President Sall's governance and as a “billionaire civil servant”.
Like him, Bassirou Diomaye Faye comes from the senior tax administration, and pressed his former colleague to justify his alleged fortune, he who was born into a modest background.
If the publication of poll results is prohibited ahead of an election in Senegal, Bassirou Diomaye Faye also seems to take the advantage on the Internet, with a young audience: his videos on the Senegalese Radiodiffusion Television have the most views in line at the start of the campaign, far ahead of his opponent in the presidential camp, according to a study relayed by Jeune Afrique.
As for his program, the “candidate for system change” and “left-wing pan-Africanism” promised Friday a “refoundation” of Senegal, a popular project in neighboring countries.
In particular, it plans to create a Senegalese currency to replace the CFA franc, inherited from colonization, displaying the broader objective of reappropriation of national sovereignty.
He also wants to renegotiate defense agreements and mining and hydrocarbon contracts, while the country could join the circle of gas and oil producers in 2024.