In the grip of a malaise, Senegalese vote
February 26, 2007
Socialist old guard challenges president
By Lydia Polgreen
Published: February 26, 2007
DAKAR, Senegal: Moudou Gueye had high hopes that the presidential election in Senegal would turn around his fortunes, at least in the short term.
Seven years ago he voted for Abdoulaye Wade, a rabble-rousing professor who after decades in opposition to the Socialist Party government sailed into office buoyed by the votes of frustrated young people like Gueye, who is 32. They hoped Wade, a free-market liberal, would transform this impoverished nation’s economy, which had been stunted by generations of poor central planning.
But seven years later, Gueye said, he does not feel much better off. He still does not have a regular job, and gets by selling coffee on the streets. On election day, he hoped to make about $15 selling his sugary brew at 10 cents a cup to early-morning voters on Sunday. When the morning coffee rush died down, he would cast his own vote, but not for Wade, the octogenarian incumbent.
"I had high hopes," said Gueye, his eyes hidden behind a pair of knock-off Ray Ban sunglasses. "But now we are all disappointed."
Voters in Senegal, an oasis of stability in a turbulent corner of the globe, went to the polls to elect a president on Sunday, to choose whether to re-elect Wade or a new president from 14 other candidates, many drawn from the same old Socialist Party that voters roundly rejected in 2000.
If no candidate wins more than 50 percent of the vote in the first round, the election will go to a runoff between the top two candidates that is expected to be held in mid-March. The winner will serve a five-year term.
In the more than four decades since it won its independence from France, Senegal has never had a coup d’état, and it suffers from almost none of the ethnic strife that has dragged many countries in West Africa into civil war. One of Africa’s oldest and most open democracies, its genteel politics have been the envy of many of its neighbors.
But this election has been different. The campaign was marred by accusations that the government was trying to stifle opposition. One opposition rally was barred from taking place, though others were allowed to go ahead.
A brawl last week between supporters of a religious leader loyal to Wade and the supporters of a former Wade ally who is running for president, Idrissa Seck, left six people seriously wounded and several cars burned. Such violence is mild by regional standards but almost unheard of in Senegal.
The unrest reflects a wide unease with the country’s fortunes. Despite a relatively robust economic growth that has hovered at around 5 percent over several years, compared with the 1 percent achieved during much of the socialist era, and dozens of huge public works projects, Wade has struggled to convince voters, particularly the young people who make up more than half of the population, that he deserves another term.
"In many ways it is a choice between people they can’t stand and the person who disappointed them," said a senior Western diplomat, speaking on the condition that he not be identified. "It’s a sad choice."
While in some ways the country is better off, macroeconomic growth and a building binge have not produced large numbers of jobs in a country struggling to make the transition from an agrarian society, based largely on peanut farming, to one that harnesses the wealth of a global economy.
There is no better indication of Senegal’s economic desperation than the exodus of young people to Europe. At least 36,000 Africans, mostly young men from Senegal, headed for the Canary Islands as illegal migrants by sea last year, according to the Spanish government. At least 6,000 of those did not survive, yet thousands more wait for the next crossing season to begin, paying $1,000 or more for a place in a boat.
Wade staked his legacy on a series of building projects, what he called his Grands Travaux, part of a plan to stimulate the country’s economy. Some of the projects are under way, like a new seaside highway that hugs Dakar’s rugged coastline, along with a series of oceanfront luxury hotels. Others, like a plan to build a new capital and a second airport, are still on the drawing board.
J. Habib Sy, a political analyst and head of a nonprofit organization, Aid Transparency, that investigates public spending, said his examinations of government projects had shown widespread waste and mismanagement.
"People were hopeful, myself included, that as an old man he would be wise," Sy said. "But it didn’t happen that way."
Wade’s supporters say that he has delivered for Senegal and deserves more time to complete his vision for the country’s future.
"This government has done more in seven years than the socialists did in 40 years," said Boubacar Kanté, a 33-year- old electrician, standing in line at a school in the Grand Dakar slum, waiting to cast his vote. "I found a job after Wade was elected, and life is better."
Countering claims by critics that he is too old to serve another term — his official age is given as 80, but many people suspect he is older — Wade’s daughter, Sindiély Wade, who has worked as a special assistant to the president, said that he was as sharp and agile as ever.
"It is not a question of age," Sindiély Wade said as she waited to cast her vote in Dakar’s city center. "It is a question of dynamism and ideas and what you have planned for your country."
Along Dakar’s seaside corniche, young men marveled at the cars whizzing below a new overpass, one of the president’s public-works projects.
Pap Ndiaye, an 18-year-old street hawker who sells baby clothes to people in cars stalled in traffic, said the newly completed road was a sign that the country was moving in the right direction.
"Wade has done a lot for this country," Ndiaye said. "Our hope is that he will stay and finish his work."
Less than a mile away the road abruptly ends with a bright yellow sign that says "deviation." With a hard turn to the right, drivers pour off the broad new highway, and back into the tangled, chaotic streets of one of Dakar’s oldest and poorest neighborhoods.
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