Election Boycott Threatens Senegal’s Democratic Reputation
April 12, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Dakar 12 April 2007 |
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Even though Senegal is located in a part More Spokesman Yankhoba Seydi, of the Rewmi Party, which came in second "Let us talk about the rules. There are many things that are wrong The president’s office says the opposition is boycotting because it is scared of being crushed in the next election. Election observer Alioune Tine says the presidential election was fair, despite some problems. International observers also said the vote was free and fair, despite minor problems and some inequality in media coverage. Tine, the director of the Senegal-based human rights group, RADDHO, "You know the president is a man who wants people to recognize his RADDHO is one of about a dozen civil society groups, called the Civil Forum, trying to stop the boycott. "I think that the problem with the opposition is that the condition The Civil Forum submitted a letter to President Wade last Friday requesting to mediate a meeting between the two sides. Presidential spokesman Amadou Sall says there is no need for civil "We do not know why [under] this condition we [would] we receive This all comes as Senegal fine-tunes its request to the United At stake is up to $800 milllion to finance a large-scale business and residential development. Team leader Sogue Diarisso says he is confident Senegal’s high rank He says Senegal is starting out much higher rating than other poor But Chris Fomunyoh, the Central and West Africa program director for "When you have a huge segment that is not participating in the The twice-delayed legislative election is scheduled to take place
of the world known for volatile and violent politics, it is the only
West African country to not have had a coup. Seven years ago, it held
democratic elections that brought a new party to power. But, after
President Abdoulaye Wade was re-elected earlier this year, opponents
cried fraud and have vowed to boycott the upcoming legislative
election. Local civil society is alarmed, while analysts consider the
long-term impact of this potential boycott. Phuong Tran has more from
Dakar.
President Abdoulaye Wade outlines his next term after official results declare him the winner of Senegal’s election, 1 Mar 2007
than 10 opposition parties say they refuse to participate in an
election they say will be unfair. They say the president won his
re-election through fraud.
in the presidential election, says his party wants electoral changes
before participating.
in the registration process. Let us check the multiple cards that [are]
issued for the voters," he said.
says the opposition needs to recognize Mr. Wade fairly won almost 56
percent of the vote, before the president will meet with them.
competence, to recognize [his] qualities, et cetera, it is a human
feeling," he said.
is to discuss or to boycott. It was not the best way to [encourage]
dialogue and to make our electoral system [stronger]," he said.
society to play referee. He says the constitutional court already ruled
elections were fair.
civil society. To do what? I really do not know if the president will
do it," he said.
States Millennium Challenge Corporation, which rewards poor, but
well-governed countries with grants to reduce poverty.
for good governance will not drop significantly, as a result of the
threatened boycott.
countries, in terms of democracy, and that the threat of a boycott does
not change the solid core of Senegal’s democratic history.
the U.S.-based election watchdog group National Democratic Institute,
says a boycott can hurt a country’s democracy, in the long-term.
political process, it is difficult to expect that those that win power,
through that process, will have legitimacy they need to be able to
govern," he said.
June 3. The president’s office has said that it does not plan to delay
the election again, regardless of opposition party participation.
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15 vie for Senegal’s legislative polls
April 11, 2007 | Leave a Comment
afrol News, 10 April - At
least 15 political parties have officialised their intentions to
contest in Senegal’s 3 June legislative polls by forwarding their lists
of candidates to the Interior Ministry which has three days to approve
or disapprove them.
Already the polls
have become sour by the confirmed boycott of the main opposition
parties, including those of the key contenders of President Abdoulaye
Wade in the 25 February polls.
Officials of Mr Idrissa Seck’s Rewmi, Pari Socialiste and AFP, said
their boycott was necessitated by President Wade’s alleged rigging of
the polls, although they were declared free, fair and transparent by
the international observers and authenticated by the constitutional
court in Senegal.
The boycotting opposition parties control more than 40 percent of the
votes in the last Presidential polls, which is why the boycott is
expected to discredit the legislative polls.
The angry opposition parties said they can take part in the 3 June
polls only if the electoral roll has been cleansed and the replacement
of the autonomous electoral commission by an independent national
electoral commission because the former allowed voting process to be
rigged in favour of the ruling Parti Democratic Senegalaise (PDS) of Mr
Wade.
Opposition leaders have also asked President Wade to sack the Interior
Minister, Ousmane Ngom, whose office organised the last elections.
Their other demands had to do with the cancellation of the demarcation
of the constituencies, which they alleged, was done to favour PDS.
President Wade turned a deaf ear to the opposition complaints. His
party is expected to continue its winning spree during the 3 June
legislative polls.
Senegal postponed the legislative polls which was should have taken
place side by side with the 25 February Presidential polls. It was
first postponed in 2005 following a massive destruction by flood in the
country.
At the time, President Wade argued that instead of organising
elections, his government opted to raise funds for the flood victims
whose compounds had been invaded by waters.
By staff writer
© afrol News
15 lists filed for Senegal legislative elections in June
April 11, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Dakar,
April 10 (NNN-APS) Fifteen political groups or coalitions of parties
have filed their lists of candidates with the Interior ministry for the
June 3 legislative elections.
The Interior Ministry, which is in charge of organizing the
elections, has three days after receiving the lists on Friday to
validate the lists based on accepted criteria.
Several political parties of the opposition have decided to boycott
the June legislative elections as they consider the Feb 25 presidential
polls won by President Abdoulaye Wade with 55.90 of the cast, was an
"electoral masquerade".
These parties are the most significant ones in the opposition
because they represent more the 40 per cent of popular support
according to the result of the last presidential election.
They demand the cleaning of the electoral rolls and the creation of
an independent national electoral commission in the place of the
autonomous national electoral commission (CENA) whose performance did
not satisfy them during the presidential polls.
Senegal Food Stand Feeds Community on a Few Dollars a Day
April 11, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Dakar 09 April 2007 |
According Before the sun rises, Astou Diaw, 47, and her daughter, Yoni, ride a Before "I wanted to help out my husband and our seven kids," she said. "It A ten-minute bus ride later, Diaw arrives at her husband’s metal shop, which is also the kitchen for her food stand. Mother and daughter work quickly. They heat a bucket of water, and stir beans over a fire that will go While Yoni washes glasses, Diaw fills a large silver bowl with the Mamadou Diop comes in for the local drink, a heavily-sugared frothy local drink that tastes like a spicy mix of coffee and tea. He is a security guard who leaves his house before sunrise every day to travel 30 kilometers to Dakar. "I come when I have the money. Sometimes, when I do not have money, A group of men debate the recent presidential elections in Senegal. Four hours and dozens of customers later, Diaw counts her change. "Mondays are the hardest because most people do not have money yet Folding her apron, Diaw takes a lentil sandwich with mayonnaise. Despite her cash problem on most Mondays, Diaw was able to make $2,000 last year from her food stand. This is in a country where about half the population is unemployed,
Breakfast diners at Diaw’s food stand
to most poverty indicators, almost half the population of Sub-Saharan
Africa is living on less than $1 a day. One Senegalese food stand owner
shows how far a dollar goes in this part of the world. Her
aluminum-sided, cardboard-roofed sandwich and coffee stand in Dakar has
become the community kitchen for hundreds of people, mostly men who
come from far away to work in the city. For a little over one dollar,
diners can afford breakfast, lunch, hot coffee, plus a helping of
morning news. Phuong Tran has more from Dakar, Senegal.
bus through Dakar’s faintly-lit streets to get to her corner breakfast
stand where she has sold bean filled baguettes and coffee for four
years.
Astou Diaw
sandwiches, Diaw sold local juices, water and peanuts. But a breakfast
stand seemed a better way to help support her family.
is hard work and sometimes I cannot cover my costs. But even though it
is really hard, I still am able to help out more than before."
into her signature spicy lentil sandwich, a best selling 50 cent long
baguette.
lentils. By seven thirty, she takes her seat for the morning rush.
Customer Mamadou Dieng
I will still come by and she will sell me on credit," he said. "Here I
can eat good home cooked food. Women like her help us out a lot. We do
not have much money. At Astou’s stand, for less than 50 cents, you can
be full."
She is short of the six dollars needed to cover her expenses on bread,
butter, coffee and beans.
to pay at the beginning of the work week," she said. "Maybe tomorrow
will be better."
Leaving her daughter to work the lunch shift, Diaw leaves and waits for
the bus to go home.
and for those who work, their average annual salary is about $700.
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In Senegal, a life of begging and beatings
April 11, 2007 | Leave a Comment
click to enlarge
Thies, Senegal — MOUSSA Ba’s eyes shine with a fierce passion for
poverty and dirt and suffering, because he believes they are good for
children. He’s not ashamed to say that he is a hard man, and that each
of his 30 beggar boys is terrified of his whip.
Filthy and ragged, these boys, as young as 5 or 6, scurry barefoot
through the dusty streets with tomato paste cans as begging bowls,
knowing that if they come back two days running with no coins for Ba,
they will pay the price.
"There is no child who is less lucky than the others. There is only a
child who is more cunning than the others," Ba said. "Of course it
makes me angry. If I see such a temperament, then it’s a flaw in
character, so I do get angry and I do beat them."
Although many Senegalese see what Ba does as a racket, he isn’t merely a modern-day Fagin. He is a religious teacher, or marabout, and the boys are his talibes, or students, sent by their parents to board and learn the Koran. Most come from distant rural villages.
In Senegal, the talibes often spend less time in the daara,
or school, than on the streets begging. It is a form of child labor so
pervasive and harsh that it has caused a public outcry here. The
government outlawed child exploitation and trafficking in 2005, but
critics say it has done little to enforce the law.
The United Nations Children’s Fund, or UNICEF, estimated in a 2004 report that Senegal has 100,000 child beggars, mostly talibes — almost 1% of the population.
"Now most marabouts are more interested in money than
teaching," said Malick Diagne, deputy director of Tostan, a U.S.
humanitarian organization that is working to help the beggar boys.
"Sometimes you see kids late at night crying, ‘I can’t go home because
my amount of money has not been collected yet.’ "
Here on the streets of Senegal’s second-largest city, the tin can boys dodge the traffic and approach cars with pleading eyes.
People often give them food and objects that are white, such as rice,
candles, sugar or pale cookies, believing that this will protect the
giver from evil. The boys usually sell their haul cheaply to women in
the market to augment the daily quota of coins for their marabout.
*
RURAL Senegalese children have been learning from marabouts in Koranic schools since the 11th century, according to Tostan. But in the 1970s, drought and poverty hit rural areas and many marabouts drifted to cities and began to rely on begging.
The ragged man’s shirt that hangs on tiny Mamadou Jalo makes him look
even thinner than he is. He speaks haltingly, in whispered confidences,
his big, dark eyes glancing about tremulously.
He doesn’t know his age, but locals put it at about 6 or 7. He does
remember his mother and the enveloping warmth of her cuddle in the days
before his family sent him to Ba.
"I miss it," he said. "When I finish school I’ll go back to see my mother."
He lives in constant fear of not collecting the coins he needs to escape the whip.
"I’m sad. I don’t like the marabout. He beats me and he
makes me beg for money. I have to get 250 CFA [50 cents] a day. If it’s
two days running, he beats me with a whip. He beats me very hard.
Everyone is beaten."
The children spend nine hours a day begging and five hours learning the
Koran. At 8 a.m. the boys are sent out to beg for three hours, then
they return to the shack for learning, which involves chanting Koranic
verses, until 1 p.m. They beg for their lunch until 2, learn the Koran
until 5, then are sent out to beg until 10.
Humanitarian agencies in Senegal have worked for years to halt the exploitation of talibes,
but with little success in this overwhelmingly Muslim country where
charity to beggars is a deeply ingrained part of the culture. Some
agencies set up shelters or drop-in centers for the boys, only to find that within a few months they had no customers. For talibes, life on the streets is a habit hard to break.
When they finish schooling in the daara, typically in their
mid-teens, not all go home, said UNICEF country representative Ian
Hopgood. Many remain on the streets, begging — the only life they
really know.
The government denies it has been slow to prosecute those who exploit children.
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"The government is determined to stop the begging and roaming of
children in the streets and their exploitation, and will enforce laws
and regulations on the matter," Information Minister Bacar Dia said,
addressing a meeting on the issue in October.
The 46-year-old Ba, who was a talibe from age 6 and saw his
own father only twice, believes the hard, unrelenting life on the
streets gives his boys an education no school can offer; it makes them
tough enough to face the worst that life can throw at them.
Like most daaras, his is a half-built house where
he squats for free. The rusted corrugated iron roof leaks copiously in
the rainy season. The boys sleep like sardines, without mattresses.
Flies swirl into the air when any of them stirs. The boys rarely wash,
and don’t need to, Ba contends.
"The fact you are dirty on the surface is not real dirt. What’s real
dirt is spiritual dirt," he said, brushing off the thought that poor
hygiene and crowding among the talibes could cause sickness.
"Nothing like that will happen. God has an angel with a big wing. The angel lays down its wing and the talibes lie
down on that wing and the angel lays its other wing over and if any
illness comes, it won’t hurt them. They can even sleep on the wet
ground and it won’t hurt them."
Marabouts such as Ba say they force children to beg for money for food because parents don’t pay fees.
Tostan, which is based in Thies, is working with 115 marabouts here, offering civics and sanitation classes for talibes and their teachers, providing basics such as soap and shoes, and offering small loans to enable the marabouts to wean themselves from begging. It also is encouraging townspeople to "adopt" their neighborhood talibes, to buy them food and clothing.
Oumou Sy, 75, feeds and washes about 10 talibes in her house each morning. She gives them coins for their marabout, even though she knows that perpetuates the system.
"They’re desperate," she said. "If you don’t do it as an individual,
they’re going to get beaten. If you can change the life of one talibe, it’s worth it."
*
NOT all the marabouts beat children for failing to collect enough money. Ahmad Sow, 44, who has about 27 boys in his daara, beats those who are lax in learning the Koran.
But even in one of the better and cleaner daaras such as Sow’s, life is hard for the boys, who beg six or seven hours a day.
Ba remembers begging all day as a child. He remembers the hunger, the
fear of being thrashed, and says he is now fervently thankful for that.
"Even if I was angry and frustrated as a child, I am grateful to God
for that now, because look where it took me. If I was not beaten and if
I didn’t live in harsh conditions, I would not be where I am today," he
said, sitting amid conditions that, materially at least, could hardly
be worse.
He extolled the beauty of learning as the honeyed voice of a young man
reciting the verses of the Koran rose in the small dirt courtyard.
"If you take a child and he leads a soft life, he’s spoiled," Ba said. "But the talibes learn to be strong and independent."
As darkness fell on Thies, Mamadou Jalo was still out begging in the streets.
Mamadou has only one dream, a yearning that stitches together his days,
makes some of them good and others terrible. It’s a dream that slips
through his fingers every single day.
"My dream is money," he says softly.
*
robyn.dixon@latimes.com
Senegal Independence Day Calls into Question France’s Future Role
April 11, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Dakar 04 April 2007 |
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Throughout Thousands in downtown Dakar lined up on General Charles de Gaulle Boulevard to see Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade. This street has had decades of independence day parades since Senegal gained its sovereignty in 1960. Local political analyst Yoro Dia says Senegal’s relationship with "When you are a product of French colonial system, you have a French colonial mentality," he said. "The most important thing is what people are thinking in Paris. What Dia says it is inevitable France will lose some influence because he says Mr. Wade is the last of the colonial generation. "Wade is a kind of bridge between that colonial generation, people "I think this is the biggest change. You no longer have the relationship between the master and the [colonized]," he added. For 24-year-old government economist, Alfa, Senegal is still close to its former colonizer. "Nothing [has] really changed. It is our partner. We love French people. It is our big brother," said Alfa. But when asked where most people his age want to go if they are to For army Commander Alain Diop, the celebration honors Senegal’s responsibilities as a sovereign country. He says the day is a reminder of Senegal’s ability to make both peace and war. Officials say there were less military in attendance this year
Francophone West Africa, analysts say France’s influence has been
changing. In Senegal, the country observed its 47th year of
independence from France. With an octogenarian president entering his
last term, analysts say it is inevitable France will lose influence
with future leaders of its former colony. Phuong Tran has for VOA more
from Dakar.
Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade greets crowd at the Independence Day parade, 04 Apr 2007
France will soon change, because there are no more presidential
candidates trained in the French colonial system like Mr. Wade.
people are thinking in Washington [D.C.], you do not care. What people
are thinking in Senegal, you do not care. But what people are thinking
in Paris, you do care," he continued.
Senegal political analyst Yoro Dia
who fight for independence and the other generation, people who were
born in Senegal, trained in the United States, people who do not have
the colonial mentality," said Dia.
leave Senegal, he does not hesitate in replying: "For the students,
they want to go to America or China to learn more."
Commander Alain Diop
because more are serving overseas in neighboring countries’ conflicts.
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Senegal opposition confirms will boycott June polls
April 7, 2007 | Leave a Comment
By Diadie Ba
DAKAR (Reuters) - Senegal’s main opposition parties confirmed on
Friday they would boycott parliamentary elections set for June,
withdrawing their candidacy deposits hours away from the deadline for
submissions, a spokesman said.
A group of 12 opposition parties said on Monday they would boycott
the June 3 elections, accusing the government of buying votes and
doctoring the electoral roll in President Abdoulaye Wade’s re-election
in February.
"I have been mandated by the 12 opposition parties to withdraw the
deposits for the legislative elections from the public treasury. Now it
is a done deal, we will not take part in the elections," their
representative, Aly Haidar, told Reuters.
Monday’s announcement dented Senegal’s reputation for democracy and
embarrassed Wade hours ahead of his inauguration on Tuesday for a
second term in office at a lavish ceremony attended by almost 20 heads
of state from across Africa.
Wade easily won the February 25 presidential poll with 55.9 percent
of votes, but opposition parties accused him of doctoring voter lists
and buying votes.
Opposition parties had demanded the dismissal of Interior Minister
Ousmane Ngom and the redrawing of electoral boundaries before elections
take place, saying the current allocation of constituencies heavily
favoured Wade’s ruling Senegalese Democratic Party (PDS). Wade rejected
both of these demands.
"I must point out that it is President Wade who has broken off all
dialogue with the opposition in refusing an audit of the electoral
list. Therefore more than 40 percent of the electorate will not be
taking part in the elections," Haidar said.
The parties of most of the 14 rival candidates who challenged Wade
in the February poll are in the group boycotting the legislative
elections.
They include the Rewmi party of second-placed Idrissa Seck, Wade’s
estranged former premier and the Socialist Party, which led the former
French colony for four decades before being swept from power by Wade’s
election in 2000.
That election — one of Africa’s first peaceful transfers of power
from one elected government to another — enhanced Senegal’s reputation
for stability and democracy in a volatile continent.
Originally scheduled for February 2006, the legislative elections
were postponed by a year after Wade said the money for organising them
was needed to cope with widespread flooding after the heaviest rains in
decades in late 2005.
The polls were postponed again in February after the opposition protested against the map of electoral boundaries.
© Reuters 2007. All Rights Reserved. |
Senegal’s opposition to boycott election
April 7, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Senegal’s main opposition parties announced Friday they would
boycott June’s legislative elections over the president’s refusal to
change the electoral process.
They said they had begun
withdrawing their 15-million CFA franc (23,000-euro) deposits for the
polls, which will render their candidates ineligible to stand, ahead of
the midnight deadline for applications.
"We are going to gather
the final documents that we need to withdraw our deposits in the next
few hours," said Yero De, the spokesman for the opposition coalition
comprising the Socialist Party, LD/MPT and Rewmi parties.
"We
cannot participate in the election without holding talks with the
president (Abdoulaye Wade) on the electoral process," he told AFP.
Abdel
Kader Sabara, a delegate of the Alliances of Forces for Progress,
another opposition coalition, said: "I am in the process of completing
the process to withdraw my deposit."
On Monday, 12 opposition
leaders threatened to boycott the June 3 elections if Wade refused
their calls to revise the voter list and create an independent
structure to replace the government-appointed electoral commission.
The president, who was sworn in to a second term on Tuesday, refused to meet them but said they were free to boycott the polls.
Among
those taking part in the boycott are Idrissa Seck, Ousmane Tanor Dieng
and Moustapha Niasse, who came second, third and fourth respectively in
February’s presidential elections which Wade won with 55.9 percent of
the vote.
Only two small opposition parties — the Jef-Jel
alliance and the African Party for Democracy and Socialism (AJ/PADS) –
have said they will take part in the legislative elections.
There
was no official response to the boycott on Friday but commentators
expressed concern at the effect on democracy in Senegal, the only west
African country never to have experienced a coup d’etat.
"We are
going to ask the parties to go back on their decision. For the sake of
democracy, they must give dialogue a chance," Alioune Tine, executive
secretary of Dakar-based human rights group RADDHO, told AFP.
"The
opposition do not have the right to deprive voters of their
representation in the assembly. For his part, Wade must do everything
to ensure they are present to avoid a catastrophic regression in a
country viewed as a democratic leader in Africa."
Wade promises better future for Senegal
April 6, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Dakar, Senegal, 04/05 - President Abdoulaye Wade has
reaffirmed his determination to work for sustained
progress of Senegal during his second five-year mandate.
"The task will not be easy. It demands from all of us
a sustained effort and passion to build a new Senegal,"
he said in a radio and television broadcast Tuesday night,
on the eve of the country`s 47th independence anniversary.
According to Wade: "the vision remains unchanged today more
than ever," adding: "More than just a simple evolution, it
is a revolution of mentalities."
He called on his compatriots "to remain mobilised and united
around what is essential."
"Each Senegalese is accountable for the national destiny and
must share the dream which nurtures progress of human society"
the Senegalese leader said.
"Such is the approach that will keep guiding my choices and
action to work with you in the service of a Senegal always free
and independent, for national unity and cohesion," he added.
Senegal’s Wade starts 2nd term with airport project
April 6, 2007 | Leave a Comment
y Diadie Ba
DIASS, Senegal (Reuters) - Senegal’s President Abdoulaye Wade
marked the start of his second term on Wednesday by laying the
foundation stone of a new $460 million airport, the latest major
infrastructure project in the West African country.
"This airport is the first of the big projects I want to build
during my five-year term. Infrastructure is not a luxury for Africa, it
is a necessity for development," the octogenarian president said at an
event inaugurating work on the airport.
Wade took the oath of office for a second term on Tuesday at a
ceremony attended by almost a score of presidents from across Africa.
He won a February election in which opponents say his side bought votes
and doctored the electoral roll.
The Senegalese leader had campaigned on a pledge to create jobs and complete a major public works programme.
Much of the capital Dakar has turned into a construction site while
modern highways and hotels are built, partly for an Organisation of the
Islamic Conference summit due to be held here next year.
After presiding over a military parade marking Wednesday’s national
day celebrations, Wade inaugurated work on the new airport 45 km (28
miles) inland from Dakar, which is on a spit of land that is mainland
Africa’s most westerly point.
Saudi Binladin Group, which is owned by the estranged family of
Osama Bin Laden and has built more than two dozen airports around the
world, will lead the building consortium.
Wade said the airport would not cost the state "a penny".
Karim Wade, the president’s influential son, adviser and head of
the airport’s financing committee, said income from passenger taxes
from Dakar’s existing airport over the past two years had been kept in
an account to help finance the project.
"With the help of the Banque Marocaine pour le Commerce Exterieur
and BNP-Paribas, we have been able to mobilise nearly 350 million
euros, or around 230 billion CFA francs, on international financial
markets," he said.
Germany’s Fraport will manage the airport, in which the Senegalese
state will own a 45 percent stake, with the remaining 55 percent held
by Aeroport International Blaise Diagne (AIBD) SA, a company owned by
Senegalese investors.
Used as a hub for flights from Africa to Europe, the United States
and Brazil, Dakar’s existing airport has seen traffic grow rapidly in
recent years, but its location, surrounded by Dakar’s suburbs, limits
its potential to grow.
The new airport, named after the first black African elected to
France’s parliament in 1914, Blaise Diagne, should take 30 months to
build and have an initial capacity of 3 million passengers a year –
almost double the 1.7 million annual traffic handled by the existing
airport, a statement said.
It is also intended to attract more foreign tourists to Senegal and
fuel the growth of a planned new economic development zone outside
Dakar.