Voters stay away as opposition snubs Senegal polls
June 4, 2007 | Leave a Comment
By Diadie Ba
DAKAR, June 3 (Reuters) – Many voters stayed away from Senegal’s parliamentary elections on Sunday as the main opposition parties boycotted the ballot to protest against what they called President Abdoulaye Wade’s "monarchy".
Polling stations in the capital Dakar and other cities of the small West African state saw only a trickle of voters in the first hours after they opened, witnesses and officials said.
Opposition leaders had urged citizens to stay at home to contest what they said was the octogenarian leader’s increasingly autocratic style and his refusal to discuss alleged flaws in the presidential poll that re-elected him in February.
The boycott and one-sided polls risked tarnishing Senegal’s image as a model of working democracy in Africa. The mainly Muslim country has won a reputation for political, religious and ethnic tolerance since independence from France in 1960 and has suffered no coups — a unique record in turbulent West Africa.
The Senegalese state news agency APS reported "almost empty voting centres" in Dakar’s populous Pikine suburb and "a timid start to voting" in other parts of the country.
"I’m not voting because the last elections in February were rigged. I feel discouraged by that," said Sory Ibrahima Diakhate, a 50-year-old security guard sitting on a chair on a dusty Dakar street, like others as quiet as on a normal Sunday.
The opposition boycott strategy was expected to give Wade’s ruling Sopi coalition a walkover win in the polls and extend its control over a recently enlarged 150-seat National Assembly.
More than 3,500 candidates were standing, despite the boycott by more than a dozen opposition parties, several led by former presidential candidates who lost to Wade in February.
The opposition said the low early turnout, compared with the enthusiatic voting of February, showed the success of their boycott strategy.
"This is a real slap in the face for Wade," said Dialo Diop of the Siggil Senegal (Stand up Senegal) opposition coalition.
The coalition distributed leaflets urging voters to snub the polls to "save democracy" and "fight Wade’s monarchy".
"DEMOCRATIC FATIGUE"
Opposition leaders launched the poll boycott after Wade refused to discuss their complaints that the electoral process and voters’ roll were flawed and tilted in favour of his ruling Senegalese Democratic Party (PDS).
"We’re experiencing a general malaise after the presidential elections … Senegal is feeling a bit of democratic fatigue," said Alioune Tine of the Dakar-based human rights group RADDHO.
Wade supporters accused the opposition of acting out of defeatist spite and some saw the boycott as political suicide.
"If you don’t vote, then you can’t get up and say anything the next day … Five years without having a voice (in the National Assembly), that’s irresponsible," said Alioune Youm, 48, a commercial agent, as he voted in downtown Dakar.
Many fear the opposition boycott will remove any effective check to Wade, who has already been criticised for harassing political foes and media critics with temporary detentions.
He was enthusiastically elected in 2000, ending four decades of Socialist rule, but popular disillusionment has grown since then and he faces criticism for not doing enough to end poverty, unemployment and high prices for food and basic goods.
In a sign of this social frustration, thousands of young Senegalese have risked their lives trying to reach Spain in rickety open boats in a bid to start a new life in Europe.
"Wade behaves like a king, he doesn’t listen to people. Abroad everyone says this is a model of democracy, but we don’t see it like that," said student Rokhay Ba, who did not vote.
© Reuters 2007. All Rights Reserved. |
Senegal Government Closes Private Radio Station
June 4, 2007 | Leave a Comment
By Phuong Tran
Dakar
01 June 2007
Tran report – Download 615k
Listen to Tran report
In Senegal, a media owner is preparing to fight the government’s shut down of his new private radio station. Officials say he did not follow the right procedures, but he says he is being silenced. For VOA, Phuong Tran has more from Dakar.
Premiere FM ordered to shut down for 45 days
Radio station owner Madiambal Diagne looks over his new studio. Microphones are in place. The station’s red, white and silver logo hangs on the wall.
But the transmitter that sends out broadcasts is missing. Police took that away on Thursday, when the station’s first broadcast was scheduled. They delivered an order for Diagne to cease operations for 45 days.
Madiambal Diagne shows his station’s permit paperwork
Diagne shows the paperwork he filed in 2003 for a broadcasting permit.
He says that after three years he still had not been assigned a frequency, so he bought another radio station for $140,000, and took over its frequency.
He says for the past six months he did everything the telecommunications agency asked him to do.
He says when the agency said his satellite was too close to the airport, he moved it to another town.
Diagne says he received notice that his file was complete. And then the police arrived.
Madiambal Diagne also publishes ‘Le Quotidien’ newspaper
He says most people in Senegal know his media group, which also includes newspapers, has had a rocky relationship with the government.
In 2004, after Diagne published a confidential government memo that admitted internal corruption, the journalist was arrested and held in jail for more than two weeks on charges of endangering the country’s security.
His arrest sparked a national media blackout and international condemnation.
Senegal’s Regulatory Agency of Telecommunications says it closed the radio station temporarily, because it lacked proper authorization.
Diagne says the agency is using a law that has never been enforced or publicized.
Diagne says the law requires a presidential decree in order to broadcast. He says a decree takes years. The journalist adds that none of the dozens of radio stations in Senegal has received the decree.
Premiere FM studio in Dakar
Representatives from the telecommunications agency did not respond for comment on this report.
In 2005, some people participating in the "African Media Development Initiative" survey conducted by 17 research groups said Senegal’s telecommunications agency was not neutral in assigning frequencies.
But in the same survey, Bacar Dia, Senegal’s Minister of Information, said Senegal’s government supports a free and independent press, but that many stations fail to submit valid applications.
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Senegal to vote in polls likely to dent its democratic credentials
June 4, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Senegal holds parliamentary elections on Sunday amid an opposition poll boycott that threatens to tarnish the country’s long-held democratic credentials.
The boycott, the first in the former French colony which for years has enjoyed the reputation of west Africa’s model democracy, comes three months after President Abdoulaye Wade was re-elected in elections disputed by the opposition as having been marred by fraud and irregularities.
The refusal of 17 parties to participate in the election will hand an easy victory to a pro-Wade coalition which brings together the ruling Senegalese Democratic Party (PDS) and its allies.
However, a low turnout could pose a problem of legitimacy for Wade and the government.
A majority of the opposition heavyweights, including the former prime minister Idrissa Seck and Ousmane Tanor Dieng, of the former ruling Socialist Party, who came second and third respectively in the February presidential polls, are staying away from the polls.
Another former prime minister, Moustapha Niasse, who took the fourth position in the vote which saw Wade re-elected with 56 percent early in the year, is also snubbing the June 3 poll.
The opposition decided to boycott the election after Wade refused to review the electoral process.
Opposition leaders had wanted the voter lists to be revised and the creation of an independent structure to replace the government-appointed electoral commission, to ensure poll transparency.
Civil society organisations and foreign diplomats have tried in vain to get the opposition and government to talk, as Wade refused to open up a dialogue.
Senegal has long been regarded a democratic exception in west Africa, given its regular organisation of pluralistic elections and freedom of expression. It so far remains the only country in the region to have never experienced a coup since independence in 1960.
Only small opposition forces have joined Wade’s coalition in the race for 150 national assembly seats.
Observers warn that voter turnout is key for Wade to safeguard his authority.
"The main issue of the legislative elections is the voter turnout rate," said Babacar Gueye, leader of a collective of 11 civil society groupings.
"If this turnout is significant, rulers will be able snub the opposition. If it is weak, the opposition could be regarded as winners of the arm-wrestling," he said.
And if turnout is low, "Wade could try to widen his power base, by wooing opposition parties to power so as not to have a legitimacy problem," he predicted.
Senegal’s parliamentary elections have been deferred twice already, first from last year so as to run concurrently with the presidential ballot, and then again early this year after electoral authorities upheld a charge of irregularities stemming from the allocation of seats in some constituencies.
More than 4,000 candidates will vie for 150 seats for a new and enlarged national assembly. The last lower house had 120 seats, but a new law allowed it to be expanded by 30 more.
Wade’s PDS already enjoyed a comfortable majority with 90 of the 120 deputies in the outgoing parliament.
