Senegal Worried About Instability After “Institutional Coup”
On February 4, Parliament, under President Macky Sall's aspirations, postponed elections for eight months
Protests have been taking place in the capital Dakar since Sunday, during which dozens of people have been arrested and four opposition politicians, including former Prime Minister Aminatou Touré, have suffered the same fate.
What happened in Senegal is defined as an “institutional coup” that has no precedent in the country, which has been independent from France since 1960 and which represents an example of stability in the sub-Saharan region that has experienced eight coups d’état between 2020 and 2023.
Sall, who reaches the constitutional limit of two terms with his current term, justified delaying the vote by talking about the controversy over the candidate lists and the judicial body that itself handled the lists.
When protests broke out on the night of February 4, the Dakar government also blocked Internet access, escalating tensions that have worried international observers. UN Secretary-General António Guterres, through his spokesman Stephane Dujarric, expressed hope that Senegal would refrain “from violence and any action that could undermine the democratic process and stability.” The U.S. State Department has also spoken out in the same vein: “The USA is deeply concerned about the steps taken to postpone Senegal’s February 25 presidential election: it is a denial of the country’s strong democratic tradition.”
Meanwhile, a dozen Senegalese opposition leaders have banded together to challenge the postponement of the election and legally challenge the measure. “We’re not negotiating. We’re not arguing. We’re not postponing it. It’s a date, and we will honor it,” one of the candidates told Reuters.
Senegal is a country with 18 million inhabitants and a projected economic growth of about 9% in 2024. A positive outlook, but based on a number of reforms currently underway that could be jeopardized if the country slips into prolonged instability. Senegal is also a reference point for the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), a partnership that aims to achieve economic integration among countries in this part of Africa and that recently lost three members to political instability: Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger, where recent coups took place.