(Dakar) Senegal, in turmoil since the surprise postponement of the presidential election, plunged into crisis on Saturday, the day after demonstrations whose repression left two dead.
An investigation was opened after the death on Friday of a geography student in Saint-Louis (north) in circumstances that are still unclear, and a street vendor died of his injuries on Saturday in Dakar, victim according to his relatives of a shooting police officer the day before.
While demonstrations took place on Saturday in Paris and Berlin against President Macky Sall, described as a “dictator”, the Senegalese opposition strongly denounced a shift in power.
In Paris, the demonstration brought together several hundred people, 2,000 according to the police, and slogans “Macky resigns, Macron complicit” were chanted, after France’s considered timid reaction to the postponement of the presidential election.
“We call on the regional and international community to witness, in the face of the excesses of this dying power” of President Macky Sall, Khalifa Sall, one of the main presidential candidates, said in Dakar.
The coalition of anti-system candidate Bassirou Diomaye Faye, who received the support of opposition figure Ousmane Sonko, denounced “the brutality of the security forces who carried out unprecedented violence”.
She welcomed “the efforts” to “block the constitutional coup d’état” by President Sall and maintain the presidential election on February 25.
A new demonstration launched by a civil society collective, Aar Sunu Election (“Let’s protect our election”) is planned for Tuesday.
In an interview with the daily La Tribune, to be published on Sunday, Senegalese Foreign Minister Ismaïla Madior Fall indicated that he had spoken with his French counterpart Stéphane Séjourné on Friday afternoon.
“We have reached a common understanding of the situation,” he said.
PHOTO JOHANNA GERON, REUTERS ARCHIVES
Senegalese President Macky Sall
President Macky Sall took everyone by surprise last Saturday by postponing the elections three weeks before the vote, a decision ratified by the National Assembly which voted to postpone the electoral deadline until December 15, after having expelled by force opposition MPs.
The Assembly also voted to maintain Mr. Sall in power until his successor takes office, probably in early 2025. His second term officially expired on April 2.
This postponement sparked widely shared indignation on social networks, with the opposition shouting a “constitutional coup d’état”.
Senegal’s international partners have expressed their concern and called for elections to be organized as quickly as possible.
On Friday, large-scale demonstrations against the postponement of the elections took place throughout the country, particularly in Dakar, which were immediately dispersed by security forces.
In the capital, the police made abundant use of tear gas to keep away people wanting to gather near the Place de la Nation. Protesters responded by throwing stones and erecting barricades with makeshift objects.
The death on Friday in the historic city of Saint-Louis of a student, Alpha Yoro Tounkara, 22, aroused great emotion. Hundreds of his comrades from Gaston Berger University stayed up and prayed all night.
“He was not only a brilliant student, but also a loved and respected comrade,” wrote Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba Diouf, president of the university’s geography club.
The circumstances of his death are not yet known but the Saint-Louis public prosecutor has announced the opening of an investigation. The Minister of the Interior assured in a press release “that the defense and security forces did not intervene on the university campus where the death occurred”.
Shot dead
Modou Gueye, 23, is the second victim of the protests. He was a street vendor in Colobane, a bustling district of Dakar, where he sold jerseys and flags. “There were tear gas grenades fired, and then we went to the Colobane TER station to return,” his brother, Dame Gueye, told AFP.
“It was there that a gendarme shot him with a live bullet in the stomach” on Friday, he said. “I was the one who held his bag when he fell,” he said.
“He underwent two operations last night and unfortunately, he succumbed to his injuries this morning” on Saturday, Mbagnick Ndiaye, his brother-in-law, told AFP.
The information has not been confirmed by the authorities.
The call to protest on Friday was broadcast on social networks, without it being possible to determine precisely who was behind it. Such protests are generally banned in the country.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) was “outraged” by the targeting of at least five journalists by police in Dakar.
Senegal has been regularly shaken since 2021 by episodes of protest linked to legal proceedings against Ousmane Sonko, now incarcerated, with dozens of people killed and hundreds arrested.
New event
This new episode of unrest opens a period of uncertainty in the country.
The postponement of the presidential election is seen by the opposition as a scheme to avoid the defeat of the presidential candidate, or even to keep President Sall at the head of the country for several more years, which he denies. For his part, he assured that he wanted to initiate a process of “appeasement and reconciliation”.
Faced with repression, “we need a strategy of citizen struggle. Civil disobedience is a weapon that we will use to bring this country to a standstill and restore constitutional legality,” Malick Diop, co-coordinator of the collective, told AFP on Saturday.