Free and real path towards political change in Senegal. The PASTEF party, led by Ousmane Sonko, Prime Minister, and President Bassirou Diomaye Faye, won the early legislative elections of November 17. The political hegemony of the presidential movement resulted in obtaining a qualified majority of 130 seats out of the 165 in the National Assembly, or 80% of the seats. Although both leaders won the March 24 presidential elections, PASTEF’s legislative work has been limited by the lack of a Senegalese parliamentary majority.
This result, which breaks with more than a decade of pro-government trends and fractures in social justice and political freedoms, was welcomed by the two main opposition leaders: the mayor of Dakar, Barthélémy Dias and Amadou Ba, former prime minister. On the other hand, the Alliance for the Republic-Yakaar coalition of the country’s former leader Macky Sall, which only obtained 16 seats, denounced in a press release an alleged “massive fraud organized by PASTEF”.
Pressure on the National Assembly
Since March 2024, Faye was elected president of Senegal and Sonko prime minister of the African country, the legislative strings have been tightened and have prevented the implementation of the plans of the new Senegalese government. The Legislative Chamber was last established two years ago and, until then, the parliamentary majority had gone to the opposition coalition previously led by deposed President Macky Sall.
In September of the same year, a constitutional reform proposed by PASTEF was stopped dead under pressure from the opposition. The proposal aimed to dissolve the Higher Council of Regional Governments and the Economic, Social and Environmental Council, a body criticized for its cost, which amounts to around $24 million per year. The vote in Parliament ended with 83 votes against and 80 for. The legislative initiative was blocked to the detriment of a civil society that looks like change.
Faced with the blockade and five years of legislature, PASTEF decided to dissolve the Assembly and bring forward the legislative elections as the only way to continue to govern fluidly, with the desired parliamentary majority, and thus implement all the measures promised during the elections. campaign. . In conversations with elDiario.es, Senegalese actor Thimbo Samb said that “PASTEF is the hope of the youth of Senegal. “If they don’t do things right and keep their promises, it will be a disaster. »
“The early elections were a risky decision because the two major coalitions in the running, with the exception of PASTEF, were openly opposed. It seems that everything has gone well for them and that they now have carte blanche both at the executive and legislative level to operate and implement the reforms they want,” explains Alfonso Masoliver, a journalist based in Senegal, during conversations with this media.
Fishing and migration shape the relationship with Europe
On May 27, 2024, the European Commission classified Senegal as a non-cooperative country in the fight against illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing, two months after the policy change. At the beginning of November of the same year and due to the failures observed, the European Union decided not to renew the fishing agreement. A decision which could be unilateral but which, since Dakar, they have been celebrating.
“The European Union says that it was the European Union itself that did not want to renew the agreement, while the Senegalese government says the opposite,” notes Masoliver. He also believes that he is more inclined to believe the government’s version: “the conditions demanded by the Senegalese government were not acceptable to Brussels”. The agreement was signed under the previous Macky Sall government and “it would have been unthinkable for this to happen with Sall,” adds the journalist.
Concerning immigration, there does not seem to be any change after the arrival of the new government. “I don’t think there will be a big change. Of course, the Faye-Sonko duo is going to have to reduce the drama somehow,” notes Masoliver. Furthermore, the journalist adds that to see a reduction in the number of canoes launched on the Atlantic route, the new Executive “will first have to see if its policy is working and if youth have a future in Senegal. Meanwhile, if the country continues in the current socio-economic situation, which cannot change overnight, there will be no change in terms of migration.”
Additionally, 2024 became the year with the highest migrant arrivals in the Canary Islands in history. Data from the Ministry of the Interior’s immigration report published on November 18 put the number of arrivals on the islands in an irregular administrative situation at more than 40,000. Over the whole of 2023, 39,910 arrivals were recorded. Despite the drop recorded in September, it was only in the first half of November that the figure recorded for the whole month of September was exceeded, with just over 5,200 people.
Lessons for the European Union and Senegal
“The European Union will have to learn. Stop looking too much at money and look for what positive factors can be found in the new government,” says Masoliver. The change of government leads to a reconfiguration of Senegal’s relations with European countries and, in particular, with France, with the aim of recovering the management and control of its natural resources, among other issues. In 2014, the country’s main gas blocks were operated by the American Kosmos Energy (60%), British Petroleum (30%) and the Senegalese Petrosen (then 10%).
Not only can Europe be harmed by PASTEF’s new policies, but also by new foreign actors in the country. “If before Europe took ten out of 20, when new players like Russia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates or Iran entered, now, instead of taking ten, it takes five,” adds Maoliver. “In economic terms, it’s negative.”
Today, and with regard to the relationship between Europe and Africa, “at the moment when treatment is equalized, at the moment when Europe comes down from this pedestal and places itself with the rest of the countries, the inequalities disappear. If Europe knows how to manage it with a certain elegance and if Africans know how to accept this equality of conditions without giving in to arrogance or pride, the result will be much healthier, more sensible and more equitable relations between the people,” he concludes.
