Why have fresh protests erupted in Senegal?

Why have fresh protests erupted in Senegal?

Subject: IR

Section: Places in news

Context:

• Senegal’s President Maky Sall postponed Presidential elections due on February 25 on grounds of a dispute between the National Assembly (parliament) and the Constitutional Council over the manner of selection of candidates resetting the next election for December 15.
• Protests have emerged across the country especially in Dakar, capital of Senegal. Opposition leaders were dragged out by riot police.

What is the background to the current crisis?

• The current unrest is worst in decade, according to Amnesty International.
• The clashes occurred due to a two-year prison sentence slapped on the leading opposition candidate
• Ousmane Sonko who targeted the country’s elites for corruption and resisted the influence of the former colonial power France.
• In January this year, the Constitutional Council barred Mr. Sall (convicted in a trial for immoral behaviour against a woman) from the Presidential race.
• Still Sall is attempting third term for election.

What has been Senegal’s recent democratic record?

• Sall’s retrograde decision to defer elections marks a break with the country’s periodic and smooth transfer of power witnessed for decades under a multi-party democratic system.
• Unlike all of its neighbours, Senegal has never undergone a military coup or a civil war since it gained independence from France in 1960.
• Senegel is viewed as beacon of democracy in a region, increasingly under the grip of military takeovers.
• Moreover, President Sall has been instrumental in pushing military dictators in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to facilitate a timely transfer of power to elected governments.
• In early 2017, Senegalese troops successfully forced out Yahya Jammeh in the Gambia, after he refused to step down after losing elections.

Pattern of elections:

• Senegal situation highlights misrule, [similar to Guinea (President Alpha Condé’s controversial re-election for a third term in 2020)- ended up in a coup the following year].
• Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger are already under military rule. So, Dakar has abandoned this regional role at a juncture due to various west African nations under military rule.
• The return of military dictatorships in African countries has been a recurrent theme in the 2020s after a serious regression after 1960s independence.

Way ahead:

The big powers must reconsider their traditional role In the region as a whole.