Opponents of President Macky Sall hope to win the majority in the legislative elections scheduled for Sunday, July 31.
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From the window of his office, Ahmed Aïdara is delicious with the brand new building facing him. “It is the new town hall, which must be inaugurated in a month. Aliou Sall, the president’s little brother, despite all the support he received, will not have had time to take advantage of it”, s’ Amuses the new councilor of Guédiawaye, a Dakar dortier suburb, where nearly 400,000 inhabitants are piled up.
A journalist known until then for his bearing press reviews for Senegalese power, Ahmed Aïdara, 44, is expressed with the confidence of those who feel carried by a victorious dynamic. After having snatched, in January, the town hall from Macky Sall’s youngest brother, here he is sure, on Sunday, July 31, the voters will offer him a seat in the National Assembly and will allow the main coalition of the opposition, Yewwi Askan (Yaw, “liberate the people”), of which he is the head of the list on the spot, to impose a cohabitation in the power in place. “Of course we will have the majority! Between the floods, the high cost of life, the corruption scandals, which are never judged, and the injustices of which we are victims, the context is not favorable to the regime,” said -It of his hoarse voice. In June, the deputation candidate was imprisoned for ten days for participation in an unauthorized and disturbed demonstration in public order, while he went on foot, he assures, to his office.
Above all, he thinks, like almost all Senegalese, these legislative elections will be a repetition of the presidential election in February 2024 on which the Head of State maintains the greatest mystery as to his intentions. Will he seek a third mandate or not, contrary to the spirit of the Constitution, at the risk of provoking an immense movement of anger in a country attached to its democratic achievements? The answer depends in large part on the results of Sunday’s vote.
“True phenomenon”
For the time being, only one declared candidate seems able to prevent this supposed ambition. After justice successively cut the wings of Karim Wade, the son of the predecessor of Macky Sall, sentenced, in 2015, to six years in prison for “illicit enrichment” and now in exile in Qatar, then those of the former mayor de Dakar, Khalifa Sall, in 2018, sentenced to five years’ imprisonment for “false and use of false” and “scam on public funds”, the Senegalese opposition found itself a new champion in the person of Ousmane Sonko.
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