Souleymane Bachir Diagne
Department of Philosophy, Cheikh Anta Diop University, Dakar, Senegal

On March 19, 2000, Senegal underwent an important political change (alternance) when Abdou Diouf, who had been President for two decades and who himself succeeded Leopold Sedar Senghor (president from 1960 to 1980), lost what appears to be the fairest and most open elections in the recent history of this West African country. Both Senghor and Diouf were supported by the Socialist Party (PS) which has been, under different names, an important movement during the pre-independence period, in the fifties, and has been ruling the country politically since it became independent in 1960. Although the Presidency, won by Abdoulaye Wade, is the most decisive institution in the country, the Socialist Party still holds the majority in Parliament. But the party is likely to lose this majority as well during the next elections which are being scheduled, anticipating the normal term. Only then will the change in Senegal be complete. What happened in Senegal is quite comparable to what happened recently in Mexico when, after seventy years, the uninterrupted political domination of one party, [the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI)—Ed.,] came to an end, following a presidential election. The parallel has been pointed out to underline the fact that in Senegal as in Mexico, most of the parties traditionally constituting the "Left" (and, in the Senegalese case, two new parties created a few months before the election from a double dissidence within the President’s party) had decided to make an alliance with a leader and a party—Abdoulaye Wade and his Parti Democratique Senegalais (PDS)—even though the official ideology of PDS is rather market-oriented (liberalism, in its economic sense). The alliance had its roots in the realization that political change was the crucial factor in the situation of the country characterized, as it were, by a dramatic level of poverty of the population. "Just let him go!" was eventually the significance of the slogan Sopi ("change" in Wolof, the most widely spoken language in Senegal) and the cement for the movement that ended up with a majority of 60% for Abdoulaye Wade and 40% for Abdou Diouf on March 19.

As the elections appeared quite open and the outcome unpredictable, because of the strength of the opposition and the weakness of the PS, the ruling party (because of the dissidence within its ranks of two important leaders now fighting it) many in the country and outside expected chaos, violence and even civil war to follow the proclamation of the election results. This expectation was not without grounds. Senegal had previously undergone urban riots and political violence following almost all the elections since 1988 (usually settled through agreements on some kind of power sharing that would bring into the Government ministers from the opposition) and the rhetoric of the political actors for months and months had been announcing the worst, for that matter. Indeed the prospect of bloodshed was an important aspect of the international attention attracted by the presidential race in Senegal and the significance the outcome would convey concerning the difficult and, to say the least, harsh path of democracy in Africa. So it came as a "divine surprise" that political change and peace met when Diouf, shortly after the first results started being broadcast, called his challenger, Wade, to congratulate him on his victory. By so doing Diouf signalled his acceptance of Wade’s victory. He may have accepted Wade’s victory because he was eager to preempt the possibility of violence from any camp. But this gesture shed some retrospective light on his whole presidency and it was unanimously saluted. He invited Wade to work out with him a smooth transitional period. Popular enthusiasm, celebration and pride were the answer both to the victory of change and to Diouf’s attitude: the so-called Senegalese "model" seemed to be back.

This notion of a Senegalese "model" had an historical meaning. Within the French colonial context, four cities in what would afterwards become Senegal—Saint-Louis, Dakar, Goree and Rufisque—had a special status according to which people born in them were not colonial "subjects" (sujets) but French citizens. Thus the right to vote and to have a choice in electing representatives was an old tradition for the Senegalese political elite. Compared to that tradition, the generalization of the one-party system throughout the African continent after the era of independence was a regression that did not last more than a decade in Senegal. As a matter of fact, after the existing parties were banned in 1963 theoretically to join a unified one (excluding the Communists, though), as early as 1974, Leopold Sedar Senghor, being himself a product of this political tradition, had restored it by allowing Abdoulaye Wade and two other leaders to create political parties. Once Abdou Diouf had completed opening up the system, when he abolished in 1980 the limitation on the number of parties allowed, Senegal did appear as one of the very few democracies on the continent, at least as far as multiparty system is concerned. Then, when most African countries became engaged in the process of democratization (often following National Conferences where the ruling establishment would open free discussions with representatives of the so-called "living forces"—forces vives—of the nation) the crucial point became that of political change and not just pluralism. Consequently, compared to countries that had successfully experienced that ultimate test of a democratic functioning of their institutions, Senegal was often seen as a democracy on the surface, organizing elections the fairness of which was not supposed to reach the point where power could fall from the hands that had always held it. Thus, the elections of March 19 are primarily the Senegalese people’s response to their own skepticism or even despair about their capacity to orient themselves towards their future.

Does this political change imply a cultural change as well? Elements supporting the idea that cultural change may be afoot are many. (1) The development of private media (radio essentially and to a certain extent, newspapers) using modern technologies has transformed in depth the political culture of the people, and made obsolete the very notion of a State informing in its own way and on its own terms the populace about its action. The control of that action (and, occasionally of the whole process of an election) by public opinion through free private media is a reality. (2) The picture of a gap between an urban culture of citizens living in the cities, judging their government mainly according to the satisfaction of their own demands, and a rural conservative culture of populations following in their votes the indications of traditional (religious) leaders appears to be changing. (3) The young and the women are more conscious of their electoral strength and impact now in a Senegalese society where the importance of seniority and masculinity remains strong.