No One Has the Right to Bet on Diomaye Faye’s Failure

The new President of the Republic, Bassirou Diomaye Faye, appeared quite humble and sincere when, on 3 April 2024, in a monotone voice, he set out the guidelines for his policy of governance at the head of the country. The establishment of the first government led by Ousmane Sonko reflects this desire. Frankly, despite all the apprehensions linked to the pain of giving birth to the team of twenty-five ministers and five secretaries of state, we can consider that the casting is generally good. Of course, there is always room for criticism when it comes to the choice of people to occupy such high positions within the state apparatus, but the fact remains that you always govern with your men, i.e. the people you trust a priori. In this respect, the architects of the government have shown a certain dexterity in not falling into narrow political clannism and, on the other hand, forgetting in their choices the men and women who carried or accompanied the odyssey of the conquest of power.

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Most of the personalities chosen, particularly in the regalian ministries, are already prepared for the job and are reassuring in their sector, such as General Birame Diop in the Ministry of the Armed Forces, who accepted the post not without having set conditions, in particular the maintenance of the High Command of the National Army. Magistrate Ousmane Diagne at the Ministry of Justice, banker and successful agribusiness investor Mabouba Diagne at the Ministry of Agriculture, Food Security and Livestock, Serigne Diop Guèye at the Ministry of Industry and Trade and Gendarme General Jean-Baptiste Tine at the Ministry of the Interior and Public Security are also fine recruits. Ironically, General Tine is on the notorious list of Senegalese state authorities referred to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for crimes against humanity following the March 2021 crisis, by Juan Branco, Ousmane Sonko’s sulphurous French lawyer. The appointment of Ahmadou Al Aminou Lô, formerly Secretary General of the Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO), as Minister-Secretary General of the Government, is a token of credibility. Moreover, is this appointment a signal that he will abandon the preposterous idea of minting a local currency in order to leave the Uemoa zone? 

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The choice of Ms Yacine Fall to embody the image of Bassirou Diomaye Faye’s regime on the international stage should reassure all those who might have feared a political regime that did not leave enough room for women. Four women in all in the government! The same can be said of the appointment of Khady Diène Gaye as the first woman to hold the post of Super-Minister for Youth, Sport and Culture in Senegal. Maïmouna Dièye, President of the Pastef Women’s Movement, appointed to head the Ministry of Family and Solidarity, is just as politically legitimate. Tax inspector Cheikh Diba, in charge of finance and the budget, would also appear to be a legitimate choice, even if one wonders whether his pedigree speaks for itself. We might also wonder about his future interactions or complementarities with Abdourahmane Sarr, who has been appointed head of the Ministry of the Economy and Planning. The latter appears to be more of a theorist than an economic developer. In the choice of political personalities from allied parties, it should be noted that the profile for employment seems to be rigorous, such as the assignment of Moustapha Guirassy to National Education or El Hadji Abdourahmane Diouf to Higher Education or Cheikh Tidiane Dièye to Water and Sanitation.

The risks and pitfalls facing the new government

The hypertrophy of several ministries, some of them held by novices, while the Prime Minister and the President of the Republic appear to be just as novice, is a cause for concern. They promised us a tighter government. Administrative rationality may explain the grouping of strategically important sectors such as agriculture and livestock farming, or industry and trade, or town planning and local authorities, or energy and mining, or youth, sport and culture, but it has to be said that these administrations can be cumbersome machines, and above all each sector hides particular sociological realities in our country.

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In addition, analysts are already seeing nepotism behind some appointments, due to homonyms or social relations of various kinds. In this respect, some of the sins that Pastef leaders regularly pinned on the regimes of presidents Abdoulaye Wade and Macky Sall will now be held against them; unless the Pastef people have already come to terms with the issue of family members or biological relatives interfering in the management of state affairs. There are also imbalances in the geographical origins of the members of the government, such as the strong presence of ministers from Thiès and especially from the natural region of Casamance, (Ousmane Sonko, Cheikh Diba (?), Mountaga Diallo, Cheikh Tidiane Dièye, Olivier Boucal, Yankhoba Diémé), while areas such as the Mbacké-Touba conurbation and the Guédiawaye-Pikine suburbs do not count, and Walo, Sine and Saloum, Ndiambour and Fouta are under-represented or not represented at all.  The government’s gestation period has been a difficult one, but its survival depends fundamentally on the lasting understanding of its two progenitors, President Bassirou Diomaye Faye and Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko. The tandem will need to transcend the problems of ego and susceptibility that are not lacking in human relations.

Clearly, Ousmane Sonko is doing his utmost to show humility and accept the precedence of the President of the Republic, to his credit. Let’s hope it lasts! The ups and downs of the formation of the first government revealed that the Head of State was keen to assert his authority, in order to reject the choices of his Prime Minister. Their disagreement would spell the end of the team. There remains a major political risk in the absence of a parliamentary majority to support the government. The Yewwi askan wi parliamentary group, which originally comprised 82 deputies and was already in a minority, has been shattered by dissension between the Pastef camp and the Taxawu Senegaal camp led by Khalifa Ababacar Sall. What’s more, the handful of MPs from the Party of Unity and Assembly (Pur) will not feel obliged to support a government in which their political party has no place. The same can be said of a possible collaboration with the Senegalese Democratic Party (Pds). Lawyer Wade’s party, which supported the « Diomaye Président » coalition in the election of 24 March 2024, is conspicuously absent from the government team. It is true that Karim Wade may not be personally interested in a ministerial portfolio of any kind, but it has to be said that all the executives who have remained faithful to the line he has taken since his golden exile in Doha would be eager to become members of a government. What parliamentary majority will the government be able to count on?

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President Macky Sall has clearly endorsed Bassirou Diomaye Faye’s regime, but will he be able to borrow Karim Wade’s remote control to stay in comfortable exile in Marrakech and give instructions to Benno bokk yaakaar (Bby) MPs to support the new regime? If so, he would undoubtedly risk disavowal. It should be noted that Bassirou Diomaye Faye’s first appointments to the Presidential Cabinet (Oumar Samba Ba, Secretary General of the Presidency, and Mary Teuw Niane, Director of Cabinet) gave credence to the idea that Macky Sall was whispering in his ear. On the other hand, the appointments of Generals Birame Diop and Jean-Baptiste Tine and the high magistrate Ousmane Diagne can be interpreted as acts taken to right the wrongs done. It will be recalled that these various figures were dismissed from their posts by President Sall in a violent, if not humiliating, manner. Have the new President of the Republic and his Prime Minister been scalded by the dubious if not hostile reactions of their political base, as soon as the first appointment decrees were announced, to avoid continuing to appoint to the government other personalities reputed to be close to Macky Sall, especially as this was expected by the rumours?

It is therefore clear that Bassirou Diomaye Faye and Ousmane Sonko have not thought in terms of the need to form a parliamentary majority. It will be difficult for them to pass major pieces of legislation, including the planned dissolution of institutions such as the Economic, Social and Environmental Council (Cese) and the High Council of Local Authorities (Hcct). The new government will have to contend with a National Assembly with an unfavourable majority for several months, until the President of the Republic has the power to dissolve the National Assembly and call early legislative elections.

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On 6 September 2022, I predicted in these columns that the 14th legislature was set to be the shortest in Senegal’s parliamentary history. In particular, I stated that « the deputies of the 14th legislature were elected on 31 July 2022 for a five-year term. Their term of office therefore expires in 2027. But the next legislature should not come to an end. The new legislature should not last more than two years, i.e. strictly the constitutional period to allow early dissolution of the National Assembly. Indeed, whoever is elected in the 2024 presidential election will be forced, if not obliged, to dissolve the National Assembly in September 2024« . This is exactly what would happen. President Bassirou Diomaye Faye will be obliged, before pronouncing the dissolution, to wait at least until December 2024, in order to allow the budget session to pass. However, he will still have another trick up his sleeve, which is to organise a constitutional referendum before that date, to remove certain legal constraints.

The first hundred days of hell

The euphoria of victory will soon fade for the new government team. They are going to have to face up to the harsh realities of public governance, but above all they are going to have to deal with pressing priorities and emergencies. The biggest shortfall will be fresh money, of which they will need a lot immediately, while the state coffers will be virtually empty. They’ll need more than genius to get by! Indeed, the years 2023 and the beginning of the current financial year are not financially buoyant, due to an atmosphere of electoral campaigning and political tensions that dampened economic activity. Domestic revenues, which cannot exceed 200 billion CFA francs per month, may have suffered as a result, and the financial markets have been reluctant to finance Senegal’s requests. In recent months, Minister Mamadou Moustapha Ba has had to resign himself to cancelling two successive calls on the money markets to cover financing. The rate of cover did not exceed 10% of the requests made by Senegal, a country used to having more than 150% of its requests covered. Government projects suffered as a result. Ordinary financial requirements remain the same, with the monthly wage bill for the civil service exploding over the last two years to some 150 billion CFA francs, not counting other operational expenses.

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One of the most pressing issues at the end of April will be the repayment of over 250 billion CFA francs in debt servicing. A much-feared default will inevitably affect Senegal’s economic and financial situation for months to come. Any new fund-raising operation on the financial markets would be catastrophic. It is against this backdrop that the new government will have to deal with other pressing expenses in the energy sector. Starting this Monday, 8 April 2024, a fuel ship will dock in Dakar and demand a whopping 80 billion CFA francs to unload its cargo. Last month, African refining company (Sar), in the same situation of a perilous threat of running out of hydrocarbon stocks, was obliged to pay for the cargo, the funds were earmarked to pay the State taxes. As we know, the Ministry of Finance was unable to repay its debts to Sar, let alone Senelec, which still has more than 75 billion CFA francs in compensation debts owed by the State. Senelec is also struggling to recover unpaid bills from various public administrations, local authorities and other consumers in sectors of strategic importance to the State. In simpler terms, the government is likely to face power cuts and fuel shortages in the very short term.

In such situations, Senegal could regularly count on one-off budgetary support from its traditional partners. The regimes of Presidents Wade and Sall were rescued by the United States of America and/or France in 2000, 2012 and 2019. In November 2023, the government led by Prime Minister Amadou Ba was able to obtain emergency budget support from France, which, however, took the precaution of paying it to Senegal in only three instalments. Will the country’s new authorities have the latitude to make emergency appeals to friendly countries? Nothing is less certain! At the beginning of the year, the difficult financial situation had led to the abolition or drastic reduction of certain subsidies on energy and basic necessities. The State was spending over 600 billion on these subsidies. The truth about prices will be an additional difficulty for a regime that had promised voters lower prices for basic products. Social tensions of various kinds could arise from this situation, and their exacerbation would not fail to have unfortunate consequences for the country’s stability. It is therefore urgent to commit to helping the new regime to keep its head above water, to prevent it from sinking. Bassirou Diomaye Faye’s failure will be fatal for everyone.

By Madiambal DIAGNE / mdiagne@lequotidien.sn

• Translation by Ndey T. SOSSEH / Serigne S. DIAGNE

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