Senegal: Presidential Candidacies of Karim Wade and Khalifa Sall Blocked

Today, Senegal’s Constitutional Council turned down the candidacies of Karim Wade and Khalifa Sall for the 24 February presidential elections. The candidacies had been provisionally advanced last week after they met the requirements for candidates’ dossiers, such as collecting signatures. Twenty other candidacies had been rejected at that stage.

Wade is the son of former President Abdoulaye Wade (in office 2000-2012), and Sall is the former mayor of Dakar. The Council ruled that Sall, who has been sentenced to a five-year prison term on embezzlement charges, lacks the right to run, while Wade cannot run because he lacks an elector’s card – which he lacks because of an earlier judicial sentence. Both candidates have been blocked for essentially the same reason, although the applicable sections of the electoral code (L27 and L31 in Sall’s case, L115 in Wade’s) are different.

There are now five candidates remaining:

• Macky Sall, the President (BBY)
• Ousmane Sonko, parliamentary deputy (Pastef)
• El Hadj Issa Sall, parliamentary deputy (PUR)
• Madicke Niang, former Minister of Foreign Affairs (dissident PDS)
• Idrissa Seck, former Prime Minister (Rewmi)

And a victory by the president looks virtually assured now.

Senegal’s Presidential Elections: The Seven Candidates So Far

Senegal will hold presidential elections on 24 February. As of 9 January, seven candidates had been approved by the Constitutional Council. Here are their micro-bios, with their party affiliations in parentheses:

• Macky Sall, the President (BBY)
• Khalifa Sall, former Mayor of Dakar (Taxawu Senegaal)
• Karim Wade, former Minister of State for International Cooperation, Regional Development, Air Transport, and Infrastructure and son of ex-President Abdoulaye Wade (PDS)
• Ousmane Sonko, parliamentary deputy (Pastef)
• El Hadj Issa Sall, parliamentary deputy (PUR)
• Madicke Niang, former Minister of Foreign Affairs (dissident PDS)
• Idrissa Seck, former Prime Minister (Rewmi)

Twenty-seven candidacies were initially presented. Among those rejected, the one getting the most attention is Malick Gakou (Grand Parti), who the Council said was 546 signatures short on his dossier.

The definitive list of candidates is supposed to come out on January 20.

Senegal: On the Trials of Karim Wade and Hissène Habré

I have a post at the Global Observatory discussing two ongoing trials in Senegal. An excerpt:

The trials of [former Chadian ruler Hissène] Habré and [former President Abdoulaye Wade’s son Karim] Wade will have implications for elites across Africa. The former’s trial may mark a new, albeit halting, effort to use African judicial systems to hold former heads of state accountable for human rights abuses. The latter’s trial may signal a new effort to crack down on corruption. At the same time, however, the trials may have little impact on ordinary Senegalese and their day-to-day struggles.

If you read the piece, please stop back by here and let me know your thoughts in the comments.

Africa News Roundup: ECOWAS and Mali, French Commanders in Mauritania, Muslim Protests in Ethiopia, Karim Wade, and More

Details on the Economic Community of West African States’ battle plan for Mali:

“International forces will not do the ground fighting, that role will belong to the Malian army,” a military officer familiar with the plan, who asked not to be named, said on Friday.

“Air strikes will be the responsibility of the international force,” he said, adding foreign partners would also provide logistical and intelligence support and soldiers and police to secure areas captured by the Malian army.

Military planners from Africa, the United Nations and Europe in Mali’s capital Bamako last week drew up a battle plan that would involve a foreign force of more than 4,000 personnel, mostly from West African countries. It remains unclear how much of the force would come from Western nations.

The plan covers a six-month period, with a preparatory phase for training and the establishment of bases in Mali’s south, followed by combat operations in the north.

Top French military commanders visited Mauritania this week to discuss Mali and terrorism.

The ongoing Muslim protests in Ethiopia merit a full post, but two items of note are the announcement of new members of the Islamic Affairs Council and a statement by the US Commission on International Religious Freedom expressing concern “about the increasing deterioration of religious freedoms for Muslims in Ethiopia.”

In other Ethiopia-related news, “Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan have agreed to resume jointly working on organizing sustainable management, utilization and development of the Nile waters under the Eastern Nile Basin. The agreement was reached after water Ministers and representatives of the three countries held a meeting in Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, on Thursday.”

VOA:

The United Nations warns survivors of Nigeria’s worst flooding in five decades are at risk for waterborne and water-related diseases.  Nigeria’s National Emergency Management Agency reports the heavy rains have killed 363 people, affected 7.7 million and made more than two million people homeless.

Reuters: “Somalia’s al Shabaab, Squeezed in South, Move to Puntland.”

Senegalese police will again question Karim Wade, a former minister and son of former President Abdoulaye Wade.

What else is happening?

Africa News Roundup: Elections in Libya, ECOWAS Meets on Mali, Missed Deadlines in Somalia, and More

Libya votes in parliamentary elections today. Some relevant news and commentary from Thursday and Friday:

• The Project on Middle East Democracy, “Previewing Libya’s Elections” (.pdf).
• Jacob Mundy, “Militia Politics in Libya’s National Elections”
• Reuters, “Libya Poll in Peril as Eastern Unrest Grows”
• BBC, “Libya Election Helicopter ‘Shot Near Benghazi'”

Today, leaders from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) meet in Ouagadougou to discuss Mali, focusing on “broadening the interim government in southern Mali to give it greater legitimacy” and “retaking the north from Islamist militants.”

Another serious protest took place yesterday in Sudan, with more repression by security forces. The situation in Sudan is dynamic, but readers may be interested in two things I wrote about the protests earlier in the week, one at World Politics Review and one at The American Interest.

Alertnet rounds up uniformly grim assessments of conditions in South Sudan from the International Rescue Committee, Oxfam, the Red Cross, Human Rights Watch, and UNICEF.

The International Contact Group on Somalia has “expressed concern over the missing of deadlines which form part of the process of ending the country’s current transitional governing arrangements on 20 August this year.”

The Federal High Court in Abuja, Nigeria has charged two men of having links to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. The men are from Lagos, and BBC Hausa adds that so far no link has been established between them and Boko Haram. To my relatively ignorant eye, the men appear to have Yoruba names.

VOA reports that residents of Kano feel caught between Boko Haram and the security forces.

On Tuesday and Thursday, police in Senegal questioned Karim Wade, son of former President Abdoulaye Wade.

What else is happening?

Senegal: Karim Wade Named Energy Minister

Since I started following Senegalese politics in 2006, I have heard people say that President Abdoulaye Wade intends to one day hand off power to his son Karim. Karim has served in several administration positions already, but on Tuesday the BBC reported that he will take over the Ministry of Energy. This appointment comes after months of protest over electricity shortages in Dakar and elsewhere, and represents an opportunity for Karim Wade “to prove his effectiveness among concerned popular classes who have never hidden their animosity towards him.” In addition, he will continue to hold several other portfolios, making him a “super government minister.”

This piece at Seneweb (French) gives a ground-level view of the electricity crisis and of the ministerial shuffle. Opposition figures are calling for greater accountability for K. Wade’s predecessor, who will remain in the government. With tensions so thick, the younger Wade is stepping up to a real challenge. How he does may determine his chances of succeeding his father.