In Senegal, the first 100 days of Bassirou Diomaye Faye will be scrutinized. Starting with the Pan-African activists who are annoyed to see the new president asking for the return of the Sahel States to ECOWAS and to maintain the centuries-old links with France.
Connection in Abidjan, Bati Abouè
Bassirou Diomaye Faye will have to get used to it. As July 2nd approaches, marking his first hundred days in office in Senegal, the criticism currently being leveled at his regime is likely to intensify. Most of it comes mainly from pan-African activists who are furious about his strategy to bring the three Sahel countries, Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso, back into the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).
The 44-year-old president, who has been at the head of the country since April 2, nevertheless seems to have both feet firmly buried in his certainties of rupture. Since his inauguration on the same date, he has initiated neighborhood visits to Mauritania and Guinea-Bissau before meeting the Ivorian president, Alassane Ouattara, the Turkish head of the Pan-Africanists. But in Ivory Coast, Bassirou Diomaye Faye did not hesitate to praise the leadership of the Ivorian head of state, as well as his great quality as a democrat. “Moreover, I take this opportunity to salute the leadership and the considerable efforts that you make, or that you deploy in the functioning of stability and democracy. » Finally, Macky Sall’s successor described the Ivorian president as a man who “promotes development” in his country, thus creating a feeling of great frustration among the Senegalese leader’s supporters in West Africa.
A scandalous aberration
It was indeed necessary to have great nerve to make such a declaration of love to such a man who is serving his third mandate at the head of Côte d’Ivoire, of which the Constitution only authorizes two and whose maintenance cost, in October 2020, more than 80 opponents were killed, according to official figures, and around 300 people were injured. For the Ivorian-Cameroonian, Franklin Nyamsi, this declaration by Mr. Faye “is a scandalous aberration” which goes against the tide of the left-wing pan-Africanist ideology claimed by the Senegalese president during his electoral campaign. Moreover, the president of Pan-Africanist Emergency, Kemi Séba, no longer really seems to have too many illusions about the Senegalese president since he bluntly affirms that “when I see President Bassirou Faye, I have “the impression that there was the campaign period”, thus supporting, if only in part, no doubt, the theory of betrayal observed by Mr. Nyamsi in the new attitude of President Faye.
The Senegalese president’s consistency in displaying his position to return the three Sahel states to the Community of West African States (ECOWAS) box constitutes another friction with pan-Africanist support. Bassirou Diomaye Faye indeed went to Mali on May 30 then to Burkina Faso, to, he said, make the three Sahel states reconsider their decisions. “Today I understand somewhat that positions are fixed. But I perceive in each of these positions a window of opening, a thread, however tight it may be, of dialogue,” he insisted, managing to annoy the supporters of the Association of Sahel States a little more. (AES) for whom the new Senegalese president is at the service of françafrique to bring back the former pariah republics within an ECOWAS house from which they were expunged in one way or another by “illegal sanctions and illegitimate.
In any case, there was hardly a better way to make the Pan-Africanists who criticize this sub-regional organization of being a backyard of France uncomfortable. In fact, by promising the rupture which sounded in everyone’s heads like a revolution against France, many Africans were waiting for Senegal to join the Sahel States and, at the same time, to order the French army to leave the country. as did the three States which accuse Paris of having exploited terrorism to preserve its former predominance. Moreover, the fact that France first chose a standoff before agreeing to leave, not very far away, according to the Nigerien authorities who accuse neighboring Benin of harboring French military bases, is preparing for attacks against them, somewhat confirms the accusation of the new Sahelian authorities.
Senegalese impatience
However, the Senegalese president does not seem to be particularly bothered by the criticism. These nevertheless overlap with Senegalese impatience. The high cost of living, which probably saw the beginnings of a solution on the eve of Tabaski, is a project that is all the more important as the fish war is to come. The European Union clearly does not intend to allow new conduct to be dictated to it after the designation of the 151 vessels which are now authorized to sail in Senegalese waters. With this “coup de force” of the new authorities, Westerners and Chinese who engaged in false flag fishing activities are put in cramped conditions to the great dismay of the European Union which is keen to maintain its achievements and is already threatening to refuse any new agreement.
In the meantime, the Senegalese president is holding meetings with Western partners. The head of the French Development Agency (AFD), Rémy Rioux, met Bassirou Diomaye Faye in Paris on June 22. He promised to “realign cooperation with the new authorities according to the lines which will be established soon in full respect of the sovereignty of Senegal”, he said. Same tone from the head of the Bill Gates Foundation, Mr. Christopher J. Elias, who also promises his support for the government’s priorities. The next day, French President Emmanuel Macron had a working session with his Senegalese counterpart after lunch at the Elysée. The two men promised on this occasion to “give new impetus to the bilateral partnership” in which the two countries have been engaged for decades.
But all this diplomacy from the new president who has not yet given anything tangible, particularly on issues that must be the subject of a break, is already annoying the Pan-Africans. Who, in just three months of governance soon, have made Senegal the mirror that best reflects the pan-Africanist contradictions on the continent.
