Under the makeshift shelter that has hosted her since the floods ravaged her village, Khardiatou Sy feels abandoned by the government a week before the parliamentary elections.
This 28-year-old Senegalese woman is one of thousands of people displaced in the east and north of the country by the flooding of the Senegal River following torrential rains. His house in Bely Dialo, in the Matam region, is reduced to a state of ruin.
Vast areas of land were submerged and the livelihoods of many farmers destroyed.
“If your field is destroyed, you have nothing to feed yourself,” says Khardiatou Sy. His locality lived on rice, the inhabitants now try to fish.
Senegal and West Africa are subject to overflows almost every year during the rainy season. The Senegalese government installed in April, after the resounding victory of the Bassirou Diomaye Faye-Ousmane Sonko duo in the presidential election, knew it had to manage this emergency in addition to others: cost of living, unemployment, illegal emigration, debt…
However, floods took on exceptional proportions in West and Central Africa, adding to the government burden in the pre-election period.
Legislative elections are called for November 17 because President Faye prematurely dissolved a Parliament elected in 2022 and still dominated by the old majority.
These elections will show whether, eight months later, the Senegalese still place their trust in President Faye and especially in Prime Minister Sonko, and grant them the majority which would simplify their task, or if, on the contrary, the time to sanction has already come .
– Words and actions –
The last few years have been trying for a poor country and a population half of which is under the age of 19 and a large part of which struggles daily to make ends meet.
The opposition is campaigning by accusing Mr. Sonko of talking too much and not acting enough. The government cites the difficulty of the situation it found upon arrival.
Opinions are divided in the rural region of Matam, stronghold of the former majority, including on the government’s response to the natural calamity.
“We did not see the presence of the State,” laments Khardiatou Sy. The 30 families in her village have been living in tents for almost a month, she adds.
President Faye visited the affected areas in person. The government has allocated 8 billion CFA francs ($13 million) in aid.
No apparent resentment against the government when the campaign brings to Matam the procession of the Prime Minister, head of the list of his party, Pastef. On the contrary, the hustle and bustle of the vuvuzelas and the songs sung by thousands of people to the glory of MM. Sonko and Faye fill the evening air, echoing the enthusiasm of the crowds when the two men were released from prison ten days before the presidential election.
“The Matam region is the poorest. That’s why we wanted to vote for Pastef, so that the region changes,” explains Aby Sow, 31.
“We young people want to work, there are so many young people who have died in the boats,” she says.
– The temptation to leave –
Senegal is one of the main departure points for thousands of migrants who try to reach Europe in canoes via the Atlantic each year. Thousands of people died on the journey.
Less than a fifth of the working age population had paid employment in the Matam region in 2021, according to the national statistics agency. This is the worst rate in the country.
MM. Faye and Sonko were brought to power by the promise of rupture and social justice. A 25-year development plan presented in mid-October plans to make the Matam region a center for transforming phosphate into fertilizer.
“We will no longer say that all the youth of Matamese are going to Dakar or trying to leave the country. Things will transform here,” assures Mr. Sonko. Ten thousand direct jobs will be created, he predicts.
These promises did not reach the ears of all voters in the bustling Matam market.
Houley Kone, 50, complains of rising prices and a harder life. She sells grain for the animals. Like others, his big concern is that the government creates jobs for young people.
“For us, government doesn’t even exist.”
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