The president wanted to remain in power, but the people’s demands prevailed in the end.
October 2024
This essay is part of a package on the elections that mattered most in 2024.
The mere fact that Senegal’s election took place at all was a victory of sorts — and all the more so because an opposition candidate won. Why? Because incumbent president Macky Sall had long resisted committing not to run for a third term and had delayed the elections to extend his stay in power; and because a leading opposition candidate, Ousmane Sonko, was barred from running due to defamation charges. Despite Sall’s efforts to test and weaken democratic institutions, democracy prevailed: Citizens protested, Sonko’s party organized an alternative candidate, Bassirou Diomaye Faye, and the Constitutional Court ruled that the elections had to move forward. At the ballot box, voters opted for change, electing Faye and hoping for accountability given his and Sonko’s experience in civil service and anticorruption whistle blowing.
The victory of procedural democracy in Senegal, enabled largely by citizens’ sustained engagement, was also a victory for the region and the continent. Since 2020, francophone West Africa has seen a spate of coups and insurgent violence. Across the continent more broadly, many countries are experiencing democratic stagnation and backsliding as incumbents use the levers of executive, legislative, judicial, and administrative power to limit contestation and participation. That the democratic process prevailed in Senegal despite the obstacles shows the power of mass democratic mobilization through civil society, opposition parties, and the electorate to demand and strengthen democratic rights, representation, and outcomes.
For the world today, Senegal’s election mattered because we are in desperate need of democratic success stories and the lessons they impart, including how and where they emerge. According to prominent theories, Senegal is an “outlier” in terms of democratic endurance: It is a Muslim-majority country with high ethnic heterogeneity and a significant youth population. Thus the 2024 election in Senegal — a country where democracy won despite unpromising conditions — should renew our confidence that the model of citizens mobilizing for democratic rights and effective governance can succeed.
Rachel Beatty Riedl is associate professor of political science and director of the Program of African Studies at Northwestern University, and a faculty fellow of the Institute for Policy Research. Her latest book (with Gwyneth H. McClendon) is From Pews to Politics: Religious Sermons and Political Participation in Africa (2019).
Copyright © 2024 National Endowment for Democracy
Image credit: Cem Ozdel/Anadolu via Getty Images
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FURTHER READING |
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The Demise of Senegalese Democracy |
African Popular Protest and Political ChangeThere is a troubling tension around “people power” in Africa today: African social movements are among the most successful at ousting autocrats. But the continent’s entrenched antidemocratic institutions leave these victories highly vulnerable to reversal. |
Africa’s Leaders for LifeAlexander Noyes and John Reece |