The former Prime Minister of President Abdoulaye Wade and current President of the Economic, Social and Environmental Council (Cese), Idrissa Seck, has just declared his candidacy for the presidential election of 2024. The announcement should not come as a surprise, it is in a way, a train that arrives on time and, certainly, since the commissioning of the Regional Express Train (Ter) by President Macky Sall, the arrival on time of trains is no longer an event in Senegal.
«Born to be President of Senegal!»
Idrissa Seck could not fail to seek the supreme magistracy. He wrote on his website since his young years: “I was born to be President”. This means that he was right to apostrophize a journalist during his press conference on Friday April 14, 2023: “Can anyone in this country imagine a presidential election without Idrissa Seck? » He had seen himself in the costume of the successor to Lawyer Abdoulaye Wade and had proclaimed that he would be the fourth President of Senegal. Thus, he will seek to kill the father to run against him in the presidential election of February 25, 2007. He will come second with 14.92% of the votes, behind Lawyer Wade, re-elected in the first round with 55.90% of the votes. By seeking the votes, Idrissa Seck had confused his world.
At the end of a long « midday audience » which he granted on January 22, 2007, to Idrissa Seck accompanied by Abdoul Aziz Sy Junior, President Wade announced that Idrissa Seck had given up his own candidacy to find « the father’s house ». His candidacy angered President Wade. But two years later, « Ngor si » will return to « Gorgui », taking the opposite path to Macky Sall. The latter broke with his mentor in 2009. Nevertheless, in 2012, Idy vehemently challenged President Wade’s third candidacy and came fifth in the first round with 7.86% of the vote, behind Abdoulaye Wade, Macky Sall, Moustapha Niasse and Ousmane Tanor Dieng. Unfortunately for him, he hadn’t seen a certain Macky Sall coming, whom he seemed to look down on, but who made a master stroke with a try and won the day by beating President Wade in the second round with more than 65% of the votes.
Idrissa Seck took heart against bad luck. He supported Macky Sall in the second round and will remain a member of the Benno bokk yaakaar (Bby) Coalition. Some of his comrades from the Rewmi party were called to the government of Abdoul Mbaye. Only, he unilaterally broke the alliance in September 2013, but his companions (Pape Diouf and Oumar Guèye) refused to follow him and continued to sit in the Council of Ministers. Quite naturally, Idrissa Seck once again declared his candidacy for the presidential election in 2019. He came second with more than 20% of the votes, behind Macky Sall, re-elected in the first round with more than 58% of the votes.
In other words, and as he says himself, as long as he still breathes, he will seek to become President of Senegal. It was therefore a simplistic view to think that Idrissa Seck would trade his place as president of the Cese or any other promise, for a candidacy in the presidential election. How could he accept for Macky Sall what he had always refused for Abdoulaye Wade? He alternately accused Macky Sall of felony, treachery and being a sucker, before swallowing his drool to reap the benefits of his diet. He had always done the same with President Wade.
Former President Wade heard all the ignominies from the mouth of Idrissa Seck in 2004 and 2007, before he agreed to rejoin the Senegalese Democratic Party (Pds) in 2009, thanks to « sincere and unambiguous reunions « . But as a new member of the Steering Committee of the Pds, Idrissa Seck will violently denounce, in 2011, the third candidacy of President Wade and will again be excluded from the Pds. He saw himself as President Wade’s entitled runner-up and was to defend the colors of the party in the 2012 presidential election. We have seen that the last reconciliation with President Wade and his departure with a bang poured down his popularity rating. He had spared nothing to President Wade and his son Karim Wade. Macky Sall, himself, before being elected, had tasted some of it. After a brief lull following his election in 2012, Idrissa Seck resumed attacks against him in 2013.
History thus repeated itself when, against all odds, Idrissa Seck returned to business by replacing, in November 2020, Ms. Aminata Touré at the head of the Cese and by finding seats, in particular in the government, for party comrades Yankhoba Diatara and Aly Saleh Diop. From that moment, in Idy’s eyes, « Macky Sall’s vision went beyond Diamniadio ».
Today Idrissa Seck has just declared his candidacy for 2024, contesting, with the same arguments as in 2012, that of Macky Sall. He does not yet insult Macky Sall, preferring to direct his poisonous arrows against Abdoulaye Wade, his son Karim, Ousmane Sonko and Khalifa Ababacar Sall. Perhaps because Macky Sall has not yet formalized his candidacy or that Idrissa Seck would still want (for how long) to take advantage of the advantages and privileges offered to him by his duties at the head of the Cese.
A candidature that should not get in Macky Sall’s way
Many allies of President Sall are offended by the announcement of the candidacy of Idrissa Seck. No doubt they give in to emotion a little too easily. This application seems quite logical. Against the will of Idrissa Seck, the political annals do not bloom with examples of political personalities, who came second in a presidential election contested by several candidates and who did not seek a new chance in the following election. We always tend to try fate again, especially when we were able to get so close to the goal. Also, so as long as President Sall has not enlightened his supporters on his candidacy, it may be open to everyone to express their ambitions.
Moreover, it seems written that a declaration of candidacy from Macky Sall would in no way push Idrissa Seck to withdraw his. Indeed, Idy has clearly chosen to deviate from the principle of a concerted and united candidacy within the Benno bokk yaakaar Coalition; an application still in the making. He chose to go it alone by announcing a candidacy that might seem premature. It is probably on this basis alone that it can appear legitimate for his Bby allies, on whom he has thus suddenly turned his back, to demand that he draw the consequence of leaving the coalition and renouncing the positions that he occupies thanks to this political alignment or that President Sall dismisses him because he will have broken a fundamental principle of their coalition. It would also be a more or less effective way to prevent this candidacy from being emulated within Bby!
It remains only to take a closer look, the candidacy of Idrissa Seck does not lack interest for President Sall. As was the case with President Wade in 2012, Idrissa Seck’s last rallying to the presidential camp in 2020, with his yo-yo game, flip-flops, inconsistence, not to say his denials, seem to provoke a detrimental effect on his popularity rating. We have already observed that Idrissa Seck has lost his main political supporters who, for the most part, have turned to Ousmane Sonko. Moreover, the bleeding was such that he ended up losing his electoral stronghold of Thiès, which was nevertheless considered impregnable.
The debacles in Thiès in 2022, in the local and legislative elections, augur a laborious or even lost presidential election for Idrissa Seck. He will present himself as a candidate without great illusions and therefore without arousing a big phobia for the presidential camp. If there is a small downside to be made, it would be due to a strong idea of a « clearance » of a regime in place, which the voters would like to sanction at all costs, even if it means replacing it with « a big anything ». The experiences of the local and legislative elections of 2022 can serve as a lesson. However, the spectacle offered during his press conference at the cyber campus of Thiès made many people skeptical about the good faculties of Idrissa Seck to lead a country. Won’t an election campaign with beating drums end up revealing behaviors, actions and gestures that would disqualify him? We can fear it.
However, this candidacy could prove useful or timely for President Macky Sall. Indeed, a candidacy of Idrissa Seck, who came second in the last Presidential (lest we forget), would give relief to the Presidential of 2024. The participation of a significant political weight in this election, which will be missed, once more, by other leaders considered important like Khalifa Ababacar Sall and Karim Wade, could give credibility to the election. The reasons for their criminal convictions which had prevented Khalifa Ababacar Sall and Karim Wade from being candidates for the Presidential of 2019 as well as for the Local or the Legislative of 2022, remain. They declined the offer made by Macky Sall to pass an amnesty law. President Sall will always find it easy to say that he would have liked and wished to rehabilitate them and involve them in the political game but that he cannot make someone happy against their will. Barthélemy Dias, who could serve as an auxiliary to Khalifa Ababacar Sall, is also under an equally electorally « disqualifying » conviction in the case of the murder of Ndiaga Diouf in 2011. The Supreme Court is waiting to empty the appeal file.
Ousmane Sonko, entangled in numerous legal proceedings, risks criminal convictions which would rule him out of the 2024 race. He can be overtaken by cases such as the accusations of rape and other sexual abuse by the lady Adji Sarr or the police officer Frédéric Napel’s complaint for endangering the lives of others, calling for murder, false accusations and defamation, in addition to the legal proceedings opened by Minister Mame Mbaye Niang. Other summonses to appear before the Criminal Justice would await the leader of the Pastef party. Lawyers Gaby So and Dior Diagne have prepared legal actions to seek to clear their honor that Ousmane Sonko would have tarnished, if indeed their legal actions are not already statute-barred.
Idrissa Seck would thus stand out from the lot of candidates already declared for the Presidential of 2024. The face of a credible or serious election will thus be saved. In a way, he would be a perfect foil. Idrissa Seck cannot gather any support from the Wades, who had refused him in 2019 and who preferred the re-election of Macky Sall (see our column of February 4, 2019). President Wade had advocated abstention from the presidential election, an attitude that could not compromise Macky Sall’s chances, while Idrissa Seck had given him all the assurances and guarantees in return for his support. Everything suggests that at the very least, the Wades will do the same for 2024 and their supposed efforts at reconciliation with Macky Sall seem to particularly irritate Idrissa Seck. We see proof of this in his new violent diatribes, uttered last week, against “the father and the biological son”. There is no risk of being wrong in saying that Karim Wade will not let his father give political support to Idrissa Seck.
For 2024, Idrissa Seck does not count on new support from Khalifa Ababacar Sall either. The former mayor of Dakar called to vote for the candidate of the Idy2019 coalition. The new declared candidate has just put his former ally, from whom he obviously no longer expects anything, in the same bag as Karim Wade, the infamous « thieves of public funds ». What about Ousmane Sonko? It’s an open secret that he and Idrissa Seck don’t gobble each other up at all. This is how Idrissa Seck had to do violence to himself and disguise, visit him, on board a motorcycle and at the milkman’s hour, to discuss what political futures? Idrissa Seck, who was firing on all cylinders, felt compelled to confess to the visit when he realized that “all Dakar” knew about the it. It can be considered that he did not derive much benefit from it or even less a prospect of possible support. His regular attacks on the leader of the Pastef party, whom he called immature and whom he truly mocked, eloquently show this.
Whatever happens, Idrissa Seck, with fewer assets, will certainly be a diminished candidate and perhaps without illusions, but will face Macky Sall. It becomes a fatality. There can be no question of any agreement or a « deal » between the two men, but by force of circumstance, a candidacy of Idrissa Seck will be of great benefit to Macky Sall.
Moreover, if by chance a victory, once again very unlikely, of Idrissa Seck occurs, it would be the best scenario of defeat for Macky Sall and his family. They would have less to fear from vengeful actions from Idy than from any other opponent. We would not be betraying any secret either by saying that President Sall will ask to re-enlist in 2024. If the slightest uncertainty remained in his mind, he would have already edified his supporters so that they are already preparing for the Presidential with other assets and another candidate.
By Madiambal DIAGNE / mdiagne@lequotidien.sn
- Translation by Ndey T. SOSSEH
