AN INTERVIEW WITH PRESIDENT ABDOULAYE WADE OF SENEGAL

29 April 2001

by Leonardo Villalón, Associate Professor of Political Science.

On April 1, 2000, the long-time leader of the political opposition in Senegal, Maître Abdoulaye Wade, was sworn in as president of the country. Wade had already been a candidate for president four previous times (1978, 1983, 1988, and 1993) before his victory over incumbent president Abdou Diouf in two rounds of elections in February and March 2000. Wade’s victory was a highly significant event for Senegal, and indeed for much of Africa. While Senegal had long claimed to be a “democracy,” and significant elements of democracy were in fact present in the country, there had never been a change of leadership via the ballot box since independence in 1960. Wade’s victory, therefore, which ended forty years of rule by the Parti Socialiste under Presidents Léopold Sédar Senghor and his hand-picked successor, Abdou Diouf, represents an important milestone in Senegalese politics. As he had promised during the campaign, President Wade immediately launched on a series of fundamental changes to the Senegalese political system, oversaw the writing and approval via referendum of a new constitution, and then dissolved the PS controlled National Assembly, and called for new legislative elections. On the day of the elections, 29 April 2001, in a wide ranging interview at the presidential palace in Dakar, President Wade spoke of a number of issues facing Senegal and Africa more broadly. Among them:

On the transition in Senegal: There is an irony in this transition, the president notes, in that the driving force behind the change was very much the disenchanted youth of Senegal, yet this youth brought a “grandfather” to power (Wade is 75 years old). But this, he says, is the reflection of a love story (“une histoire d’amour”) between himself and Senegalese youth. Youth, he says, never like injustices, and power in Senegal was unjust, and he, like the youth, had suffered the consequences. On the transition itself, Wade acknowledges the important role played by President Abdou Diouf himself the day of the election: “There were people in Diouf’s entourage who had a plan in place, to declare their own rigged election results, and if necessary to provoke civil unrest and then an intervention by the army to restore order.” But Diouf himself undercut this plan by telephoning Wade to congratulate him on his victory immediately. This, he says, was a reflection of a Senegalese culture which he and Diouf share.

On the future of Senegal: The country’s future depends on developing the necessary expertise to be competitive in the international domain, Wade, who is an economic liberal, insists. Echoing some controversial comments he has made in other settings, the president argued that “The 21st century will not be the century of race; racism is outmoded as a force determining economics. It will be instead the century of expertise and technological competence. Big multinational companies are looking only for expertise and competence, and they will seek it wherever they can find it. Thus the task for Senegal is to continue to develop our human capital and the capacities we have to be competitive in the international system.”

On the African economic situation and his proposed “Omega Plan”: Wade has elaborated a much publicized plan for the economic recovery of Africa, which he intends to present to the Organization of African Unity at its meeting in Lusaka, Zambia, later this year. He explains the basis of the plan as follows. “The Omega Plan is not a ‘Marshall Plan for Africa’,” he insists, since the Marshall plan was an effort to rebuild already developed economies that had been devastated by war. The problem in Africa is quite different, because it is a problem of basic development. “Africa is late in terms of global development due to a lack of infrastructure. Our problem now is not to develop or increase production, but first to create the necessary conditions so that we can later turn to the question of production. We need to invest in education; we need to make improvements in the area of health, we need to develop basic infrastructure….The Omega plan takes account of the need for external investment in order to create the basic conditions for development in terms of infrastructure, education, and health. The originality of the Omega plan is to think in regional and continental terms; the economic unity of Africa is important if we are to overcome the colonial divisions which separate us…. The logic of the plan is to establish the basic conditions so that international enterprises can be attracted to make major investments in infrastructure in Africa.”

On the role of religion in Senegalese politics. “Senegalese politics can never ignore religious leaders; that is a sociological reality. The colonialists knew it well and they used this reality by ruling through the religious leaders,” Wade insisted, before detailing the relationships between successive politicians, from Charles DeGaulle to Abdou Diouf, and specific “marabouts” or heads of the Muslim Sufi orders. The sociological reality that the religious orders will always continue to play an important role in Senegal, he says, is something he recognizes: “We mustn’t dream; we are not on the moon, we are in Senegal.” The difficulty for himself as a “republican,” he says, is to struggle to keep the republic, and its functioning, relatively independent of the religious orders. “That is the difficulty, and that is what I try to do.” Wade, who has been criticized in his first year in office for a number of highly symbolic public visits to the leader of the Mouride Sufi order, of which he is himself a member, insists: “I am a Mouride. But the caliph (head) of the Mourides has never asked me to name someone to a position. Never! And he has told me that he will never interfere in the functioning of the government. Now that does not mean that other Mouride leaders, his sons and cousins, etc., will not do it. But that does not concern me; whether the others are happy or not is not important…. Now as to the question of whether any Senegalese head of state, future Senegalese heads of state, will be able to maintain this kind of relationship with the religious orders… that is another question!”

In an election with the remarkably high turnout rate of over 67%, Wade’s coalition won just about 50% of the vote, the rest being divided very unevenly among the other twenty-four parties which also presented candidates. But with the electoral system which had been developed and used in previous elections in the country, this figure translates into a majority of almost three quarters (89 out of 120) of the seats in the National Assembly. President Wade thus now has a very comfortable working majority which will allow him to undertake the ambitious plans he has for Senegal, and by whose success or failure he and his government will ultimately be judged.