The last decade has tested the resilience of Senegalese democracy. President Macky Sall (in power, 2012–2024) and his party, the Alliance pour la Republique (APR), undermined Senegalese democracy to the point that many observers thought it would collapse. His authoritarian drift cost lives and sowed distrust in the political process. Sall’s move to postpone the presidential election from February to December 2024 would have been a first in the political history of Senegal since independence from France in 1960. The Constitutional Council eventually ruled that the law passed by the National Assembly allowing for such a delay was unconstitutional. President Sall was thus forced to hold elections as quickly as possible (‘dans les meilleurs délais’, in the words of the Constitutional Council). The Government obeyed and scheduled the presidential election, which took place on March 24, 2024. Opposition candidate Bassirou Diomaye Faye defeated Sall’s designated successor, Prime Minister Amadou Ba (APR), with 54 percent of the vote in the first round against Ba’s 36 percent. President Faye was the number two of the previously opposition party Patriotes africains du Sénégal pour le travail, l’éthique et la fraternité (PASTEF), but he ran for president because its leader, Ousmane Sonko, had been imprisoned under dubious charges.
In a recent article in African Affairs, we correct two inaccurate claims that journalists and observers regularly make about politics in Senegal in the hope that they will discuss the country’s politics more accurately. The first claim is that the country has long been a haven of both stability and democracy, and so Sall’s anti-democratic and repressive moves break with these constants. The second claim is that these moves by President Sall led to an institutional crisis without precedent [une situation de crise institutionnelle sans précédent].
The first claim is only half true. Senegal has indeed been a haven of political stability since independence, except for the minor insurgency in the Casamance region. The contrast with other West African countries is stark (Table 1). However, journalists and pundits are wrong when they state that Senegal is a long-time haven of democracy. The political system only became more democratic at the turn of the century (Figure 1). Under the presidencies of Léopold Sédar Senghor (1960-1980) and Abdou Diouf (1980-2000), Senegal was first a single-party regime and then a hegemonic party regime, a regime that significantly limits political contestation. Indeed, the political playing field in 20th-century Senegal was heavily tilted in favour of the regime, and only a couple of other parties were allowed after 1976, much like Mexico under the PRI regime (1929-2000). Senegal was overall more democratic under President Abdoulaye Wade (2000-2012), but nepotism – which was minimal under Senghor and Diouf – increased, corruption remained, and Wade ran for a legally dubious third term in 2012.
The second claim—an institutional crisis without precedent—stems from insufficient knowledge of Senegal’s political history. It is true that Sall’s attempt to postpone the 2024 presidential election was unconstitutional and unprecedented. However, the 2007 parliamentary elections were twice delayed under President Wade, a move that perhaps “inspired” Sall, and historical precedents abound for his other moves. Opposition leaders before Sonko ended up in prison for political reasons. Senghor is rightly remembered for his intellect and leadership, but he imprisoned his ally-turned-rival, Mamadou Dia. Diouf sent Wade to prison in 1986, 1988, and 1993 when the latter was the opposition leader. Former presidents also repressed the opposition beyond its leader. Under Senghor, the student protests of May 1968 in Dakar were repressed by the army and the police and led to a ban on campus protests. Florian Bobin and Françoise Blum show that Senghor’s regime was not devoid of repression. Marxists in the Parti Africain de l’Indépendance (PAI) had to tread carefully. Even a CIA report, not an organization suspect of harboring communist sympathies, explains that ‘Since 1960 [PAI] party members have been faced with arrest in Senegal, and those not fleeing the country have either been bought off by the government or imprisoned.’ Whether Sall was inspired or not by Senghor, both repressed students and the opposition. Diouf’s rich playbook of antidemocratic moves included trying to abolish presidential term limits, something that Sall did not even dare to propose in public.
Many have rightly argued that one reason Senegal is mostly democratic is that Diouf conceded defeat to Wade in 2000, Wade to Sall in 2012, and Sall and his candidate to Faye in 2024. We certainly agree that elite behaviour matters. But, in our article, we gather existing literature to argue that pressure from organized civil society (stemming from social norms that are civic, tolerant, and that encourage political protest and civil disobedience when necessary) is also important to explain why Senegal has remained democratic (surveys show that support for democracy is higher in Senegal than other West African countries, see Figure 2). Sheldon Gellar traces the roots of this civic culture to associations in the 19th and 20th centuries, such as L’Aurore de Saint-Louis, and such roots help explain the emergence of contemporary social movements such as Y’en a marre. Gellar builds on the work of social scientists such as Mamadou Diouf, who has argued that an inclusive ‘Islamo-Wolof model’ precedes the colonial state and is at the heart of Senegalese nation-building, and Makhtar Diouf, who traced the origins of Senegal’s national unity to its long history of interethnic marriages and mobility.
There are some hopeful signs for democratic consolidation, such as President Faye’s efforts to create a more independent judiciary, one of the main demands of civil society. The governments also wants to renegotiate strategic contracts and has increased the fight against corruption. On social policy, it wants to integrate local languages into the education system, which not only makes sense culturally but is also a good move for human development. In short, this set of policies would better align cultural and social norms with state institutions. At the same time, the current regime arrested journalists, which led non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to call on ‘Senegalese authorities to stop the legal harassment of journalists and to deliver on President Bassirou Diomaye Diakhar Faye’s promise to decriminalize press offenses.’
Most of all, the bicephalous power structure today is a legacy of Sall’s regime—had Sonko not been in prison, he would have most likely become president—but is already proving to be a source of political instability all the same. PM Sonko recently threatened to exit the government in his continuing rift with President Faye. The conflict between them may reflect different approaches to governance and to the relationship that should exist between the executive, the party PASTEF and the coalition Diomaye Président. The other truly bicephalous power structure led to the 1962 crisis between President Senghor and PM Dia in which the latter was imprisoned. At worst, a personalist struggle for political control would curb democracy, forcing citizens to mobilise once again to restore it.
Alioune Wagane Ngom Ph.D. (@Aliounewagane) is a Scholar in Public Law at Université de Reims Champagne Ardenne, France.
Joan Ricart-Huguet (@ricarthuguet, @ricarthuguet.bsky.social) is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Loyola University Maryland.
Article:
Ngom, A., & Ricart-Huguet, J. (2025). Senegal: Between Political Instability and Democratic Consolidation. African Affairs, 124(496), 379–395. https://doi.org/10.1093/afraf/adaf025
