Dakar, Senegal – “Lastly, we are able to breathe,” the cashier on the American Meals Retailer grocery store in Dakar stated whereas swiping a pot of Greek yoghurt by checkout.
It was three days after Senegal’s contested March 24 presidential election – the day provisional outcomes had been introduced – and there was a way that one thing had turned: a brand new vigour for democracy caused by the election of opposition candidate Bassirou Diomaye Faye.
The 44-year-old was sworn in on Tuesday after years of political turmoil and fears that outgoing President Macky Sall – who had already been in energy for 12 years – would attempt to lengthen his mandate into a 3rd time period.
For months, the nation was on tenterhooks.
However after a whirlwind election cycle and final week’s landslide win for the younger, anti-establishment candidate who was in jail simply 20 days in the past, there may be now a palpable feeling amongst Senegalese that change has come.
‘Vote towards the system’
On election day, voters started arriving at daybreak, hours earlier than polling stations opened.
Contained in the playground of Nafissatou Niang Elemtary College in Dakar that served as one of many polling stations, voters in flamboyant boubou robes, outdated suited males with newspapers in hand and younger males in faux Balenciaga T-shirts, lined up, all standing in silence.
Amongst them was 37-year-old Julia Sagna, who stated she was decided to make use of her vote to struggle again.
Wearing a gray energy go well with, she stood poised and a bit of nervous as a result of she had by no means voted earlier than. She stated she by no means needed to till she felt it actually mattered. This time, she was positive: “The brand new, younger voters would vote towards the system,” she stated.
Popping out of the polling station with a smile, she waved a pinky finger dipped in ink to mark that she had voted. “I really feel fortunate” to have participated, she stated.
The delayed vote was alleged to have taken place in February. However days earlier than campaigning was set to start, Sall postponed the election for the primary time in Senegal’s historical past, accusing the constitutional judges tasked with drawing up the record of candidates of corruption. Critics noticed it as a last-ditch effort by Sall to cling to energy.
However the Constitutional Council overruled the choice, ordering Sall to organise elections earlier than the top of his mandate on April 2.
So on March 24, 66 p.c of the seven million Senegalese eligible to vote went to the polls – a excessive turnout for a high-stakes election.
Arrested, then launched
On the Medina polling station in downtown Dakar, massive crowds gathered on the poll packing containers, some out of a want for justice, others out for revenge.
Sall’s 12 years in workplace had been overshadowed by the political turmoil of the ultimate few. In 2020, COVID-19 restrictions badly affected the casual financial system and folks’s livelihoods. The next 12 months, the tried arrest of opposition chief Ousmane Sonko ignited widespread anger in direction of the federal government, which was accused of ignoring the struggles of widespread folks in favour of clamping down on political opponents.
Riots broke out, and the clashes turned lethal.
Scores of individuals had been killed and lots of injured by armed, masked males. The opposition and civil society noticed them as goons employed by the ruling celebration, performing with impunity and paid to harm folks.
From March 2021 to February this 12 months, hundreds of individuals had been arrested – amongst them Bassirou Diomaye Faye.
The previous tax inspector had taken to Fb to protest, writing a publish in February 2023 that accused magistrates of being within the pocket of the state whereas overlooking precise crimes. The authorities deemed the publish threatening to state safety and, subsequently, unlawful.
That April, Faye was arrested and despatched to jail, the place he stayed for 11 months earlier than being launched simply earlier than final month’s vote.
On the time of his arrest, Faye had been working for Sonko, additionally a tax inspector. They had been figureheads of the union of workers of the tax workplace upset with injustice and disparities on the tax division.
In 2014, Sonko, a firebrand with a smooth tone and a pointy tongue, created the political celebration PASTEF (African Patriots of Senegal for Work, Ethics and Fraternity). The celebration attracted center administration civil servants who felt annoyed and powerless as they watched their superiors steal cash and obtain kickbacks with impunity.
Sonko got here to fame by denouncing corruption in contracts for the profitable oil and fuel sector after pure fuel reserves had been found in 2014. In 2023, he was arrested on a number of costs, together with frightening rebel, conspiring with “terrorist teams”, endangering state safety and immoral behaviour in direction of people youthful than 21.
Shortly after, the federal government banned his celebration.
In 2018, Al Jazeera met Sonko in a small rented home overlooking a busy freeway. Throughout the interview, he lashed out on the authorities’s then-new regulation to regulate social media.
Little did he know then that the regulation handed in 2018 could be used 5 years later to arrest his deputy and the longer term president of Senegal, Faye.
On March 6, 18 days earlier than the election, Sall handed an amnesty invoice authorised by parliament to launch and pardon all these concerned in crimes in the course of the political violence that came about from 2021 to 2024.
Rights teams criticised the amnesty regulation, seeing it as a guise to guard the safety forces and employed males concerned in police brutality and the killing of protesters – crimes that can now now not be investigated and, subsequently, go unpunished.
However the amnesty additionally ensured the discharge of Sonko and Faye, who had been freed lower than two weeks earlier than the election, bringing their presidential marketing campaign to life.
The ruling celebration candidate, Amadou Ba, could have had the assistance of dozens of PR firms, however for a lot of Senegalese, his messaging appeared tone deaf to the aspirations of the younger majority, who desired change as an alternative of extra of the identical.
Ba annoyed the media by arriving late to his personal conferences or not displaying up in any respect. Regardless of being the ruling celebration candidate, Sall additionally by no means appeared by his facet.
‘Diomaye is Sonko’
In the meantime, Faye and Sonko placed on a present. They crisscrossed the nation, surrounded by bodyguards holding again frenzied crowds of younger folks desirous to get a glimpse of the boys – as if the 2 had been rock stars and never former tax inspectors.
The crowds sang the anthem to their marketing campaign: “Sonko is Diomaye, and Diomaye is Sonko.”
Largely unknown to the general public, Faye was till then using the wave of Sonko’s recognition. However Faye stepped into the limelight.
Broom in hand, he promised “sweeping” change from a brand new forex and the renegotiating of oil and fuel contracts to altering Senegal’s relationship with France and the French language. Below Sall, critics seen Senegal’s authorities as a puppet to Western pursuits and one which put France’s pursuits above Senegal’s.
Faye promised he would put “Senegal first” and make the Senegalese his precedence.
Overwhelmingly funded by the Senegalese diaspora from Europe and North America, Faye and Sonko ran an American-style marketing campaign, campaigning as a duo “Diomaye Sonko” on a pan-African ticket. They crammed up stadiums and lit up the sky with fireworks.
The present paid off. Two hours after the polling closed, a landslide victory appeared sure. One after the opposite, candidates conceded defeat and congratulated Faye.
By Friday, the official remaining outcomes had been confirmed. He had gained 54 p.c of the votes.
‘Sweeping’ victory
From political prisoner to president in fewer than 20 days, Faye is now Africa’s youngest chief at 44.
For his supporters, Faye was not the one winner. Within the wake of the vote, folks rushed to Sonko’s house. Below a flyover resulting in Sonko’s home, the place police had manhandled folks making an attempt to get to work in June, a victorious crowd gathered.
With horns blaring, younger males on the rooftops of SUVs waved the inexperienced, pink and yellow flag of Senegal. Some approached the world with their households and kids. Supporters with brooms in hand swept the streets, an emblem of what they seen as a sweeping victory.
However as soon as the mud settles, folks will need to know who is definitely holding the broomstick.
When Sonko was barred from working within the election due to his felony convictions, he selected Faye to face as a candidate in his place. “A rational alternative made not from the guts,” Sonko stated in November on the time of his determination when Faye was additionally in jail.
Humble beginnings
Launched on March 14 below Sall’s amnesty regulation, Faye will now settle into his presidential function. However his beginnings are far totally different from the elite he’s changing.
An hour-and-a-half drive from the capital is a protracted filth street resulting in Ndiaganiao, the village the place Faye was born and raised.
It was right here in 2022 that Senegal’s new president campaigned to grow to be the village mayor however misplaced.
“Overcoming adversity and failure made him a hit,” his father, Samba Faye, instructed Al Jazeera a day after the preliminary outcomes had been introduced.
The elder Faye lives in a modest cement house in a sandy settlement. Blue plastic chairs had been stacked in a single nook, others strewn throughout the courtyard. Pots emptied of meals lay round after the earlier evening’s victory celebration.
Not removed from the house is a mosque, and close by within the sand, the ultimate resting place of Faye’s grandfather.
The household is recognised among the many villagers, and the newly elected president is a revered determine.
Faye’s grandfather fought as a part of the colonial French military towards Nazi Germany in World Struggle II. However after that, he introduced the struggle house and took on French colonial directors over the development of a district highschool, a battle that proved tougher than the trenches of conflict as a result of the French colonists noticed educated Africans as a menace to their rule.
His persistence landed him in jail, however the college was ultimately constructed.
That is the place the longer term president went to highschool, his father stated. And through his day off, the younger man would assist his mom and sister plant cereal grains.
Samba Faye has been a lifelong member of Senegal’s Socialist Get together. His son grew up with left-leaning beliefs, his father stated.
“It’s straightforward to be happy with your son now when he will get a lot recognition, however there was loads of ache, loads of arduous work, to get the place he’s,” Samba Faye stated.
As Bassirou Diomaye Faye takes workplace on the presidential palace, in his shadow is his mentor Sonko. Tight pals, for now at the very least, however what function will Sonko play? Particularly since Faye would possible have by no means gained with out him.
Some see uncertainty forward. Others see hope for a brand new starting. However what is obvious is that there will probably be change.
Earlier than the handover of energy, Sall met his successor. Sall, in a go well with and tie, shook the hand of president-elect Faye and opposition chief Sonko, each wearing conventional apparel.
To some it might simply be an emblem, however to the Senegalese who voted for Faye, it’s a cataclysmic shift.
