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Senegal: Country Plans to Remove Term Limits
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The Monitor (Kampala)
15 May 2008
Posted to the web 14 May 2008
Hamadou Tidiane Sy
Dakar
Following a now well established trend in Africa, Senegal, which is viewed by many as a democratic model in the region, may soon change a key clause of its constitution if a proposal by the government is approved.
The news has been made public during the weekend when the government issued a statement saying it will put forward a proposal to amend part of article 27 of the country's constitution.
This article - according to the version of the constitution available on the government's website - reads: "The presidential mandate lasts five years. This mandate is renewable only once. It can only be changed through a referendum".
However, the government has not yet made public the exact details of what it intends to change, leaving the local media and the whole country to speculate about its real intentions.
A local radio station RFM, quoting a source at the presidential palace, said the government wants to extend the term of the mandate from five to seven years.
However, the change may not affect the current term of Abdoulaye Wade, who was voted for five years, said the same radio station.
In any case, if approved this amendment would not be anything new, despite the "sensitiveness" of the targeted clause, said Mr Ismaila Madior Fall, a law professor at the Dakar University saying it was premature to make any further comment.
It's true a few changes have been introduced to the Senegalese constitution in the past five years (since Mr Wade came to power), some of which have been strongly criticised by the analysts or the opposition.
These sources believe these changes were made to solve political problems within the ruling party or to settle scores with political rivals rather than to improve the country's legal framework or to strengthen its institutional and democratic structures.
The "new" constitution was adopted in Senegal in 2001 a year after President Abdoulaye Wade came to power.
It has been changed at least five times, and a few more changes have been recently approved both by the national assembly and by the senate, but are still waiting more legal procedures to become effective.
If Senegal modifies the clause ruling the presidential term, it will be simply one more country in a long list of nations which have used the same tactics to keep a president in power. But it would also be a severe blow to a country which has always prided itself to be a "democratic model" in a troubled region.
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Actually, even beyond West Africa, many African governments have earlier resorted to constitutional changes to maintain rulers in power where they were serving their last terms.
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