Dakar — Some 14000 Senegalese parliamentarians and local officials are heading to the polls on Sunday to elect 35 of the 100 members of the newly created Senate in an election that opponents say is self-serving for President Abdoulaye Wade.
The election is being boycotted by Front Siggil Senegal, an alliance that unites the West African nation's major opposition parties. They denounce, among other things, the fact that the remaining 65 senators are to be appointed by Wade.
Wade, 81, was re-elected in April for a five-year term. He enjoys a strong majority in Parliament, as Front Siggil did not participate in the June 3 parliamentary elections.
Analysts agree that Sunday's vote is likely to be an easy win for the ruling Sopi 2007 Coalition, despite rumors of a possible "sanction vote" urged by disgruntled members of Wade's Senegalese Democratic Party (PDS), who disagree with the president on two hotly debated issues.
First, there is the announcement of a likely return to PDS of Idrissa "Idy" Seck. Idy, 48, was Wade's prime minister from 2002 to 2004, when he was dismissed. A year later, he was arrested over alleged embezzlement of public funds in Thiès, a city east of Dakar, where he is mayor. Shortly after his release, he announced plans to run for president and came second in the April 2007 election, gathering over 14% of the votes cast.
Second, pockets of resistance have emerged following the president's unilateral decision to "restructure" PDS, which is perceived by political insiders as an attempt to rid the party of those intent on opposing his alleged plans to have his son, Karim Wade, replace him at the helm of the country.
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Karim, a relatively unknown professional until his father's ascent to power in 2000, is now a controversial figure. He heads the Saudi-funded agency involved in the organization of the 2008 Islamic Conference (ANOCI). He is believed to be the brain behind an informal and yet influential group of young cadres that has branded itself la Génération du Concret (the pragmatic generation).
Some in the opposition question the need for a senate in a country facing economic challenges and deprived of significant natural resources.
"The Senate highlights the expensive lifestyle of the government, which is the cause of the declining economic power of the Senegalese people," Ousmane Tanor Dieng, leader of the Socialist Party (PS, the former ruling party) told Sud Quotidien earlier this month. Wal Fadjri, another independent daily, estimated the cost of running the senate at 3 billion CFA francs, citing Front Siggil officials.
Other observers note with irony Wade eliminated the senate in 2001 to reduce state expenditure. The senate is "one more institution with little practical usefulness in the current context of major national hardship," said a front-page article in Saturday's edition of Le Populaire, a widely read daily in Dakar.
Meanwhile many ordinary citizens in Dakar seem indifferent to the potentially major election underway, while others are simply not aware of it.
