State of emergency declared after
SENEGAL dou Diouf and only 21% for the PDS. It was this that set the tinder alight and caused the population to take to the streets.
Nobody believes the official figures. They have no more authenticity than those of the electoral mascarade in Haiti, and which vary according to convenience. Credited with 21% of the vote on February electoral fraud
29, the PDS were given 24% a day later.. after the riots.
University campus
ENJOYING A special economic partnership with France and led by a grouping belonging to the Socialist International,
Abdou Diouf's government has always been smiled on with the same indulgence by the Matignon and the Elysée
[residences of the right-wing French prime minister and the social-democratic president]. The media have been similarly unanimous, quick to praise Senegalese "democracy". It is therefore not surprising that the press, with few exceptions, has minimized the recent popular uprising.
VINCENT KERMEL
"E
LECTION without violence", proclaimed le Figaro, untruthfully. "A calm election", the
Quotidien de Paris noted in three lines at the bottom of a page. As for
Le Monde's editorialist, he lectured Abdou
Diouf for his easy going attitude toward his opponents, "in an Africa where the image
Supposedly, in this case, electoral fraud or a state of emergency do not have the usual dictatorial meaning. Since the continent has accustomed us to worse, this is just a lesser evil, and it would be advisable to resign ourselves to it!
For the past months, the opposition has demanded that the Electoral Code be modified [see IV 130 and 133]. This Code is generally acknowledged to have favoured the 1983 electoral frauds. A committee has been set up to demand such basic guarantees as the right of parties on the ballot to choose their own representatives at polling stations, identification of voters by means of identity cards, the use of individual polling booths, counting the vote in the presence of the opposition and so on. But
Abdou Diouf quickly reneged on his promises to clean up the electoral lists.
The campaign for the presidential and legislative elections on February 28 was therefore, as foreseen, tainted with attacks on freedom of expression, censorship of radio and TV speeches supporting the students' struggle and so on.
Despite these manoeuvres, despite his enjoying the facilities of state institutions, as well as the support of chiefs of the Muslim religious brotherhoods and from support committees set up by various mini-
28 sters, Abdou Diouf was afraid of losing.
International Viewpoint • March 21, 1988
For the first time in many years a movement emerged that opposed his policy and sought to defeat it this time around.
It is the candidate of the bourgeois opposition, Abdoulaye Wade of the Democratic Socialist Party (PDS), supported by two pro-Moscow parties, who will gain the most from the discontent with the election. But part of the discontent will also benefit the popular and revolutionary candidature of Landing Savane. Savane is a member of the And-Jeff movement [of Maoist origin], whose candidature was also supported by the Workers' Socialist Organization, the OST, Senegalese section of the Fourth International [see his statement on page 26]. His campaign, centred around denouncing the policy imposed by the IMF, unemployment and the educational reform, gained a wide hearing in the towns and
Nobody believes the official election results
The ruling Socialist Party found it difficult to compete with the opposition in the field of mass initiatives, however it has not given up its shows of strength. The SP's action committees are groups that intimidate the opposition. That is what provoked the confrontations in Thies and Dakar.
As the campaign unfolded, the threats of Abdou Diouf's "grand democracy" became more precise. In fact, the electoral fraud was so gross that the results must be systematically re-evaluated. While all the observers noted a very high turn-out for the opposition, the minister of the interior, usurping the prerogative of the Supreme Court, announced a score of 77% for Abstormed by police
When it was challenged, the government answered with the police and decreed a state of emergency and a curfew in Dakar. The university and the high schools were closed, and the campus was stormed by the forces of order. Armoured vehicles patrolled the streets of the capital. The candidate and the whole leadership of the PDS were arrested, as well as the leader of a pro-Moscow organization, the PIT. Young demonstrators who were stopped and questioned had their hair cropped on the spot. A government party leaflet distributed in Saint-Louis went as far as to call for firing on demonstrators. The opposition is in practice threatened with being outlawed.
Nonetheless, the sporadic and spontaneous clashes continued in the popular districts. Some petrol pumps were set alight, and some militants or well-known members of the Socialist Party were targets.
It has been demonstrated that this regime will only tolerate the opposition when it does not constitute a real threat to the ruling party. When it becomes a catalyst for popular discontent, the regime takes out a big stick against both the opposition and work-
The movement challenging the February 28 elections expresses a profound upsurge of discontent with government policy.
Abdou Diouf's regime has been incapable of attacking the economic and social crisis. Following exactly prescriptions of the IMF and the World Bank, it has contributed to increasing unemployment and to reducing peasants' income. The "new agricultural and industrial policies" have meant the "freeing" of the economy and the working class from "protective measures". Some of the Work Code's guarantees are being called into question. The peasantry is thrown on the mercy of the private merchants, as in colonial times.
But there is no austerity for the dignitaries of the regime. Widespread corruption is growing through the clientelist networks of the Socialist Party. This regime has no credibility with the mass of the Senegalese people. It has no right to boast of its democratic practices in order to cover up its misdeeds. The regime still benefits greatly from a complicit silence. This silence must be broken. *
[From the March 3 edition of Rouge, newspaper of the French section of the Fourth International.]