Dakar, Senegal – Trust and power seem to converge in the hands of tax inspectors in Senegal, as the country is ready to vote in a highly anticipated presidential election on Sunday.
The political figures receiving the most attention out of 17 presidential hopefuls during this electoral cycle – candidates Amadou Ba, Bassirou Diomaye Faye, Mame Boye Diao, and former favourite for office, Ousmane Sonko – are all current or former tax inspectors.
For many, it is a simple coincidence, their earlier professions having no bearing on their selection for candidacy. But for others, their perceived wealth and financial savvy make a difference.
To participate in the presidential election, you need the financial means to do it, explained Alioune Tine, a prominent Senegalese political analyst, highlighting that the four figures are the most apt among public administration to participate in the presidential elections thanks to their wealth.
“Financial power looks for political power,” said Tine. “They are often richer than people in the private sector.”
For some voters, the candidates’ background is important as it inspires trust and competency.
Ousmane Guisse, a 37-year-old insurance broker and Ministry of Commerce employee, is planning on voting for Ba, a former prime minister, due to the fact that he proved himself by climbing up the ladder of meritocracy.
“Mr Ba isn’t just a simple inspector like Faye, Sonko or Diao,” said Guisse. “He’s a former director general who has worked his way up to the top.”
Ba was once the director of the Directorate General of Taxes and Estates and was the minister of economy under two governments. Now, he is the presidential candidate of outgoing President Macky Sall’s party, the Alliance of the Republic.
Diao – who belongs to the same party as Ba and incumbent Sall – was the director of the Deposit and Consignment Fund in Senegal and most recently mayor of Kolda, a city in the south of the country, since January 2022.
He has decided to not back Ba, the party’s favourite, in this election and run his own campaign instead under a different party called the Coalition for a New Senegal.
Meanwhile, Sonko, a controversial but also venerated opposition figure, was barred from running in the elections after facing sexual assault and libel charges. Former mayor of the southern Senegalese city of Ziguinchor and a former tax inspector who investigated the government’s gas and oil deals with foreign companies, he rose to prominence as the leader of the Pastef party. The coalition was dissolved in 2023 after Sonko was arrested and accused of inciting riots around the country.
Sonko, together with Faye – also a tax inspector and a favourite in the elections – now lead the opposition party formed out of the syndicate of tax and estate agents they led.
The four men are all vouching to change the country and fight for the people. Either part of the establishment or challenging it, the current or former tax inspectors seem to have coalesced the trust of the people, whether independent of their background or not.
A supporter of jailed Senegalese opposition leader Ousmane Sonko reacts during an electoral campaign caravan to support candidate Bassirou Diomaye Faye, who Sonko picked to replace him in the race, in the outskirts of Dakar, Senegal [File: Zohra Bensemra/Reuters]
Old vs new guard
Guillaume Soto-Mayor, a nonresident scholar at the Middle East Institute, told Al Jazeera that the reputation of tax inspectors can be beneficial but also harmful.
Sonko and Faye are seen as embodying another vision of the tax inspector, one that serves the law and its applications for anyone, no matter their wealth, origins or family ties. Meanwhile, Ba is seen as part of the old guard, reinforcing the same alliances and interests that have dominated Senegal for the past two administrations.
“[Faye and Sonko] incarnate a counter-image of the traditional corrupted, nepotic and kleptocratic administrative figures,” said Soto-Mayor.
On the other hand, explains the scholar, tax collectors are also disliked by some factions of society as the most hated administrative figures as they impede citizens from having thriving businesses and accumulating personal wealth.
Being a tax inspector is seen as “the quickest way to become a millionaire”, according to Soto-Mayor, who believes Senegalese citizens see it as a corrupt position.
Pathe Thiam, a 22-year-old Senegalese student, told Al Jazeera that for him, tax inspectors represent a “certain elitism that is rife in the country because these inspectors were trained in the most prestigious schools and are often colleagues, friends and relatives”.
For Thiam, this raises questions about corruption, because all of the inspectors among the candidates, with the exception of Faye, refuse to make their asset declaration and explain the origin of their campaign funds.
“They have politicised their function, thus forgetting their duty to the republic,” said Thiam.
For other voters, like Vieux Aidara Moncap, a France-based activist for Sonko and Faye’s coalition party Pastef, the role of tax inspector has “absolutely nothing to do with” why certain figures have been selected to represent political parties.
Rather their policies and positions as leaders of the parties, thinks Moncap, are more relevant factors as to why they have been chosen.
Dakar, Senegal – A year after his 2012 inauguration as Senegal’s fourth president, Macky Sall delivered a compelling speech – half in French, half in English – at Harvard University in the United States.
Sall had won the presidency after a cut-throat election campaign against his mentor and former President Abdoulaye Wade, under whose wing he had served as minister, prime minister, head of the National Assembly and even as Wade’s own campaign director.
Speaking at the fourth Harvard African Development Conference, Sall told a captivated audience about democracy and development challenges in Africa and the need to “lay down the weapons” and to focus on what unites rather than divides Africans.
“Democratic change in Africa, like everywhere, is not an easy exercise,” he said in his keynote address.
“The ideal of … democracy can stay fragile after years of practice,” he warned.
More than decade after his inspirational words at Harvard, questions are being asked about the strength and resilience of Senegal’s democracy as Sall’s 12-year-long tenure draws to a close on April 2 and presidential elections are scheduled for this weekend.
Sall promised a new era of good governance in Senegal with his 2012 presidential victory. He said he would address the consolidation of power in the presidency by fostering a more democratic system while also tackling issues of social justice and equity.
Central to his campaign was a commitment to reduce presidential terms from seven to five years, reversing an increase that Wade had implemented. Wade had also threatened to run for a third – and unconstitutional – term in office.
So history seemed to be repeating itself recently when Sall appeared to be considering a bid for a third term after postponing the presidential election that was due to be held last month, sparking protests throughout the country.
After the Constitutional Court intervened, the presidential election is now set for Sunday.
A photo taken on February 12, 2007, shows then-Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade, left, with Macky Sall, who was his campaign director at the time [File: Seyllou/AFP]
Development for all or riches for a few?
Other controversies surrounding Sall’s presidency – including financial scandals, a crackdown on civil liberties and a faltering economy – have also overshadowed his legacy and his contribution to Senegal’s development, analysts said.
“Macky Sall’s goal was a ‘Senegal for All’,” said Seydina Mouhamadou Ndiaye, a civil society leader and co-founder of the Collectif des Volontaires du Senegal (Volunteer Collective of Senegal, or CODEVS).
“He understood that Senegal is not just Dakar and contributed to the development outside the capital,” he explained.
Before Sall’s presidency, major infrastructure and development projects were focused on the capital, but he extended such projects to rural areas, Ndiaye said.
Sall’s commitment to infrastructure development involved projects such as a new railway connecting the Dakar metropolitan area and developing the country’s highway system. He secured $7.5bn in funding for an ambitious economic development plan called Emergent Senegal, which was designed to transform the economy by 2035 through investments in agriculture, infrastructure and tourism.
While new road infrastructure significantly improved travel and transport, Sall’s government also focused on reducing power cuts and connecting remote villages to the power grid while also improving their access to healthcare.
Sall advanced national development, but at the same time, there was intense politicisation of the management of state funds and the financing of political parties, Ndiaye added.
With incumbent political parties focused on accessing public funds and appointing individuals to positions based on party affiliation rather than competence, development projects suffered as some officials were more focused on personal gain than good governance, Ndiaye said.
There were scandals too.
In 2019, a BBC investigation revealed that a company owned by Aliou Sall, the president’s brother, received a secret $250,000 payment in 2014 from a businessman who had obtained licences for two significant offshore gas blocks that same year.
Sall denied any awareness of the transaction involving his brother.
Civil society organisations and many citizens have also criticised the government for failing to put in place mechanisms to ensure that the wealth generated in the country’s gas and oil sector reaches its people. According to national forecasts, export revenues are to surpass $1.5bn by 2025, but the oil and gas projects have been delayed for almost a year now.
Controversy also surrounded Sall’s management of COVID-19 funds amid allegations of possible mismanagement and embezzlement highlighted by Senegal’s Court of Auditors.
Second term: Crackdown on civil liberties
Sall’s second term as president after his re-election in 2019 faced challenges on the domestic front, notably with the rise of opposition leader Ousmane Sonko.
As a former tax inspector and mayor of Zinguichor, the capital of Senegal’s restive southern region of Casamance, Sonko gained popularity as a politician standing against the system and willing to challenge Sall’s relationship with former colonial power France and with foreign companies operating in extractive industries.
Protests erupted in 2021 after Sonko’s arrest on a rape accusation, and more riots followed when he was accused of libel against a minister in 2023, a charge that subsequently saw him barred from running in the presidential election. Sonko’s supporters have accused the president of hatching a political plot to prevent Sonko from standing in elections.
Among the hundreds of thousands who protested against Sonko’s arrest, many were young people dissatisfied with high unemployment and the rising cost of living.
Anger among the protesters was compounded by the fact that Sall took his time to clarify whether he intended to run for a third term as president – which would have been unconstitutional.
He eventually announced in July that he would not run again, and the size of the protests dwindled despite Sonko’s detention. At least 60 people have been killed in protest violence since 2021, and hundreds of political activists have been jailed and tortured by security forces.
Sall responded by recruiting thousands of new officers into the ranks of Senegal’s militarised gendarmerie – a move seen by some members of the public as preparation for violent crackdowns on pro-democracy protests amid concerns that he might attempt to run for a third term.
“Preventing opposition politicians from participating in elections has contributed to the fissure of Senegal’s democratic record,” said Alexandre Gubert Lette, a civil society leader and executive director of the Teranga Lab, a community engagement organisation focusing on civic duty and the environment.
“It’s a stain on his legacy,” he told Al Jazeera.
Alongside Sonko, Bassirou Diomaye Faye was also detained last year and held in prison. Faye is Sonko’s political ally and presidential candidate for his party.
Both Sonko and Faye were released from prison on Thursday, and despite his time behind bars, Faye is among the favourites of the 19 candidates standing in the presidential election.
Sall has also faced accusations of trying to suppress the media.
In 2022, investigative journalist Pape Ale Niang was arrested and faced criminal charges after reporting on the government’s investigation of Sonko, and Walf TV, a broadcaster that aired critical coverage of Sall, was shut down.
Such events and other cases of media intimidation and suppression saw Senegal drop 55 places – from 49 to 104 – from 2022 to 2023 on the World Press Freedom Index compiled by Reporters Without Borders.
Supporters cheer opposition leader Ousmane Sonko in Dakar, Senegal [File: Zohra Bensemra/Reuters]
Elections delayed, democracy denied
While Senegal was spared the flurry of military coups that have rattled West African countries since 2020, Sall was accused of trying to engineer a constitutional coup d’etat after he postponed the presidential election from February to December.
Sall said the delay was necessary to investigate allegations of corruption among aspiring presidential candidates.
The Constitutional Court ruled, however, that it was not legal to postpone the vote, and the government scheduled it for this month.
More recently, Sall submitted a draft law to parliament allowing for a general amnesty for acts related to political unrest from 2021 to 2024 – a period that includes the violence and chaos caused by his postponement of elections.
Sall said the amnesty was necessary to bring reconciliation to the country.
The legislation, however, absolves all those involved in the political strife, including himself, of any criminal liability, a move that Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International said opens the door to “impunity” for those involved in the violent repression of protests.
Oumar Sow, one of Sall’s presidential advisers who has been by his side since 2012, told Al Jazeera that delaying the election was a severe blow to Senegalese democracy.
“We need to speak about truth before we speak about reconciliation,” Sow said of the amnesty.
After 12 years in power, Sall leaves Senegal with the challenge of youth unemployment, which is a pressing issue for the nation’s rapidly expanding population, and a feeling among the public that the economy has been badly managed.
In a country where more than 60 percent of the population is under 25, the number of young Senegalese not engaged in employment, education or training reached almost 35 percent in 2019, according to the International Labour Organization.
An Afrobarometer poll conducted in 2022 revealed that almost three-quarters of Senegalese citizens believe the government is mishandling the nation’s finances. The same survey also found a significant shift in public sentiment: 62 percent of respondents said the economic outlook was unfavourable, compared with just 33 percent five years earlier.
Migration also increased during Sall’s presidency with thousands of Senegalese making the dangerous journey to Europe due to dissatisfaction with the economic situation at home.
“So many people are leaving to Europe, and this is because of a lack of work and the injustices in our country and the political scandals,” Abdou Khadar Mbaye, a 25-year-old student, told Al Jazeera.
“A president needs to be there for his people and defend the interests of his people and help young people find jobs and work,” Mbaye said.
Ndiaye stressed that Senegal witnessed development and economic growth under Sall but “human development” stagnated.
“That’s why we are seeing young people risking their lives to take boats to go to Europe or that don’t go to school and are unemployed,” Ndiaye said.
In his speech at Harvard more than a decade ago, Sall spoke of how democracy involved a delicate balance of forces that were susceptible to the challenges and complexities of governance.
Those words now stand as a cautionary tale regarding the fragility of democracy in Senegal amid the unrest and political turmoil surrounding the forthcoming election due to Sall’s own political actions.
The release of firebrand Sonko and his right-hand man Faye could help opposition chances in the March 24 election to replace outgoing President Macky Sall.
Celebrations broke out among Senegal’s opposition supporters after two of their top leaders were freed from jail 10 days before the country’s delayed presidential election.
Firebrand politician Ousmane Sonko and his close aide Bassirou Diomaye Faye were released late on Thursday in a move that could boost the opposition’s chance to win in the March 24 election and replace outgoing President Macky Sall.
Sonko, the charismatic anti-establishment politician who has won over crowds of youngsters by promising to fight corruption, had been behind bars since July, serving a two-year sentence for corrupting the youth. He was barred from running for the presidential race due to a separate case involving defamation charges.
His supporters maintain Sonko’s legal woes were an outcome of efforts to keep him away from competing in the elections. Excluded from the presidential race, Sonko urged his supporters to vote for Faye, a lesser-known politician and deputy of his now-dissolved PASTEF party. “Ousmane is Diomaye,” was the message his supporters spread from prison. Faye was also in jail but on administrative detention — a state of arrest that does not bar him from contesting in the election.
“Sonko represents hope for the entire nation,” said Cheick Diara, a young Senegalese man cheering in the streets of Dakar on his release. “Look what is happening around the youth, they want change – we want Sonko in power,” he said.
Bassirou Diomaye Faye was picked by Ousmane Sonko to replace him in the presidential race [Zohra Bensemra/Reuters]
Faye’s mission is now to bank on Sonko’s popularity to win the country’s top job. Dressed in a sky-blue tunic and a white cap, he was welcomed as a hero by a crowd gathered in front of Cap-Manuel prison in the capital Dakar as the news of his release started circulating.
“The way from prison to the presidential palace is now paved,” said Alioune Tine, founder of think tank AfrikaJom Center and former Amnesty International Regional Director for West and Central Africa. “President Sall thought he could neutralise their popularity by putting them in prison, but he understood that it wasn’t working – he was forced to release them,” said Tine, noting that their release will re-energise the opposition front.
Faye’s programme includes the establishment of a new national currency and the renegotiation of the country’s mining and energy contracts between the government and private conglomerates. Central to his campaign is also a review of the relations with former colonial power France whose economic interests in the country are perceived by some in the opposition as a form of neo-colonialism.
He has also promised to tackle youth unemployment: Three out of 10 Senegalese aged 18 to 35 are jobless. The crisis is further exacerbated by the speed at which the population is growing – it doubles every 25 years, according to Afro Barometer data.
“This is a radical youth for a radical change who wants to see a new way of doing politics,” said Hawa Bo, associate director of the Open Society Foundation. “They want to break with clientelism, endemic corruption and lack of accountability,” she added.
The anti-establishment presidential hopeful’s election could have significant implications for the region’s economy and the country’s plan to become an oil producer by the end of 2024. Senegal is the region’s number one recipient of foreign aid, including a $1.8bn loan from the International Monetary Fund.
Supporters surround the car of Senegalese opposition leader Ousmane Sonko, who was released from prison along with the presidential candidate he is backing in the March 24 election, Bassirou Diomaye Faye [Zohra Bensemra/Reuters]
Meanwhile, Sall’s governing Alliance of the Republic party has bet on Amadou Ba, a former prime minister. He ran the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning from 2013 to 2019 and was the country’s top diplomat between 2019 and 2020. His victory would mean policy continuity with the previous government, something that would likely reassure foreign investors.
Western allies are also closely monitoring developments in Senegal after months of protests have rocked Senegal’s image as a rare bastion of stability in a region plagued by military coups.
The latest round of demonstrations took place after Sall postponed the elections originally planned for February. The decision plunged Senegal into uncertainty with critics saying the move amounted to a constitutional coup for Sall to get a third mandate. Presidents in Senegal have a two-term limit. The Constitutional Court overruled the delay and elections were finally set for March 24.
In an attempt to quell tensions, Sall passed a controversial amnesty law – under which Sonko and Faye were released on Thursday – that critics have said is an attempt to make a clean exit from power and avoid being targeted once he is out of office.
Sall’s second term was marked by restrictions on civil liberties, a ban on demonstrations and internet shutdowns. At least 40 people were killed and more than a thousand political opponents ended in jail since 2021, according to Human Rights Watch.
Freedom for Ousmane Sonko and Bassirou Diomaye Faye could dramatically alter the election race.
Senegal’s top opposition leader, Ousmane Sonko, has been released from prison, triggering jubilant celebrations outside the prison as well as across Dakar, the capital.
State broadcaster RTS reported Sonko was freed along with key ally Bassirou Diomaye Faye late on Thursday.
Their release comes after a crisis triggered by President Macky Sall’s decision to postpone the February 25 presidential vote and was expected following last week’s passage of an amnesty law for acts committed in connection with political demonstrations since 2021.
The election, which authorities wanted to postpone for 10 months, is now due to take place on March 24.
“They came out in front of us,” said lawyer Cheikh Koureyssi Ba.
Sonko was at the heart of a bitter two-year standoff with the state and has been in prison since July.
The legal case against him, along with rising economic and social tensions, led to deadly unrest between 2021 and 2023.
Sonko came third in the 2019 presidential election but was barred from running as a candidate in this year’s poll.
News of his release brought thousands of supporters onto the streets of Dakar, chanting Sonko’s name on the street outside his house. Some lit flares, danced or blasted their motorbike and car horns.
“We’ve been waiting for this day for so long. Prayed for it,” said 52-year-old health worker Fatima, who gave only her first name. She had rushed to join the crowd when she heard Sonko and Faye were free.
“I believe Sonko can change the country,” she said.
The opposition leader is popular among young people and his fiery campaign to tackle corruption has resonated in a country where the cost of living is rising and many people are struggling.
“It’s a joy. It’s incredible. They released Ousmane Sonko!”, said 31-year-old Mamadou Mballo Mane.
After he was disqualified from contesting the election, Sonko endorsed Faye to replace him on the ballot.
Faye, who was jailed in April 2023, has been unable to address voters in person since campaigning kicked off on March 9.
Incumbent Macky Sall is not standing for re-election this year. His last-minute decision to defer the February presidential vote led to unrest in which four people were killed.
Bouts of unrest since 2021 have left dozens dead and led to hundreds of arrests in a country often viewed as a pillar of stability in West Africa, where there have been dozens of coups and attempted coups in recent decades.
Sonko has always maintained there was a plot to keep him out of the 2024 election, while his camp and the government have traded blame for the violence.
He had been jailed since the end of July on a string of charges, including provoking insurrection, conspiracy with terrorist groups and endangering state security.
Senegalese voters have a crowded field of 19 candidates to pick from when they vote this month to elect a new leader to replace President Macky Sall in a tight election whose delay sparked concerns for the future of democracy in the West African country.
The vote on March 24 will take place after Sall’s attempt to postpone the election, originally planned for February, was overturned by Senegal’s top election authority after weeks of violent protests.
The ruling by the Constitutional Council has been welcomed by many in the country – but observers have warned it may not be the last twist in the saga. Already, several politicians have petitioned the courts to postpone the election anew, claiming the application process for the candidates was flawed.
“Every week you have a new kind of scandal – this is Senegal,” said Ndongo Samba Sylla, head of research and policy for IDEAs, a network of political and economic analysts. “There could be new developments” in the days ahead, he cautioned.
Meanwhile, candidates are left with less than two weeks to win over voters during the month of Ramadan, a period usually dedicated to spiritual reflection and worship rather than politics.
Here’s a look at the main candidates — and a common thread that binds some of them:
Bassirou Diomaye Faye
The 49-year-old tax inspector is the candidate of an opposition coalition that includes members of the dissolved PASTEF party of Ousmane Sonko, a firebrand politician and fierce critic of Sall.
Sonko, who came third in the 2019 presidential election, was widely seen as the most popular candidate for this year’s vote. But the opposition leader was detained in July after being convicted of “morally corrupting” the youth and was later barred from running over libel charges. Faye has been nominated by Sonko as his successor.
Sonko, like Faye, was a tax inspector.
Opposition supporters sing and dance during a meeting two days before the trial of one of Senegal’s opposition leaders, Ousmane Sonko, in Dakar [File: John Wessels/AFP]
Faye will seek to capitalise on Sonko’s popularity, especially among Senegal’s unemployed youth. Three out of 10 Senegalese aged 18 to 35 are unemployed. Youth joblessness is an issue further exacerbated by the speed at which the population grows – it doubles every 25 years, according to Afro Barometer data.
But Faye has been in preventive detention since April, even while his face adorns T-shirts of opposition supporters, who have chanted his name at campaign rallies. He is expected to be released soon as part of an amnesty law.
“Freed or not freed, the majority of Senegalese has already made their choice. Who wants to vote for Faye will vote for him,” said Thiaba Camara, president of the civil society group Demain Senegal.
Faye has called for the establishment of a new national currency; the renegotiation of contracts between the government and corporations in sectors ranging from energy and mining to fishing; and a reduction of presidential powers, including the reintroduction of the vice presidency. He has also pledged to equally distribute profits out of a gasfield that is expected to start production this year.
Amadou Ba
A former prime minister, Ba was also once a tax inspector. Ba is the presidential candidate of Sall’s Alliance for the Republic party. He ran the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning from 2013 to 2019 and was the country’s top diplomat in 2019 and 2020.
A Ba victory would mean policy continuity with the previous government, something that would likely assure foreign investors and guarantee a cohesive fiscal response at a time when Senegal needs the support of the International Monetary Fund, which approved a $1.8bn loan in June.
But because the 62-year-old was part of Sall’s government, he faces public dissatisfaction over the rollback of civil liberties under the outgoing president. Dozens of people were killed and more than 1,000 jailed in the political turmoil of the past three years.
“Ba is perceived as the candidate who embodies the old system, one which never disconnected from structures established since independence,” said Hawa Ba, the head of the Open Society Initiative for West Africa.
Amadou Ba is the presidential candidate for Sall’s party [File: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/Reuters]
Khalifa Sall
Another presidential hopeful is Dakar’s two-time mayor (no relation to the president).
The widely popular politician was jailed for five years in 2018 on charges of fraud, which his supporters said were politically motivated. The conviction barred him from running in the following year’s presidential election, in which he was seen as a strong competitor to Macky Sall.
Following a presidential pardon, the former lawmaker, who trained as a teacher, was freed in 2019.
Sustainable development has been central to Khalifa Sall’s electoral campaign. He has said he wants to focus on responsible water management and equitable land distribution. More than 70 percent of Senegal’s population lives off agriculture and the livestock sector.
Idrissa Seck
Until April, Seck was the head of the Economic, Social and Environmental Council.
The 63-year-old won 21 percent of the vote in the 2019 presidential election, finishing second in the race. After the vote, his Rewmi party joined President Sall’s ruling coalition.
Reports suggested Seck and Sall fell out after the former declared his opposition to anybody seeking a third term, alluding to the latter’s suspected ambitions. Seck also argued that Sonko should have been allowed to run in the 2024 election.
Idrissa Seck finished second in the 2019 presidential election [File: Martin Dixon/EPA]
Mahammed Boun Abdallah Dionne
Prime minister from 2014 to 2019, Dionne served as the chief of the Central Bank of West African States and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization. The agency’s mandate is to support economic growth in developing countries and economies in transition.
He is a computer engineer by training. Dionne has pledged to be a “president of reconciliation” if elected and has pushed for “economic sovereignty” for Senegal.
Anta Babacar Ngom
Ngom is the only female candidate and would be the first women to serve as Senegal’s president if elected. A political newcomer, the 40-year-old runs Senegal’s largest poultry company, which was founded by her father.
She has said she wants to boost the private sector, promote free healthcare and reform the education system, including adding local languages on top of French.
Dahomey, a documentary by Franco-Senegalese director Mati Diop probing the thorny issues surrounding Europe’s return of looted antiquities to Africa, has won the Berlin International Film Festival’s top prize.
Kenyan-Mexican Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o announced the seven-member panel’s choice for the Golden Bear award at a gala ceremony in the German capital Saturday.
Diop said the prize “not only honours me but the entire visible and invisible community that the film represents”.
Al Jazeera’s Dominic Kane, reporting from Berlin, said the documentary “confronts an issue that has been the forefront of many people’s minds, not just in the film world but also across Europe.
“DDahomeyconcentrates on the Benin bronzes and the struggle to return those bronzes. The whole principle of restitution, that is what the director Mati Diop referred to in accepting the prize, the Golden Bear at this festival,” Kane said.
South Korean arthouse favourite Hong Sang-soo captured the runner-up Grand Jury Prize for, A Traveller’s Needs, his third collaboration with French screen legend Isabelle Huppert.
Mati Diop celebrates with Berlinale Artistic Director Carlo Chatrian, right, and Head of Programming Mark Peranson backstage during the awards ceremony in Berlin [Nadja Wohlleben/Pool/AFP]
Hong, a frequent guest at the festival, thanked the jury, joking, “I don’t know what you saw in this film.”
French auteur Bruno Dumont accepted the third-place Jury Prize for, The Empire, an intergalactic battle of good and evil set in a French fishing village.
Dominican filmmaker Nelson Carlo de los Santos Arias won best director for, Pepe, his enigmatic docudrama conjuring the ghost of a hippopotamus owned by the late Colombian drug baron Pablo Escobar.
Marvel movie star Sebastian Stan picked up the best performance Silver Bear for his appearance in the US satire, A Different Man.
Stan plays an actor with neurofibromatosis, a genetic disease causing disfiguring tumours, who is cured with a groundbreaking medical treatment.
The Romanian American star called it “a story that’s not only about acceptance, identity and self-truth but about disfigurement and disability – a subject matter that’s been long overlooked by our own bias”.
‘Collusion’
The United Kingdom’s Emily Watson clinched the best supporting performance Silver Bear for her turn as a cruel mother superior in, Small Things Like These.
The film, starring Cillian Murphy, is about one of modern Ireland’s biggest scandals: the Magdalene laundries network of Roman Catholic penitentiary workhouses for “fallen women”.
She paid tribute to the “thousands and thousands of young women whose lives were devastated by the collusion between the Catholic church and the state in Ireland”.
German writer-director Matthias Glasner took the Silver Bear for best screenplay for his semi-autobiographical tragicomedy, Dying. The three-hour tour de force features some of the country’s top actors depicting a dysfunctional family.
The Silver Bear for outstanding artistic contribution went to cinematographer Martin Gschlacht for the chilling Austrian historical horror movie, The Devil’s Bath. It tells the tale of depressed women in the 18th century who murdered in order to be executed.
A separate Berlinale Documentary Award went to a Palestinian-Israeli activist collective for, No Other Land, about Palestinians displaced by Israeli troops and settlers in the occupied West Bank.
“In accepting the prize, the two men most involved in this film – one Israeli, one Palestinian – both spoke about the need for a ceasefire immediately, and that is a thought picked up by many other people – some recipients of awards, [and] some people presenting awards,” Kane said.
Cu Li Never Cries, by Vietnamese filmmaker Pham Ngoc Lan won the best first feature prize. The film tells the story of a woman who returns to Vietnam from Germany with the ashes of her estranged husband.
Best short film went to, An Odd Turn, by Argentina’s Francisco Lezama about a museum security guard who predicts a surge in the dollar’s value with a pendulum.
The Berlinale, as the festival is known, ranks with Cannes and Venice among Europe’s top cinema showcases.
Last year, another documentary took home the Golden Bear, France’s, On the Adamant, about a floating day-care centre for people with psychiatric problems.
The West African regional bloc is lifting most sanctions imposed on Niger over last year’s coup, in a new push for dialogue following a series of political crises that have rocked the region in recent months.
A no-fly zone and border closures were among the sanctions being lifted “with immediate effect”, the president of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Commission, Omar Alieu Touray, said on Saturday.
The lifting of the sanctions is “on purely humanitarian grounds” to ease the suffering caused as a result, Touray told reporters after the bloc’s summit in the Nigerian capital, Abuja.
The summit aimed to address existential threats facing the region as well as implore three military-led nations that have quit the bloc – Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso – to rescind their decision.
The three were suspended from ECOWAS following recent coups.
Since then, they have declared their intention to permanently withdraw from the bloc, but ECOWAS has called for the three states to return.
Speaking in his opening remarks at the start of the summit, ECOWAS chairman and Nigerian President Bola Tinubu said the bloc “must re-examine our current approach to the quest for constitutional order in four of our Member States”, referring to the three suspended countries, as well as Guinea, which is also military-led.
Tinubu urged Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso to “reconsider the decision” and said they should “not perceive our organisation as the enemy”.
ECOWAS also said it had lifted certain sanctions on Malian individuals and some on junta-led Guinea, which has not said it wants to leave the bloc but has also not committed to a timeline to return to democratic rule.
Touray said some targeted sanctions and political sanctions remained place for Niger, without giving details.
Gesture of appeasement
Reporting from the summit in Abuja, Al Jazeera’s Ahmed Idris said, “Almost all the sanctions imposed on Niger have been lifted,” including land, sea, and air blockades, and sanctions barring Niger from economic and financial institutions in the region.
However, ECOWAS placed “some conditions” on the lifting of the sanctions, he added. “They want the immediate release of President Mohamed Bazoum and members of his family.”
Niger’s President Bazoum was deposed in a military coup last July, prompting ECOWAS to suspend trade and impose sanctions on the country. He is still imprisoned in the presidential palace in Niamey. On the eve of the summit, his lawyers urged ECOWAS to demand his release.
Earlier this week, ECOWAS co-founder and former Nigerian military leader General Yakubu Gowon also called for the bloc to lift “all sanctions that have been imposed on Burkina Faso, Guinea, Mali and Niger”.
“Even before today’s summit, there has been a change in tone, in language and also the approach of ECOWAS entirely to the sanctions and embargoes imposed on these three West African countries,” Idris said.
Easing sanctions is seen as a gesture of appeasement as ECOWAS tries to persuade the three states to remain in the nearly 50-year-old alliance and rethink a withdrawal. Their planned exit would undermine regional integration efforts and bring a messy disentanglement from the bloc’s trade and services flows, worth nearly $150bn a year.
ECOWAS on Saturday gave the three military-led countries “an opportunity to be members of the organisation once again”, Idris said, adding that they asked them to be part of “technical discussions of the ECOWAS bloc” without restoring them as full participating heads of state at summits or major conferences.
After Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger announced that they would permanently withdraw from the alliance and formed a grouping called the Alliance of Sahel States, “the ECOWAS institution itself was shaken”, Idris said.
“[ECOWAS] is an organisation that is gradually losing its steam, and there is the danger of it being fragmented … There is also the concern that unless ECOWAS brings these people back into the fold, there is the danger of coups spreading in West Africa,” he added.
Violent protests erupt after President Macky Sall postponed presidential elections by several months.
A student has been killed in the Senegalese city of Saint-Louis during violent protests against the postponement of the presidential election.
Clashes between security forces and protesters gripped Senegal’s capital and other cities on Friday, the first widespread unrest over the delay of a vote that many fear could lead to protracted instability.
In a statement on Saturday, the Ministry of Interior and Public Security said it had been informed of the death of student Alpha Yero Tounkara and that it would be investigated, but denied its forces were to blame.
“The Defence and Security Forces did not intervene to maintain order on the university campus where the death occurred,” it said.
It was not immediately clear if protests continued on Saturday. Further violent standoffs with security forces will add to fears of democratic retreat.
Less than three weeks before the February 25 presidential vote, parliament voted to push it back to December, sealing an extension of President Macky Sall’s mandate, which has raised concerns that one of the remaining democracies in coup-hit West Africa is under threat.
Sall has reached his constitutional limit of two terms.
The vote in parliament took place after opposition lawmakers were forcibly removed from the chamber as the debate was ongoing.
After parliament voted, 39 lawmakers in the opposition coalition, Yewwi Askan Wi, and several opposition presidential candidates filed legal challenges against the delay with the Constitutional Court.
In an attempt to quell the anger, Sall said he had postponed the election to restore trust in the electoral process after the list of candidates was put into question.
But anger remained high, with critics denouncing the move as an “institutional coup”.
“We are fed with Macky Sall, he already had two terms what else does he want?” a protester told Al Jazeera.
Parliament voted to push the polls back to December after President Macky Sall announced a postponement last week.
Security forces in Senegal have clashed with hundreds of protesters who are opposed to the delay of the presidential election that was supposed to take place on February 25.
In Dakar, police fired tear gas on crowds and prevented people from meeting and gathering to protest, according to Al Jazeera’s Nicholas Haque, reporting from the capital on Friday.
“There have been running battles between protesters and police and security forces. Most of the demonstrators are quite young, many 18-year-olds. They were barely 12 when President Macky Sall came to power. They want to have a say in this election,” Haque said.
Less than three weeks before the polls were meant to take place, parliament voted to push it back to December 15, upholding Sall’s earlier postponement announcement and sealing an extension of his mandate.
But the move has provoked fears that one of the remaining healthy democracies in coup-hit West Africa is under threat.
In the capital on Friday, some demonstrators waved Senegalese flags, while others shouted slogans like “Macky Sall is a dictator”, the Reuters news agency reported.
At Blaise Diagne high school in Dakar, hundreds of pupils left their lessons mid-morning after teachers heeded the call to protest. History and geography teacher Assane Sene said it was just the start of the battle.
“If the government is stubborn, we will have to try different approaches,” he told the AFP news agency.
A protester throws a stone during clashes with police in Dakar [Guy Peterson/AFP]
Sall, who has reached his constitutional limit of two terms, said he delayed the elections due to a dispute over the candidate list that threatened the credibility of the electoral process.
The decision has unleashed widespread anger on social media and the opposition has condemned it as a “constitutional coup”.
Some critics also accuse Sall of trying to cling to power, while the West African bloc and foreign powers have criticised the move as a break with Senegal’s democratic tradition.
‘Calm spirits’
“Senegal has perhaps never experienced a crisis like the one we are experiencing and we must overcome it,” said Senegal’s Justice Minister Aissata Tall Sall. “We must calm spirits.”
In an interview, Tall Sall said the postponement was not the president’s decision, but the parliament’s, and “was done in perfect conformity with the constitution”.
After parliament voted, 39 lawmakers in the opposition coalition, Yewwi Askan Wi, and several opposition presidential candidates filed legal challenges against the delay with the Constitutional Court.
Tall Sall said the challenges did not fall under the Constitutional Court’s jurisdiction. But she said the fact that opponents were turning to the courts meant that “we are in a functioning democracy.”
However, she conceded the postponement had pitched Senegal into unprecedented uncertainty.
This is the first time that a presidential election has been postponed since Senegal’s independence from France in 1960.
In a statement on Friday, the European Union’s foreign policy chief Joseph Borrell expressed concern about the situation in Senegal, urging the nation to “preserve democracy”.
“Fundamental freedoms, and in particular those to demonstrate peacefully and express oneself publicly, are fundamental principles of the rule of law that the Senegalese authorities must guarantee,” Borell said, and called on authorities to organise elections “as quickly as possible.”
The call for mass mobilisation comes as a major political upheaval continues in the usually stable West African nation.
A coalition of Senegalese civil society groups on Thursday called for mass mobilisation against the delay to this month’s presidential poll, outlining a series of planned actions including a protest and strike.
The normally stable West African nation has plunged into its worst political upheaval in decades after lawmakers backed President Macky Sall’s decision to postpone the February 25 election until mid-December.
“We invite all citizens concerned by the preservation of democratic gains to mobilise en masse throughout the country and in the diaspora to prevent this seizure of power,” the newly formed platform Aar Sunu Election (Let’s protect our election) said in a statement.
The collective includes some 40 citizen, religious, and professional groups, including several education unions.
“A major demonstration is planned for Tuesday,” Malick Diop, who described himself as one of the platform’s coordinators, told journalists in Dakar.
The speakers at the event also mentioned a call for a general strike on an unspecified date and a walkout in the education sector from Friday.
The platform called on Muslims to attend Friday prayers wearing white and flying the national colours.
The call comes as West African foreign ministers are holding emergency talks in Nigeria’s capital Abuja to discuss the political crisis in Senegal.
Ahead of Thursday’s meeting, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has urged Senegal – one of its most stable member states – to return to its election timetable. But critics have already questioned the group’s sway over increasingly defiant member states.
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