Protesters chant slogans as they march through Ikorodu road during a protest against a fuel subsidy removal in Lagos on Monday. Thousands of Nigerians took to the streets across Africa's top oil producing nation, launching an indefinite nationwide strike to protest against the axing of fuel subsidies. (Akintunde Akinleye/Reuters)
Why Nigerians are in an 'occupy' mood (+video)
On the first day of the indefinite general strike organized by a coalition of unions and social media-based activists, some external observers have expressed surprise at the intensity of resistance the “Occupy Nigeria” campaign has mounted against the removal of a fuel subsidy. From an outside perspective, it might seem like a dust-devil has been whipped up without reason in the desert. In case there’s still any confusion, allow me to explain why there is so much anger and resistance.
The answer begins with a question: Would it be acceptable to citizens of affluent countries that the price of gasoline doubles overnight without any warning?
While Jeffrey Sachs may have his own view, the lived reality of citizens of the Nigerian state is that it provides little or no security, no infrastructure, no education, and no employment opportunities (apart from mostly McJobs in the civil service). Everywhere in Nigeria, the basic elements of civilized existence have to be taken care of house-by-house, compound-by-compound. You must sink your own borehole for water, buy, install, and fuel a generator for power, hire security guards to keep the wolves from the door, pay school fees to ensure your kids get a half-decent education because the public school system is in perpetual meltdown. And to earn enough money to get through the day, you must hustle.
The breakdown of a Nigerian social contract between citizens and the state is almost entirely a result of the past few decades of the so-called "resource curse." Earning billions of dollars each year from crude exports, the Nigerian government has no need to rely on taxes from individuals or local companies; tax and royalty payments from the international oil companies (as well as historically, loans from international financial institutions) have been sufficient to fund the annual budget at all levels of government.
For the past few decades, cheap fuel has therefore been the only form of social contract between ordinary Nigerians and the state and the principle lever to control inflation during times of rising oil prices. With most Nigerians subsisting on $2 a day or less, subsidised fuel has also been a survival mechanism, making life only just bearable.
It was therefore highly surprising to Nigerians to find out that the fuel subsidy had been removed on Jan. 1 and that the price regulating body under the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) had more than doubled the price of petrol overnight. No one had been given warning. The expectation was that the subsidy would be removed at the earliest in April. The strong suspicion is that following on from Christine Lagarde’s visit to Nigeria in late December, the government had accelerated its plans.
From the views of key government figures, it’s easy to see how Nigeria acceded to IMF pressure with little or no resistance. The Finance Minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has repeatedly stated that removing the fuel subsidy would only hurt the affluent car-owning population, forgetting how central the price of fuel is to almost every basic aspect of life here. Meanwhile, the Governor of the Central Bank, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, has stated that removal of the subsidy would only have a short-term inflationary effect. With opinions like this, the IMF was walking into an open door.
Given the state of the global economy, it is little surprise that the IMF is in favour of insisting on reducing debt wherever it can. However, the IMF also appears to be suffering from institutional amnesia; what is happening in Nigeria is in some respects a re-run of the Structural Adjustment Programme in the 1980s, and President Ibrahim Babangida’s short-term attempts to resist austerity measures. As we will recall, “IBB” ended up creating his own austerity package, which was more severe than that proposed by the IMF. The Nigerian economy quickly tanked, resulting in mass suffering among Nigerians. Fundamentalist strains of evangelical Christianity mushroomed forth from the barren earth.
Unlike the World Bank, which is increasingly taking political-economy factors seriously in its analysis and its programmes, even today the IMF and its high-priesthood consultants views the world from the numerical altar of macro-economics. The technocratic nature of the IMF means that the organization is in fact programmed to forget the past.
During the recent fuel subsidy debate on local Nigerian TV station Channels, Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala was keen to state what she referred to as "facts." At no point has anyone in the executive effectively challenged former Petroleum Minister Tam David-West’s querying of whether there is a subsidy in the first place, or whether the landing cost of imported fuel has been artificially padded. Given the findings of the recent KPMG report into the NNPC, it seems that facts about the oil sector in Nigeria are thin on the ground.
The defense offered by the Finance Minister during that same debate is that the savings from removal of the subsidy would be spent on a palliative capital-spending program – the Subsidy Re-investment and Empowerment Programme (SURE). Nigerians have raised a number of critical objections to this proposal.
Firstly, given the glut of money in state coffers in the past few years and the lack of any successful infrastructural development (for instance in power and transport), there is little guarantee that the SURE program would be implemented or successful, rather than go the way of all initiatives in the past. The government of Nigeria has not been able to significantly raise the amount of power generated, nor has it been able to achieve the low-tech objective of revamping the dilapidated railway network, still less has it been able to improve standards in public education and healthcare. What then would be different about the SURE program?
Secondly, while most Nigerians are probably not ideologically opposed to subsidy removal (and targeting the corrupt "cabal" of fuel importers who benefit from the subsidy), they are utterly opposed to the timing, given the insecurity in the land raised by Islamic militancy in the North and the potential for renewed militancy in response in the Niger Delta. A phased subsidy withdrawal, as has happened elsewhere, would have been much more preferable approach.
Thirdly, the idea that removing the subsidy equates to "deregulation" and the equivalent private sector boom as witnessed in the past decade in the telecoms sector is highly suspect to most. For the downstream oil sector to be deregulated, there has to be new legislation in place. The Petroleum Industry Bill, which separates the functions of a national oil company, regulation and policy-making, would need to become law. We have been waiting since the previous minister of petroleum for the PIB to be passed. At present, the NNPC is the epicentre of corruption in the oil sector in Nigeria, and has to broken up into its constituent parts for the private sector to be given space to grow its role. In addition, Nigerians would want to see a much higher percentage of crude oil refined locally, rather than the current reliance on imported fuel, to ensure a favorable local pricing policy that does not depend on state subsidy. Without any of these key deregulatory building blocks in place, removal of the "subsidy" now is simply terrible timing and does not inspire confidence among a people who long ago lost their faith in government.
Finally, if savings are urgently required from the annual government budget, most Nigerians would argue that the first place to cut costs is that of the price of running government itself. As the Governor of the Central Bank pointed out last year, the National Assembly consumes 25 percent of the Federal overheads budget; the cost of running the president’s office has been widely publicized in recent weeks (including a billion naira food bill). It is rare to see a member of the executive - down to director-generals of government agencies most Nigerians have never heard of - travelling without a sizeable convoy of expensive cars. Nigerian government delegations to international conferences and gatherings are often by far the largest, with a supersized retinue of special advisors, assistants and staff for the first-wife in attendance, there to collect their allowance and have access to shopping opportunities overseas.
As it is, most Nigerians are poor, and will simply not be able to survive with any comfort on $2 a day and a doubling of living costs. That the government of Nigeria didn’t foresee the massive level of resistance happening today is quite bewildering. It shows a complete disconnect and disregard for Nigerians. However, where there is greatest danger, there is greatest hope. Nigerians have never been so united in years – in the newly unofficially renamed Liberation Square, Christians guarded the space as their Muslim co-protestors prayed. In return, last Sunday, Muslims guarded churches as others prayed inside. What we are witnessing with Occupy Nigeria is a generational shift, as young, social-media enabled activists gradually take over the baton from unionist stalwarts.
In the short term, following on from the next few days of protest and shut-down, it’s hard to imagine anything other than a policy reversal, and a planned withdrawal being announced, in step with a clear program of projects that must be delivered before any further withdrawal of subsidy is implemented (citizens monitoring a re-drafted SURE programme for instance). Underlying this is a deeper shift: a new generation of Nigerians demanding that the terms of the social contract are re-written, in favor of increased accountability of political leadership.
-Jeremy Weate blogs at Naijablog
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Bungee jumper Erin Langworthy speaks during an interview in Johannesburg January 7, in this still image taken from video. Australian tourist Langworthy, 22, survived a bungee jump gone wrong at Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe on December 31, 2011 after her rope snapped, sending her plunging into the Zambezi River. She was evacuated to South Africa, where she spent a week recovering in the hospital. (Nine Network/Reuters)
Oh snap! Bungee jumper plunges into Zambezi River at Victoria Falls
Jumping from a bridge down toward a river filled with crocodiles – what could possibly go wrong?
A lot, apparently.
On Dec. 31, Australian tourist Erin Langworthy became one of thousands of people to try bungee-jumping off the bridge that connects Zimbabwe and Zambia, within sight of the tourist mecca Victoria Falls. It’s 364 meters of sheer gravitational pleasure, followed by a gut-wrenching jerk just feet above the rapids below. The only problem, for Ms. Langworthy, is that her bungee cord broke and she fell into the Zambezi, which, in its quieter areas, is infested with crocodiles.
“I think it is definitely a miracle that I survived,” Langworthy, an Australian student, told Australia’s Channel Nine in an interview. She says that she lost consciousness on impact, and “I felt like I’d been slapped all over,” but as she went deeper into the river, the cold water snapped her back into consciousness.
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It’s easy to criticize tourists for jumping off bridges. There is, as Disney says, a circle of life.
Bungee-jumping – a New Zealand innovation in the area of extreme sports – has been available at this particular spot for more than a decade, and has drawn more than 50,000 tourists each year, providing needed revenue to both the Zimbabwean and Zambian economies. Perhaps fearing that some bad publicity could end the good times, Zambia’s tourism minister, Given Lubinda, assured prospective tourists that the bungee-jumping is, generally speaking, perfectly safe.
“It [the bungee jump] has been in operation for 10 years,” he told the Lusaka Times. “This is the first time I am hearing of an incident. The probability of an incident is one in 500,000 jumps.”
There is some mathematical truth to this, of course. But as someone who has taken a number of tours in Africa, I would add just a few qualifications.
One: Tourists who come from litigious societies such as the United States may have an assumption that an activity is safe, because it is allowed to exist. Such an attitude may be reasonable in the US or Australia, but it doesn’t necessarily work in a country such as Zambia, where civil court cases can take decades to resolve.
Two: Africans of all races and nationalities revel in the credo, “Africa is not for sissies.” A tough environment engenders a corresponding toughness of character. A hike up Cape Town’s Table Mountain starts out gently, but rapidly can become death-defying, with nary a handrail in sight.
Three: Maintenance of facilities – such as roads, factories, power plants, and yes, bungee cords – tends to be on an ex-post-facto basis.
Langworthy’s plunge reminded me of the anecdote of a friend in Johannesburg, who took his clients on a year-end corporate junket to Victoria Falls. The last event was to be a bungee jump off the Victoria Falls bridge. All but one of the clients took the plunge. The one who didn’t jump had asked the bungee operator what would happen if the bungee cord breaks. The tour operator grinned: “We’ll replace it.”
Risk, of course, is part of the draw of African tourism. Tourists in Cape Town pay decent money to jump out of a perfectly good boat and into the Atlantic to be bumped around inside a cage by a great white shark. Animal lovers can take a walking tour through Kruger National Park, accompanied by armed game wardens, to see lions, leopards, elephants, rhinos, and buffalos up close.
It’s what you do.
Many tours, of course, are perfectly safe. My wife and I took a safari vacation at a posh resort in South Africa, located within a national game park. There was no fence to keep animals out of the lodge area, which was part of the lodge's appeal, and my wife and I signed forms promising not to sue the lodge owners if something happened to us during our stay.
What could have happened, we asked – too late. In a ranger report entitled “No Game Drive Needed,” the lodge reported that a young male lion ran through the camp, along the guest pathway, during breakfast, pursued by an older male who presumably didn’t want any competition. Running past the main lodge, and three chalets, the male caught up with his younger rival, pinned him down and was “going for the throat.” Fortunately, the younger male broke away and disappeared.
The guests presumably finished their tea without further incident.
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Supporters of opposition UDPS leader Etienne Tshisekedi gather in Democratic Republic of Congo's capital Kinshasa
Democratic Republic of Congo: Another atrocity in the making?
During her 2009 visit to Goma in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called for the arrest and punishment of militiamen responsible for the widespread sexual violence and broader human rights violations that have devastated the eastern Congo for more than a decade. She described the situation as “one of mankind’s greatest atrocities.” But since flawed November 2011 elections led to renewed violence in other parts of the country, she has failed to defend human rights—and political rights—in the DRC with the same conviction.
Incumbent president Joseph Kabila and his main challenger, Etienne Tshisekedi, are now embroiled in a protracted dispute over the election results. At stake is control over the DRC’s vast natural resources and rapidly growing population, and both men appear willing to unravel the country’s modest democratic advancements, achieved through partly free elections in 2006, and to transform the most recent elections from a somewhat democratic process to a simple power grab.
President Kabila has an undeniable advantage in this pursuit, ironically as a result of his gravely disappointing governance record and autocratic tendencies. He used his firm control over the country’s security forces, state apparatus, and state media to undermine the electoral process. He consistently delayed electoral reforms, repressed political opponents, hijacked the country’s electoral commission, manipulated the voter rolls, rewrote the constitution, and ensured overwhelming media coverage of his campaign.
Despite these efforts, it was Tshisekedi who actually stole the limelight in the run-up to election day. A politically schizophrenic veteran who alternately served and opposed the dictatorial regime of Mobutu Sese Seko (1965–97), he emerged as an unlikely frontrunner for the presidency. He had a proven track record of sabotaging democratic processes, from his role in the 1960 coup and complicity in the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, the DRC’s first independence leader, to his boycott of the 2006 elections. In a moment of preconceived epiphany, Tshisekedi declared at the outset of his presidential campaign in early November that the Congolese people “proclaimed me president a long time ago,” thereby igniting the political powder keg that has ravaged the country for the past month.
In this vast and nearly impossible-to-govern country, where regional and ethnic divisions are still pronounced and where taking up arms comes more naturally than casting ballots, the irresponsible actions of both Kabila and Tshisekedi portend nothing but more conflict and carnage.
In the post-election crisis, Tshisekedi has proven to be a callous provocateur, loudly reaffirming his belief that he is the rightly elected president while deploying his supporters in the capital, Kinshasa, both as cannon fodder and to keep the Kabila camp constantly under siege. In turn, Kabila has responded with guns blazing, both literally and figuratively, in an attempt to maintain his grip on power. Having manipulated the electoral process, he secured a Supreme Court ruling that declared him the winner and sent security forces into the streets to suppress dissent. Both leaders in this dispute, acting like political hooligans, risk provoking a civil war. While the conflict remains restricted to a few regions to date, with relatively few casualties reported, a broader conflict remains a possibility and the political outcome is already clear: the country’s nascent democratic institutions have been wrecked.
The muted response of the international community to this unfolding calamity has been shocking and reprehensible. Opportunities for more corrective pressure before the election were neglected, and it took nearly a month after the vote for anyone of notable international stature to address the situation. Secretary Clinton eventually expressed her disappointment with the Supreme Court’s decision to swiftly confirm Kabila as the victor, but she never mentioned Kabila or Tshisekedi by name. There was no public condemnation of their actions or the crimes that have taken place surrounding the vote, nor any call for accountability.
The international community has largely stood aside as the fragile democratic process fell to pieces in the Congo, and the country faces a growing risk that “one of mankind's greatest atrocities” may reemerge.
-Vukasin Petrovic is the Director for Africa Programs at Freedom House.
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Ethiopia enters Somalia, but avoids African Union joint operation
After weeks of denials, the Ethiopian government has used the advent of the new year to officially acknowledge it had rejoined the battle against militants in neighboring Somalia.
"Together with Transitional Federal Government forces the town of Beledwyne has been liberated from al-Shabaab," Communications Minister Bereket Simon said on Jan. 3.
The arrival of Ethiopian troops from the west – who officially left in 2009 after deposing the Islamic Courts in a 2.5 year campaign – buttresses the efforts of Ugandan, Burundian, Djiboutian and Kenyan forces, all now fighting under the banner of the African Union.
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Unlike the Kenyans, who initially independently entered southern Somalia in October, Bereket says Ethiopia has no intention of becoming part of the African Union operation – and so receiving funds for their efforts from the European Union and others. This self-reliant stance backs up official statements it has no intention of staying for long.
Ethiopian troops first crossed the border again in the middle of November, according to The New York Times. As the government denied the claims of multiple eye-witnesses, the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development – a group of seven East African nations chaired currently by Ethiopia's leader Meles Zenawi – requested support from Ethiopian forces at a meeting a few days later.
The subsequent coyness about the operation is due to not wanting to hand Islamist extremists Al Shabab a propaganda coup about an invading Christian army, sources close to the Ethiopian government say. Although the diverse country of 82.9 million contains 25 million Muslims, Ethiopia has a long-standing connection to Orthodox Christianity and Christians comprise 62 percent of the population, according to a 2008 census.
While ethnic Somali rebels sporadically attack in Ethiopia's Ogaden region, which Somalia attempted to annex in an unsuccessful 1977 invasion, it does not fear a resurgent neighbour. "Ethiopia is not worried about a strong Somalia for many years," says an adviser to the Ethiopian government, privately.
Instead, the incursion – which is described as closer to a continuation of cross-border raiding than a repeat of 2006 – is a result of Ethiopia's desire to fulfil its role as regional powerhouse and exploit a unique opportunity to dispose of Al Shabab.
Even if the Al Qaeda-linked rebels are diffused, cutting off funds by controlling the likes of Kismayo port while attacking on multiple fronts could lead to demoralization, defections, and moves toward negotiations by moderate factions, it is believed.
As with the June deployment of Ethiopian peacekeepers in the flashpoint Sudanese region of Abyei, such action helps Ethiopia maintain its tight relations with influential Western allies.
Although there is little reason for optimism, the eventual onset of peace in Somalia would give land-locked Ethiopia the stable neighbour it desires, and access to its ports.
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Ivory Coast's former president Laurent Gbagbo talks to a security guard during his initial court appearance at the International Criminal Court in The Hague
2011 a banner year for the International Criminal Court
This post was originally published on January 4, 2012.
Now four days into the New Year, the 2011 reflections are tapering off, giving way to predictions about what may be in store in 2012. But permit us one more: 2011 was a momentous year for the International Criminal Court as the institution played a role in some of the year’s most defining moments, further establishing itself as an avenue for pursuing justice for victims of even the seemingly most invincible leaders and war criminals.
The U.N. Security Council’s decision in February to refer Libya to the ICC was part of a swift and robust effort aimed at deterring further attacks by Qaddafi’s forces on protesters. By the time the vote came, the U.N. estimated at least 1,000 people had been killed in the first 10 days of the uprising. It was only the second time the Security Council had referred a case to the International Criminal Court and the first time it did so unanimously. (The first was Sudan in 2005, and four countries, including the United States, abstained.)
In the case of Qaddafi the move obviously failed to have the desired effect of deterring further actions against Libyan citizens, though it may have influenced those around him. Observing the Brother Leader’s ruthless actions and irrational claims to power in those final months, it seems unlikely that he would have acted any differently with or without the possibility of an ICC trial ahead of him.
The United States came out strongly in favor of the Security Council’s unified decision on Libya. Notable considering Washington’s non-party status, U.S. ambassador Susan Rice said, “The specter of ICC prosecution is serious and imminent and should again warn those around Qadhafi about the perils of continuing to tie their fate to his.”
The ICC issued arrest warrants for Qaddafi, his son Saif, and the head of Libyan intelligence, Abdullah al-Senussi, in late June. The case against Qaddafi was terminated following his death, and the country’s National Transitional Council said it would try Saif al-Islam Qaddafi and al-Senussi in Libya, a decision welcomed by the ICC prosecutor.
As 2010 post-election violence in Cote d’Ivoire spilled over into 2011, calls mounted for investigations into alleged crimes against humanity committed by forces loyal to both sides in the disputed polls. In the absence of U.N. Security Council action referring the crimes to the ICC, newly elected President Alassane Ouattara sent a letter to The Hague in May asking the court to launch an investigation. In October, the court obliged, issuing to an arrest warrant a month later for former president Laurent Gbagbo.
On November 30, the arrest warrant was unsealed—having been granted in secret to facilitate Gbagbo’s apprehension—and the former president was transferred to The Hague. On December 5 the ICC held the first-ever hearing for a former head of state, confirming four crimes against humanity charges against Gbagbo and setting a court date for June 2012.
Apart from these international headline-making cases, the court continued to build its credibility through several other important proceedings:
The so-called “Ocampo Six”—five politicians and a radio broadcaster accused of instigating post-election violence in Kenya—appeared before judges in The Hague in April. All six are charged with crimes against humanity in connection with violence that pitted ethnic groups against each other in 2007-2008 and left 1,200 dead and more than 500,000 displaced. The case is seen as a crucial step towards holding Kenyan leaders accountable ahead of polls later this year that many fear could turn bloody if a meaningful judicial process doesn’t create a deterrent.
In August judges heard closing statements in the court’s first-ever trial. Thomas Lubanga, who is accused of committing war crimes as the leader of a rebel group in eastern Congo, has been on trial since January 2009.
The trials for Jean-Pierre Bemba, a former vice president of the Democratic Republic of Congo charged with crimes against humanity, and co-defendants Germain Katanga and Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui, wanted for war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Ituri region of eastern Congo, continued throughout the year. The trials presented challenges that the ICC will no doubt have to confront regularly in its work prosecuting some of the world’s most heinous crimes. The Open Society Justice Initiative blog chronicling Bemba’s trial pointed out some of these teaching moments in a year-in-review post this week, including protecting the safety of witnesses and facilitating the participation of, in this case, thousands of victims.
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What’s in store for 2012? A judgment in the Lubanga case is expected any day, and judges will hear closing arguments from the prosecution for the Bemba team in February. In the case of Katanga and Ngudjolo, judges will decide whether to hand down a ruling or travel to the region where alleged crimes took place to gather more information.
A decision by the U.N. Security Council to refer the situation in Syria to the ICC would be a significant development in a conflict that has so far escaped the ire of the council. Pressure is mounting for the Security Council to take action, with the U.N. human rights chief Navi Pillay specifically calling for an ICC referral in the wake of an estimated 5,000 civilian deaths. It would also be the first case opened in a non-African country.
2012 will see a significant transition when Luis Moreno-Ocampo steps down as the ICC’s first chief prosecutor in the summer and Fatou Bensouda takes up the post. Bensouda, a prosecutor from the Gambia, has served as the ICC’s deputy prosecutor since 2004. Her tenure is expected to foster a shift in the ICC’s rapport with the African Union, which has been openly hostile to Ocampo, who the A.U. accuses of focusing disproportionately on the continent.
Ocampo has indeed been a divisive personality, with critics saying he has skirted legal processes to break news and make headlines. But there’s no denying that Ocampo’s outspoken approach has garnered attention to the court—some of it good, some of it bad.
“Moreno-Ocampo’s time has been replete with controversy. But he also put the court on the map and spotlight of international politics, in the face of nay-sayers, critics, and a plethora of hostile forces," wrote blogger Mark Kersten on Justice in Conflict. Whether or not one agrees with his tactics, Ocampo is "a man who, arguably more than anyone else, has shaped the politics and pursuit of international criminal justice," Kersten wrote.
Global affairs this past year seemed marked by more watershed moments than most, and the ICC kept pace. 2011 paved the way for the court to spend this new year closing its first cases—which it has been urged to do now 10 years into existence—opening its first trial against a former head of state, and undoubtedly, taking up responsibility for the prosecution of yet another high-profile war criminal who failed to see the tide of impunity shifting out of his favor.
Enough interviewed Bensouda in New York in 2009, and the video is here.
– Laura Heaton blogs for the Enough Project at Enough Said.
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Singer Youssou N'Dour performs at a concert called 'Africa Celebrates Democracy' that pays tribute to Tunisian youth and the revolution that inspired the Arab Spring, in Tunis, Tunisia on Nov. 11, 2011. (Anis Mili/Reuters/File)
Youssou N'Dour - the singer - takes on Senegal's long-serving president
Senegal's President Abdoulaye Wade has repeatedly boasted that there is no politician who could possibly unseat him in February's election.
With a fractured and crowded opposition field, that may be true. But what about a musician?
Youssou N'Dour is easily Senegal's most popular recording artist (to international audiences, he is Senegal's only recording artist). And if Monday night's announcement that he plans to enter the race is any indication, it appears he hopes that he can add "president" to his resumé.
The announcement followed one he made in late November, in which he said he would retire from music to dedicate his time to politics ahead of the controversial election. That announcement caused much speculation that would prove accurate.
The central issue in the election is a perceived constitutional assault. President Wade enacted a two term limit after his first election in 2001, and said that he would respect it after his re-election in 2007. Now the octogenarian president says that the law does not apply to him retroactively and that he is free to seek another term – a second by his count.
Wade faces massive popular opposition, but no clear political rival to challenge his hold on power – until now?
Time will tell. N'Dour may have no real political experience, but he has many things most Senegalese politicians don't: 30 years of virtually-unblemished popularity, extensive international (touring) experience, a Grammy. He even has his own television station in Senegal, on which he made his announcement.
"I am a candidate," he said on Television Futurs Media. "It is true that I do not have a university education, but the presidency is not something you go to school for."
N'Dour is now another in a baker's dozen of opposition candidates that will present themselves to voters in the first round – a fact that works heavily in the favor of Wade and his well-financed Parti Démocratique Sénégalaise.
Although Wade's June 23 attempt to reduce the number of votes needed to win outright from 50 percent to 25 percent ended in riots throughout the capital of Dakar and the removal of the referendum, the president still enjoys popularity among Senegal's rural majority.
Increasingly, however, the demographics that are shaping the election are the youth and music lovers.
An opposition movement led by popular rappers called Y'en A Marre, French for “enough is enough,” have been at work for months espousing political awareness in their songs and encouraging young voters throughout the country to register. The group was instrumental in the June 23 protests and just released an overtly anti-Wade single called “Faux Pas Forcer” or “Do Not Force,” but they have repeatedly refused to endorse any opposition politician – “politician” being the operative word.
Maybe they'll endorse a musician...
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