The
2020 Senegalian Election did not treat the
Zografos Government well.
Rhys Zografos, the country's first biracial (and ergo the first Greek and Orthodox Christian) Prime Minister started the campaign season well, having pushed through the tax cuts central to his 2016 election campaign, begun the construction of the Union's first modern aircraft carrier, overseen the legalization and introduction of same sex marriage (primarily at the behest of his Coalition partners, the
New Liberals), and fortified the crown's popularity against the nascent
National Republican League (NRL) (particularly with the 2018-2019 residency of
Crown Prince Edward).
Labour did not seem especially threatening, pundits noting that preference voting between Labour and the
Coalition of African Nations (CAN) (large portions of whom's voter bases were considered mutually exclusive; Wolof voting Labour and Serer voting CAN) could see the Liberals and more libertarian members of the
Conservative Democratic Party (CDP) pick up seats across sunny
Saint-Louis and
Nawaskott.
However an unexpected spill in the Labour Party in early March saw the deposition of perennial leader
Osmane Barro and his replacement with the Shadow Treasurer,
Duwa N'Dore. It was particularly surprising to the media as though N'Dore was more ideologically polarized than Barro (who was considered a moderate) they were close allies and as such the removal of Barro was considered quite Machiavellian in nature. N'Dore and Labour in general were relentlessly lampooned in the House, with the Labour leader labelled Ñaaxa-N'Dore (Senseless N'Dore) by the -rather eccentric- Attorney General,
Jaasi 'Jazzy' Manga. Senseless didn't seem an inappropriate appraisal either, as Labour's polling dropped two points immediately after the challenge.
However, N'Dore released the party's revised manifesto. It was a striking piece of literature, radical for the habitually abstemious Senegal. It included such pledges as an 100% increase in public housing, a reestablishment of the long defunct
Trade Unions Advisory Council and the reestablishment of the
Ministry for Religious Affairs both of which were abolished by the last Liberal majority government in the 1990s, an extensive expansion of
Medimbal (the Senegalian national health service) including the publicly funded renovation of
Saint-Louis General Hospital (which the Zografos Government had been attempting to contract out for some time), a detente with Tuareg separatists, and an expansion of
Yoonaid (legal aid) into civil disputations. The manifesto was panned by the Government and a great deal of the media, with even the famously centrist
Argin Gazelle describing it as 'an apparatchik's resume in 1930s France'.
However, while Labour's radical manifesto was considered extreme the Government's would prove positively uninspired. Even delivered by the characteristically jocose NLP leader
Muhammad Ibn Idrissa al-Khoma, the manifesto was considered dull and the pledges were largely a continuation of extant policies and didn't address such issues as the housing shortage or the waning reforestation threatening
Tankerville-Tidjikja's water security. However their polling was barely affected, losing but a single point of popularity and projected to win a steady majority.
Meanwhile, CAN leader
Lingaire Mbasor released her own manifesto, outlining typical (for CAN) pledges as the establishment of an anti-corruption body, socialized dental care (one of the few areas not covered by Medimbal), the formal recognition of
Serer matriclans, increased taxation on the wealthiest 10% of society, a public plebiscite on same sex marriage, a formal investigation into restitution for African natives, and a ban on the logging of reforested trees between
Kiffa and
Nemes. But it also included more radical proposals, such as a stalling of immigration from the rest of (overwhelmingly white)
Imperial British Federation, and the invitation of Tuareg separatists to government. Although an exciting manifesto for African-dominated
Tambaconde, the black neighbourhoods of the capital of
Arcadia and the social left based primarily in
Saint-Louis, it did not gain much traction beyond it.
Finally, the NRL's controversial leader,
Abderrahmane Tidjiani, reaffirmed their commitment to a referendum on exiting the IBF. This was considered a tragic miscalculation and the collapse of the NRL was one of the few predictions that was reasonably accurate prior to November 10th, the date of the election.
Parliament was officially adjourned on the 9th of May, allowing 183 campaign days, or a little over six months. The
National Senegalian Broadcasting Network (NSBN) established 12 bimonthly, variably hour to hour and a half long debates across the country, focusing on a different subject with each debate. They were in order; Social Justice and Culture (Saint-Louis), Environmental Concerns (Tankerville-Tidjikja), Land Reform and Indigenous Issues (Tambaconde), Crime and Justice (
Jubel), Education and Natalism (Kiffa), Employment and Wealth Distribution (
Wellington), the Tuareg Troubles (
Timbuktu), Imperial, African and Foreign Affairs (
Tindoff), Budget and Military Affairs (Dakar), Youth, Religion and Liberation (
Argin), Provincial Government (
St. Albans), and Closing Manifestos (Arcadia). Each debate was to be arbitrated by the aging but respected
Richard Morley, the longstanding political editor for NSBN.
The first debate, Social Justice and Culture, placed Zografos, N'Dore, Mbasor, al-Khomar and Tidjiani at variable loggerheads immediately. Zografos and al-Khomar were clearly comfortable, having presided over the introduction of same sex marriage and considerable liberalization of abortion laws, among other issues. This contrasted sharply with Mbasor and Tidjiani, who were both fairly conservative and did not mesh well with the liberal Saint-Louisian audience. Zografos promised that they would balance social progress with tradition, with al-Khomar agreeing that change needed to be careful but emphasizing that change was the most important feature. What surprised was N'Dore's careful assault on Zografos' record, accusing him of ignoring illiberal adoption laws that gave orphanages the right to refuse homosexual couples in a shallow attempt to win back the conservative vote, and of ignoring the racism directed towards Senegal's small Asian community, who numbered just 240,000. Zografos rebuked these accusations, noting that N'Dore himself had stated that Labour would shoot down any further reform of adoption law, and downplaying the hate crimes against the Asian community as hyperbole. But N'Dore rejoined, clarifying that Labour's opposition was due to the abysmal state of adoption law overall and the privatizing proposals Zografos had wrapped the liberalization in, and in the process stated a line that would be recalled throughout the following debates: "Labour, unlike the Coalition, doesn't believe that anyone, gay or otherwise, should have to procure the right to give a child a home by bending over backwards for corporations." Morley then brought the debate back into line, but this was considered the highlight.
The second debate, taking place in Tankerville-Tidjikja, proved more diverse. All parties agreed that something had to be done about the degradation of reforestation programs and the creeping desertification that was threatening the city they were in. al-Khomar and Zografos were sheepish throughout, with N’Dore initially blaming them for the water crises that had plagued the region as far south as Kiffa. But N’Dore was suddenly on the defensive when Mbasor reminded the audience that the logging programs that had played a key role in the deforestation around
Tanker-Tid were approved by the
Barro Government of 2008. This would prove Mbasor’s best performance in the debates, dominating discussion and showcasing why the CANs policies would fix the environmental problems that plagued the nation. It was very telling that at the end of the debate the studio audience elected her the winner by a margin of 68%, particularly in a region full of Arabs, Whites and Tuaregs.
The third debate was widely considered a tossup. While Mbasor possessed the initiative much of her views were challenged by the panel at large with N’Dore accusing her of ignoring Wolof, Fula, Jola and Tukulor groups in favour of Serer and Manday, while Zografos -who had been uncharacteristically dry in prior media for a man many pundits considered a genius- comprehensively outlined why the CANs proposals were nonsensical. This was not well received by the Tambacondian audience largely composed of Serer and Manday, who booed both N’Dore and Zografos especially after the latter implied that Mbasor was Europhobic. Morley was able to moderate the audience and noted in his famously blunt fashion that “the debate was not supposed to be an hour and a half of denigrating the only woman on stage”. He then turned the floor over to Tidjiani, who took the opportunity to flaunt the independence referendum as ‘true land reform’, as they would be extraditing the Imperial presence from the country altogether. This made al-Khomar audibly laugh, interjecting that leaving the IBF would likely mean the financial alienation of land and thus a net loss; to this retort Tidjiani called al-Khomar an
Alnakas, a slur for Arabs meaning slaver, to which al-Khomar visibly recoiled, the rest of panel quick to condemn the language, particularly Zografos who was a personal friend of al-Khomar. This slur would undermine the rest of the evening, with no clear winner but a great deal of disapproval about Tidjiani’s divisive language.
Despite the charged third debate, the fourth debate held in Jubel was decidedly underwhelming and had the lowest viewership of all at a mere three and a half million live views, compared to the previous debate’s nine and a half million. There were several reasons for this; an
Industrialist attack in
Portugal the previous week had left over 300 dead and so media attention was transfixed on
Lisbon, an important member of the IBF, lowering the exposure of the Crime and Justice debate. It didn’t help that the night of the debate was concurrent with the season finale for
Weurt Flats, with Senegalian viewership particularly high as the nation awaited to see if the popular character
Jacob Fofana would be convicted for the murder of the town’s mayor or not. This included the absent Tidjiani, an avid follower of the show, although some of the panel absently wondered if he was hiding from the flak he received for his previous slur. This was not good for Zografos, who spruiked his admittedly impressive record of justice reform and concurrent crackdown on organized crime. Zografos was widely considered to have won the debate, but the Coalition actually lost a point per average polling in the succeeding week, demonstrating how futile the debate had been. N’Dore was also quite active in this debate, arguing at length with the former commercial lawyer Zografos and al-Khomar about whether Yoonaid could be effectively extended into civil affairs, but was considered to have been quashed by Zografos for it.
The fifth debate on Natalism and Education was outright cancelled as when Morley was testing his desk, meant to emerge from the ground by way of pistons, he noted to the chief stage engineer that the front left piston seemed to be under a bizarre amount of strain. A bomb had been strapped to the piston. The venue at the
University of Kiffa was evacuated along with the wider university, with the
2nd Ordnance Disposal Regiment disarming the bomb and inspecting the entire university before allowing anyone to return. The
Tuareg Liberation Front (TLF/AJA) claimed responsibility, with their famous masked spokesperson ‘
John the Macedonian’ decrying that they could not ‘dispose of the profane subversive’, presumably referring to Morley. Morley himself had remained remarkably nonchalant about the whole thing, having continued to smoke his cigarette while the crew discussed what to do about the bomb. He would remark in the next debate, based in Wellington, that he would’ve liked for the bomb to explode if it meant he didn’t have to go home and hear his wife rattle on about Fofana’s unjust imprisonment.
The sixth debate in Wellington returned the election to the forefront of public consciousness, as much for the protests and swollen police presence that surrounded the
Saint Moses the Black Convention Centre as the debate within. Wellington, a centre of copper and gold mining, was suffering from the
First Bank of Senegal increasing interest rates and the subsequent downturn in exports. Zografos largely deferred to al-Khomar on this matter, who insisted that the recession was V-shaped and would likely return to steady growth within a year. This was rebuffed by N’Dore, who accused the Coalition of not caring for the concerns of the working class; analysts would later note the populist appeal of this otherwise meaningless rebuttal. Mbasor proposed that the government should be investing in Wellington’s infrastructure and alternative industries, as the city and region was far too dependent on global trade winds and supported this claim by pointing to the radical changes in the region’s
NDimbalaid (Senegal’s primary welfare provider) recipients. N’Dore proceeded to mock this, noting that miners couldn’t simply become accountants.
The debate was divisive, but it is at this point that polls began trending away from the government. This did not go unnoticed by Zografos, albeit perhaps unheeded, as the following week while canvassing in
El-Layon and questioned on exactly that subject by reporters he replied in a decidedly lackadaisical way: “The government doesn’t follow polls, the polls follow government.” By the end of the election this would be relentlessly mocked.
The next debate was heavily regulated and policed, as Timbuktu possessed the largest urban minority of Tuaregs in the country, and protests were strictly disallowed. This would mar the event as Tuaregs -joined in a few instances by young anarchists and industrialists- trashed stores further away from where the debate was being held in
Al-Izîl Mosque. Zografos was on the offensive, spruiking his rehabilitation and deradicalization programs combined with the strengthening of the
Trans-Saharan Task Force. This was met with scepticism from Tidjiani, who pointed to the bomb in Kiffa a month prior. A departure from his previous bombastic statements, Tidjiani noted that the Tuaregs would be better cajoled if the government weren’t party to the IBF’s
Strong Borders Agreement, the agreement that prevented Tuaregs from moving in and out of neighbouring nations with ease, instead requiring them to travel through inconvenient checkpoints. He proceeded to challenge Zografos as to whether he cared more about imperial policy than his own Tuareg citizens, which Zografos fumbled. This would mark Tidjiani’s greatest performance in the debates, however he was undercut by Mbasor who built upon Tidjiani’s observations as to why they should invite the Tuaregs to government, although this was better handled and refuted by Zografos. When Morley turned the floor to N’Dore, he was clearly reluctant to back Mbasor and Tidjianis policies and made vague promises of bringing peace to the region and working with Tuareg leaders to address their concerns.
The Imperial, African and Foreign Affairs debate, held in Tindoff near the Senegalian-Moroccan border, proved a change in tone and was decidedly optimistic. Zografos noted the increased ties his government had brought with periphery IBF nations such as Portugal,
New Holland and the
Kingdom of Angola, while al-Khomar waxed at length about increased trade with
Turkey-Greece, the
Hyderabadi Union and others. However, Mbasor was sceptical, noting that they had immediate neighbours in
Guinea,
Songhay and
Lobi that were chronically ignored by both the government and private sector, particularly the latter who was infamous for possessing a trade surplus with Senegal despite having an eighth of the population. This was however fiercely disputed, with al-Khomar noting that they would of course preference members of the IBF over neighbouring countries, only for Mbasor to wonder aloud as to why Songhay still received half as much investment as
Industrialist Spain. N’Dore was rather moderate: although advocating stronger ties with neighbours as
Morocco and Songhay, he noted the importance of trans-Imperial ties to employment and opportunity within the country, which pundits would consider a milquetoast response, particularly with his poor performance in the preceding debate.
The NSBN would be particularly proud of its venue in Dakar, the
largest city in the country. Held in the
Trakas Tower overlooking the
Royal Port of Dakar, the then-unnamed aircraft carrier under construction sat in the background between the debaters, as a symbol of that debate’s subject matter. For much of the debate it was merely a rehash of each party’s manifesto, explaining where money was being spent, with Morley contesting or other debaters arguing about specifics; N’Dore questioned why the government had money for an aircraft carrier but not for an increase in the pension; al-Khomar hazed N’Dore’s entire manifesto, famously calling it “a concerted effort to put Senegal into debt for the rest of time”. This however gave Mbasor an opening to spruik her budget; in the week leading up to the debate the well regarded
Jatafar Institute had named her budget as the most financially sensible and giving Mbasor a much-needed boost in polling. This was disputed by al-Khomar, who expounded at length as to his achievements as
Treasurer. However N’Dore, himself a former Treasurer under Barro, tore into al-Khomar and his record in the greatest show of emotion for a man known for his solemnity: he brought up the increase in homelessness including the recent death of former TV actress
Sydney Xiin after her house was repossessed and she was forced to sleep on the street, the decrease in liveability of Dakar particularly in relation to other African cities, the fact that many of the economic woes that pushed the Tuaregs to rebellion were a direct result of al-Khomar’s policies, the increasing strain on the Middle Class after tax cuts that overwhelmingly benefited the poor and rich at their expense, and the myriad white elephants the Coalition had spent their money on from the aircraft carrier to Saint-Louis General Hospital’s renovations to the fourth runway at
Arcadia International Airport. This saw Labour still two points each from the CDP and NLP, with the CAN taking another from the NLP. It was at this point that the Coalition recognized that they were in actual dire straits rather than just competitive.
The Youth, Religion and Liberation debate was an odd one. Held outdoors on the manor grounds of one of Senegal’s few Dukes on the outskirts of Argin, the
Duke of Helensvale, the eccentric Duke himself -Anders Gorges- insisted on being a part of proceedings and sat astride Morley throughout. Tidjiani made no secret of his dislike for the Duke and royal titles in general, speaking at length about republicanism and attempting to express this through the lens of Liberation. Morley seemed sceptical and turned over to N’Dore for his views. N’Dore positioned himself as fighting for the future of Senegal’s youth, noting that Labour had a larger youth wing than any other party, before elaborating on his own Islamic faith. This debate was noted for being among the most agreeable, perhaps due to its unfocused nature, but nevertheless Zografos questioned N’Dore’s authority on liberation specifically due to the unusually high domestic abuse rates among Wolof households. This was a rather large faux pas, earning boos from a swath of the audience and seeing polling for the Coalition drop a half-point thereafter.
St. Albans debate on Provincial Government would prove the death knell for the Coalition’s majority, as the
Premiers of the six provinces and the
Chairperson of the Arcadia Capital Territory were each invited to give a five minute speech as to their feelings and thoughts on the election thus far. This in and of itself wouldn’t prove fatal, as the speeches of the Premiers of the provinces of
Mali (CAN),
Gambia (Labour),
Senegal (Labour) and
El Dijof (Labour) were as one might expect, critical of the government and towing their respective party lines. Unfortunately for Zografos, it was the CPD Premier of the
Copper Coast,
Bilal Hajji, well regarded within his party, who nailed their coffin. He expressed deep scepticism about the government’s ability to listen to normal people and their overreach into legislative areas usually reserved for the provinces, such as the syndication of provincial police forces under the newly formed Federal Police Bureau. The most striking line to arise was with regards to taxation: “my constituents in Argin -fishermen and businessowners, the sorts that don’t struggle-, they’re worried for the first time in thirty years because of the unfortunate actions undertaken by this government. I do hope they reconsider their policy to that effect.” The CPD Premier of
Mauritania,
Ali Ali and the last to speak only seemed to double down on this rhetoric, bluntly stating: “In a bid a to combat Tuaregs Mauritanians have found themselves in the firing line, taxation wise.” These assessments may seem out of line until one recalls that the provincial parties are autonomous from their national equivalents and there had existed a well-known rift between Hajji and Ali and Zografos (the latter who was much closer to the centre than the two Premiers). Much of the resulting debate was spent piling onto the Coalition, with N’Dore, Tidjiani and Mbasor extrapolating -perhaps farcically at some points- broadly against Zografos and al-Khomar. Though al-Khomar defended the NLP rather well Zografos seemed uncharacteristically terse and lax, barely refuting the criticism levelled at his party.
The final debate, the day before voting, was more or less a formalized repeat of the announced manifestos from each party. Unlike years past there were no new pledges atop their initial promises, no attempt to snipe voters from the other parties, before Morley wrapped up the whole affair. It would be thereafter that voting commenced, and ultimately a loss in all but fact for the Coalition. The Coalition suffered a combined 5.7% swing against them and a loss of 14 seats, and the National Republican League’s vote share was halved. The biggest boon was won by the CAN, with a swing of 4.9% in their favour and an increase of 18 seats to 31, with Labour close behind with 4.6% and 11 new seats. An interesting result that was little considered until after voting closed was the loss of the three independents that had occupied the
House of Assembly -including the last seat of the once ascendant
Sengalian Social Nationalist Party- and their replacement with a pair of new independents, both from Copper Coast.
The Zografos Government limped out of the election with a plurality, shy of a majority by four seats. This would exacerbate tensions within the Conservative Democratic Party in particular, and Zografos would lose the Prime Ministership a year later by challenge and ballot to the conservative Jazzy Manga.
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Jesus, that was longer than I was expecting. Sorry if the quality of the writing dips in and out, I did this over the course of a week so the style and tone may be inconsistent. This is the first part of a side project I'm working on, I hope y'all enjoy it.
. I don't have time to look through everything (blame finals) but a couple of things:
