POLITICS
FELWINE SARR: “This too many mandate tempts you”
The very fact of maintaining chiaroscuro is an admission. Authoritarian drift begins when the prince can make the linguistic sign say what he wants. The Senegal skiff looks like a boat that has lost its course.
The President of the Republic in December 2019, when asked whether he would run for a third term or not, replied with a neither yes nor a no. In his address to the nation on December 31, 2022, he did not raise the issue. However, all the actions he has taken since then indicate that he is preparing to go (Lu Defu Waxu). Let us not impugn his motives, some would say, for the time being he said nothing definitive. To a question whose only possible answer is no, since the Constitution is clear on this point; the very fact of maintaining the chiaroscuro is an admission, at least of a temptation or evaluation of the chances of success of such an undertaking. By this single attitude of maintaining the vagueness on an issue that involves the destiny of the whole community, the contract with the nation, which was signed in 2012 when it was sworn in, and renewed in 2016 after the referendum on the Constitution, has already been severed.
This non-response has the effect of taking the Senegalese people hostage and keeping them in the waiting, while their supporters occupy the media space and, as in 2012, try to make us understand that words no longer have the meaning that is theirs. Authoritarian drift begins when the prince can make the linguistic sign say what he wants. When “No person may exercise more than two consecutive terms”, no longer means, “No person may exercise more than two consecutive terms”. And it is to this interference of meaning that the presidential camp is engaged. Because here no matter the length of the mandate, it is the consecration of the latter that is limited to two. That was the purpose of our fight in 2012 against Wade’s third term. To establish a rhythm of alternation inscribed in the marble of the Constitution that ensures a democratic breathing, a renewal of the governing elites, the alternation of the projects of societies and the peaceful transmission of power.
What a setback, if we were in the same situation in 2024 as in 2012! All this for that! Unfortunately, Wade had already experienced the process. Appointing judges who are committed to his cause to the Constitutional Council, dropping his propagandists in the media and his jurists who try by a juridical sophistication (with this idea that constitutional law is complex and esoteric), to make acceptable a reading of Article 27 of the Constitution that is semantically, ethically, politically, legally, and thus trample on the ground the fundamental text that binds us and sets the rules that govern our living together. Only one individual, he was President of the Republic, cannot confiscate a power entrusted to him by the Senegalese people in terms that were a refusal of a monarchical devolution of power, a third mandate and a desire for social justice and accountability. The ultimate consequence of such an act is to desecrate the Constitution in the collective unconscious. Any community to make a whole whole, is based on rules that it puts above itself, above partisan ambitions and private interests in order to guarantee the pursuit of the general interest. The Constitution reflects the rules that form the basis of our political community and ultimately the people are the supreme constituent. To say to the latter «dear people you have not understood what you want, we the masters of constitutional science have understood better than you that no one can, does not mean in this specific case, no one can»In addition to ignoring the collective intelligence of Senegalese regarding the meaning of their political history, it is a holdup of our collective will. What the people want (at least on this issue), they clearly expressed in 2012 in the streets and in the ballot boxes.
Mr. President of the Republic,
The Senegal skiff looks like a boat that has lost its course and is wandering in the fog. A derelict ship sailing in troubled waters and preparing to face future storms. It is a ship that has lost some of its superb, whose captain seems to no longer see the clouds piling up, inhabited by the dream (which we legitimately lend you) of seeking a third mandate and no matter if this attempt plunges us into instability. No matter the 10 deaths that this fight for democratic breathing and alternation of power cost us in 2012; no matter if you yourself repeated several times urbi and orbi, that you had locked the Constitution; that the mandate the Senegalese gave you in 2019 was your second and final mandate. It does not matter that the Sahel region is unstable and that the island that Senegal constitutes cannot afford the luxury of opening the pandora’s box. There are many reasons to avoid that this desire to seek the mandate too much, does not embark us collectively in a most risky adventure.
Recently, we have witnessed a systematic unravelling of our societal and democratic achievements. Dikes yielding one after the other. Inexorable rise of the waters. François Mancabou died in the premises of the national police. Two gendarmes, Sergeant Fulbert Sambou and Chief Warrant Officer Didier Badji, who disappear under turbulent circumstances, including the first found dead, visibly drowned, and the second of whom we have no news. Cartoonists (Papito Kara) hijacking newspapers on the internet, imprisoned, some for liking posts with smileys. Pape Alé Niang, a journalist imprisoned for doing his work (informing) and being the subject of judicial harassment. A big mute that no longer is and that lets leak sensitive files, so that no one ignores them. Young people who are questioned during demonstrations and asked for their surnames; and when they are Casamançaise-sounding, they are arrested and taken into the salad basket, to the custody. An APR activist who calls for the defense of the third term with machetes, a deputy who promises to march on our corpses for the re-election of his champion in 2024. Citizens who are intimidated for the crime of opinion and who are put through the prison cell, each in turn, as if for a spin. After the March 2021 riots, 14 people died, some killed at close range (one of the scenes was filmed); no open investigation, no trial, no liability located to date. A pain of families compensated with bundles of CFA, which they accept for lack of better entrusting themselves to God and to the fatality of destiny. A deterioration of political mores rarely seen in this country. A National Assembly became a fair and an arena of rags. They insult each other wildly, they strike a woman member of Parliament, and even worse, they find a way to justify the unjustifiable, and therefore the despicable patriarchy that is gangrene in our society. Deputies, with the exception of a few, who do not live up to the demands of the republican debate entrusted to them by a people, who by voting in the last parliamentary elections as he did, wished to balance speech and power in the National Assembly and see its fundamental concerns calmly relayed and debated. Instead, we are witnessing in this place and in the public space a general degradation of speech that has become violent and abusive.
We witness in disbelief the erosion of what has made our country a nation that has been able to avoid ethnic-religious conflicts, military coups, civil wars in a post-colonial Africa struggling with multiple upheavals. This solid social fabric, despite its vulnerabilities, is the result of a slow collective construction, made of social consensus, political struggles, citizen and trade union struggles, democratic advances conquered of high struggle, interreligious and inter-ethnic cohabitation preserved by a cultural and social engineering, shared values; but also by the slow and patient construction of social and political institutions playing their role. It is one of these institutions – the cornerstone, the Constitution, of which you are the guardian and guarantor.
Mr. President of the Republic,
Your predecessors have each in their own way, despite the limitations of their mandates (and Wade’s abortive force), helped to strengthen Senegalese democracy by contributing their contribution to the difficult edifice. Yours, at this moment in our political history, is to take an act that will irreversibly make our nation a major democracy, which has definitively resolved the question of the peaceful transmission of power, and that of an alternation inscribed in its texts and especially in its practices and traditions. So that finally the elections become moments of debate on the destiny of the nation and more those of clouds big of risks, hovering over our heads.
When there will be demonstrations and unrest against a third mandate – and it is to be expected that there will be if you show up – because there is no reason for the Senegalese people to accept in 2024 what they had refused in 2012 (Remember that it was this refusal of the third term that Wade wanted that brought you to power in 2012); and that human lives will be lost, because you have overarmed the police and the gendarmerie. You will bear the responsibility. We expect you to announce that after being elected twice to the head of Senegal; that you will not run for office a third time in the presidential election; and that in doing so, you will respect your oath, that you restore to the Senegalese the honour they have bestowed upon you by entrusting to you their destiny for two terms, and that you consolidate and preserve our democracy.
Just elected, Brice Oligui Nguema, former president of the transition, wants to engage the country in a profound institutional refoundation. After the creation of a new party, he intends to appoint vice-presidents and carry out electoral reforms.
A victory expected, a transition in motion
Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema came, largely, at the head of the presidential election of April 11, 2025. According to the results announced by the Minister of the Interior, Hermann Immongault, he was elected with 90% of the votes cast. This, it would seem, Soviet score is the measure of popularity gained since the coup d’état of August 30, 2023, by which the head of the Republican Guard had ended the reign of the Bongo family. After less than two years at the head of the Gabonese transition, Brice Oligui Nguema had promised a political break. With the removal of the Prime Minister, executive power is now centralized in the Presidency. He will not want to concentrate all these powers in his hands alone, so he plans to create vice-presidents.
Two Vice-Chairs
With the adoption of more than 1,000 normative texts in the first year, to give effect to the principles of the new Constitution. A reform presented by its supporters as a rationalisation of institutions, in a country where power was already, in fact, very concentrated. The two vice-presidents who will be appointed will soon have to be designated: one, protocol, will be the number two of the state; the other will be in charge of government action. The latter must have a high level of administrative expertise and must be a political force. The names of Joseph Owondault Berre and Raymond Ndong Sima circulate. But, nothing is certain.
A new calendar
The political battle does not end there. A new law on political parties, with stricter criteria and an electoral redistribution that will allow the organization of legislative and local elections from August 2025. Always in the perspective of the gathering. On the presidential majority side, the platform Rassemblement des Bâtisseurs (RdB) will turn into a political party. He intends to gather the President’s support without absorbing the many components of the platform (84 parties, 4,200 associations, 22,000 individual members). Its coordinator, Anges-Kevin Nzigou, presents it as a “political matrix” designed to structure a future majority. This initiative is causing a stir: Justine Lekogo, member of the platform, has publicly expressed her reservations, questioning the legitimacy of this transformation and the silence of the president on the subject.
A new Republic
If the refoundation dynamic seems to be on track, the institutional balance remains to be built. The concentration of power around the president, even validated by the ballot box and referendum, raises questions. The break with the old regime will be measured by actions: political openness, independence of counter-powers, electoral transparency. Brice Oligui Nguema now has free hands. It remains to be seen whether it will make Gabon a renewed democracy, or whether it will perpetuate, in some other form, the legacy of a centralized power.
The rumour of a riot at the PPA, formerly Abidjan Detention and Correction House (MACA) was circulating in the city of Abidjan all day on 14 April 2025. A statement from the Directorate of the Prison Administration has just come out: there have been riots. Yes. Many people were injured. Also, many voices have been raised to alert on the fragile balance between prisoners’ rights and prison authority.
Yet another riot
The recent tensions at the Abidjan Prison Centre have caused many injuries. A few months ago, it was the prison of Bouaké, second city in the country, which was boiling. What began as vandalism quickly turned into a clear attempt to take control of the prison by inmates. This latest riot has revived a crucial debate: that of the authority of the state within the walls of Ivorian prisons.
A prompt official release
In an official statement dated 14 April 2025, the prison administration of the largest prison in Côte d’Ivoire confirmed that several facilities had been destroyed by detainees. Indeed, the latter oppose a new measure regulating the management of common spaces. This reform, implemented in the context of the fight against the introduction and circulation of drugs in prisons, aimed to restrict access to the central court, which has become a real crossroads for all kinds of drug trafficking. According to the press release, there are no deaths. In addition, 12 detainees have been injured. According to the same communiqué, order was restored thanks to the joint intervention of prison officers, the police and the gendarmerie.
Rise of gangs
But beyond the facts, this new episode of violence highlights a broader problem that the prison administration is struggling to manage. In February, similar riots broke out at the House of Detention and Correction in Bouaké. The fact that these riots are taking place in the country’s two major prisons highlights something very disturbing, namely the rise of insubordination in prison and the groups of men who, Alongside the guards, truly manage – or should we say – rule the country’s prisons. For some observers, this situation results from a growing imbalance between the rights granted to detainees and the means of control left to prison officers. “The freedoms granted, although essential in a state governed by the rule of law, end up conferring disproportionate power on prisoners who are sometimes organised and able to defy the prison authority itself,” said one prison worker.
Prison guard: a profession under pressure
The profession of prison officer, often invisible, appears today as one of the most exposed but also of the most ungrateful. Faced with increasingly numerous and difficult to supervise prison populations, these professionals are demanding more than press releases: they are asking for a real revaluation, as is happening in several sectors within the country’s administration. Among the options mentioned: a clear return of authority to prison staff, their systematic association with decisions impacting security, and better administrative and legal protection. Because today, many people say they are on their own.
A national implementation strategy
These incidents, repeatedly, reveal a fundamental problem: in order to deal with such riots in the future, a coherent, national prison strategy based on firmness, respect for the hierarchy and the restoration of legitimate authority is needed. It is not a question of denying the rights of detainees, but of reminding them that these rights must be exercised within the framework of a clear and respected republican order. Indeed, the prison cannot become a space of non-law. However, it must remain a place of justice, rehabilitation, but also authority.
Nicholas Nguema has slowly established himself as a great advocate of democratic reforms and transparency on the Gabonese political scene. He was very hard on the Bongo regime until its fall in 2023, he is also one of the major supporters of General Brice Oligui Nguema. However, this does not prevent him from calling for a definitive break with the former PDG regime. To what is this repositioning due? Pragmatic evolution or political ambition? With the 2025 presidential election approaching, Nicolas Nguema appears more than ever as a key player in Gabon’s political system.
Nicholas Nguema, between politics and business
Well-known in the Gabonese landscape, Nicolas Nguema is one of the people who animate the political ecosystem of this West African country with less than three million inhabitants. Fervent advocate of democratic reforms and transparency in the country’s governance, this businessman and politician is the co-founder of the Party for Change (PLC), along with lawyer Anges Kevin Nzigou. During the reign of former President Ali Bongo, this party has, through its positions, ended up being a critical voice in advocating, loudly, for a profound transformation of the political landscape of his country, minated by clientelism and other concussions of all kinds. Alongside his political commitment, Nicolas Nguema is a true businessman. Legal agent in Gabon of the Santullo Sericom Group, an Italian company that has had disputes with the Gabonese state in the past, he played a key role. With this double cap of businessman and politician, Nicolas Nguema is sometimes adored, sometimes controversial.
A commitment marked by protest
Since the creation of the PLC (Party for Change), Nicolas Nguema has shown his line of conduct. Standing out from other members of the Gabonese opposition who do not hesitate to fall into the marigot of corruption, he has forged his identity, and especially the image of a man who does not compromise with the truth. Rare in a country plagued by corruption at the highest levels of government. Having been one of the active members of the collective “Call to Action”, which sought recognition of the power vacancy following President Ali Bongo’s health problems, Nicolas Nguema has made many enemies, even within his own political party. Note that this movement marked a turning point in the Gabonese opposition by highlighting the need for political alternation. Of course, this did not come without legal problems. Thus, in December 2020, he was arrested and placed in police custody by the General Directorate of Counter-Interference and Military Security (B2), in an alleged case related to the sale of a barge belonging to the Santullo Sericom Group. With the many supporters of the population and its supporters who denounced an arrest for political reasons. After several weeks of detention, he was released in March 2021 thanks to a decision by the Chamber of Indictment of the Court of Appeal of Libreville.
Brice Oligui Nguema, politics differently
Since the fall of Ali Bongo in August 2023 following a coup
, Nicolas Nguema and his party have adopted a new posture. Now the PLC is no longer hiding its support, openly shown, to General Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema, the man who leads the political transition after the coup. With the congress scheduled for February 22, 2025, the PLC should, it is hoped, formalize its positioning, which we know, goes in favor of the president of the transition, Brice Oligui Nguema. He was in France at the beginning of February to mobilize the diaspora, Nicolas Nguema says to anyone who wants to hear that General Oligui Nguema has made “concrete progress” in fifteen months of transition, particularly in terms of infrastructure and governance. But issues like education and health are areas where much remains to be done.
Break with the old regime
Despite his support for the leader of the transition, Nicolas Nguema remains very lucid. Indeed, it does not miss an opportunity to insist on the need for a total break with the Gabonese Democratic Party (PDG), which has dominated the political scene for more than five decades. According to him, the current transition will only be successful if the former barons of the Bongo regime are definitively removed from the administration. “Of course, we blame the fact that there are still too many ‘PDGists’ within the administration, but this will inevitably stop very soon. Inevitably, the CEO must disappear from the political landscape in our country.” For the early presidential election of 12 April 2025, the position of DFC and its Co-Chairman is clear: it believes that Brice Oligui Nguema is best placed to lead this transition, provided he detaches himself completely from the CEO.
Nicolas Nguema, a political strategist?
The DFC has made a 180° turn by providing its unwavering support to the Gabonese transition. Political strategy? The political future of the DFC, which passed in a blink of an eye from a radical opposition party to a fervent supporter of the transition, marks an important development in Nicolas Nguema’s political career. Does he hope that this pragmatic position will allow him to play a key role in the recomposition of the Gabonese political landscape? Beyond all these questions, it is not easy to see the old party, the CEO and the weight of the former cadres of this party disappear so soon. Also, the upcoming presidential election will serve as a test to assess whether the transition will usher in a new era for Gabon. In any case, Nicolas Nguema, as an influential figure of the PLC, will have to make a choice: fly with his own wings or stay in the lap of transition. He has already declared himself a candidate for the next parliamentary elections for the renewal of the Gabonese Parliament.
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