RESPONSE TO MR. BABACAR GAYE'S REFLECTIONS ON MY SECOND OPEN LETTER TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC (By Abdou Fall)

I read with great attention the contribution of Minister of State Babacar Gaye regarding my second open letter to the President of the Republic dedicated to the need for institutional refounding and democratic clarification in the context of the current crisis.

I would first like to commend the quality of the debate thus initiated.

In a period marked by passions, radicalism, and verbal violence, Senegal needs a calm and reasoned exchange of ideas and proposals. The current challenges are too serious to be reduced to personal attacks or partisan simplifications.

Babacar Gaye's reflection has the merit of introducing several essential dimensions: legal security, continuity of the State, sustainability of reforms, institutional stability, and procedures for democratic transformation.

On these different points, our approaches appear more complementary than contradictory.

My initial intention was not to present a technical mechanism for institutional transition, much less a completed constitutional scheme.

Its primary aim was to raise awareness of a reality that had become worrying: the manifest existence of a dual center of gravity of power at the top of the state, in an institutional architecture that does not provide any provisions adapted to such a configuration.

By failing to clarify, upon coming to power, the roles, responsibilities and authority relationships at the top of the State, the current leaders have allowed a situation to develop in which internal contradictions now affect the very functioning of the institutions.

The clashes of ambitions within the regime are now taking such a turn that it would be irresponsible to ask the Nation to bear the consequences in the long term, since their effects are directly impacting the coherence of public action, the functioning of the State and the stability of the country.

However, when political contradictions begin to disrupt the normal functioning of institutions, a political crisis gradually becomes an institutional crisis, and then potentially a regime crisis.

And that, it seems to me, is the heart of the current political situation in Senegal.

The confrontation now established between the President of the Republic and his former Prime Minister, now President of the National Assembly, goes far beyond simple political divergence.

It produces direct effects on the legibility of public authority, governmental coherence, the state's decision-making chain, and on Senegal's credibility at both the national and international levels.

We have thus entered an unprecedented zone of institutional vulnerability in the political history of Senegal.

For the first time, the country is faced with a National Assembly that is completely beyond the political control of the President of the Republic, not as a result of a classic parliamentary alternation, but through the spectacular reversal of a majority initially committed to the Head of State and which, during the term of office, became a de facto parliamentary opposition.

In addition to this, there is a candidacy for the presidency of the Republic announced by the president of the National Assembly three years before the deadline.

Members of parliament from this parliamentary majority are even going so far as to demand that the President of the Republic in office shorten his term in favour of their leader, in accordance, according to them, with a commitment made in the secrecy of their partisan deliberations.

The Senegalese paradox is thus the following.

It is now the elected majority that is asking the President to shorten his term, while the opposition is sticking to respecting the republican calendar.

Such a situation naturally creates an institutional contradiction whose effects cannot be sustainably contained by ordinary political mechanisms alone.

The democratic clarification we are referring to therefore constitutes, in our view, a republican, transparent and peaceful response to an unprecedented institutional tension, with the objective of avoiding stagnation, the conflictual erosion of institutions and the progressive paralysis of the State.

Especially since, in the end, the promise of a mandate of rupture gradually transformed into a mandate of transition, with the main issue within the current majority being the determination of who will be, at the end of the mandate, the absolute holder of power.

That is why I share with Minister Babacar Gaye the idea that any serious overhaul must be based on a method, a timetable, guarantees and an indisputable legal framework.

It is in this spirit that a shared institutional diagnosis could be envisaged, based on the work resulting from national consultations, the conclusions of the Mbow Commission as well as other proposals for reforms that have become necessary.

The fundamental question then remains the following.

Can Senegal sustainably continue to function with institutions designed for a vertical exercise of power when political reality now reveals the existence of competing centers of influence at the top of the state and a strong citizen demand for more participatory governance?

It is this contradiction between the current institutional architecture and the new political reality that is fueling the most dangerous tensions today.

Institutional reform must neither mask a political crisis nor serve as a theoretical cover for personal rivalries.

It must enable the building of institutions capable of managing political conflicts without jeopardizing national stability.

On this point, I agree with Babacar Gaye.

A republic is strengthened by rules, control mechanisms, democratic guarantees, and responsible political will. But it is also weakened when an institutional system refuses to look clearly at the real transformations of power and society.

The time has therefore come, not to deny the crisis, but to deal with it democratically so that it leads to political, institutional and national clarification.

It is in this spirit that we have suggested that the country consider, in a concerted and peaceful framework, early legislative elections preceded by a minimal consensus on the institutional reforms that have become necessary, including on the voting system.

Especially since, by provoking a crisis of this magnitude within their ranks, to the point of now contesting the legitimacy of the President whom they had called upon the Senegalese to elect, the actors of the majority make it legitimate for the voice to be given back to the citizens, the sole holders of popular sovereignty.

This demand is all the more pressing as important voices from this same majority are now calling for the current President's term to be shortened in favor of their own leader.

All these reasons make citizen arbitration necessary in order to clarify the new political configuration of the country.

Senegal has often been able to transform its crises into stages of democratic maturation.

It is still necessary to have the political courage to recognize the limitations of the existing system in time in order to prevent deeper ruptures.

And it is perhaps the dual experience that Babacar Gaye and I share, both in the exercise of executive power and in parliamentary practice, that explains our particular sensitivity to these issues.

Because this experience allows us to fully measure the risks that this crisis can pose to national stability, this precious political and historical capital bequeathed by the founders of the modern Republic of Senegal.

Beyond differences in approach, our collective responsibility today remains to help our country find its way back to institutional balance, democratic stability and national confidence, without ever losing sight of the essential: putting the right people in the right place to get the country back to work and restore Senegalese people's confidence in the future.

It is to this higher standard that public debate and political action must now rise.

Abdou Fall

Former minister