A fraudulent win THE presidential elections of February 21 have not satisfied the tremendous democratic expectations which greeted the adoption of the new electoral code. In the end, the Socialist Party, a member of the Socialist International, and its allies have made plain their total lack of respect for democracy.
B. N'DAIYE*— Dakar, April 2, 1993 S
INCE February 20, the Rassemblement Bokk Yakaar2 has been denouncing fraudulent practices such as multiple registration (two or more election registration cards delivered to the same person and the registration of youths under 18 years old on the electoral rolls. Even clandestine registration offices have been discovered at the residences and offices of some Socialist Party (PS) leaders after the official closing date.
Indeed, the PS fraud machine has functioned as a system organized around specific mechanisms involving the use of the State apparatus and its administration - of which certain key sectors were put to work holding up the delivery of identity cards. This has been confirmed by the American National Democratic Institute (NDI), who were among the international observers.
According to their report, "Many registered voters could not get their election registration cards and/or their national identity cards before the voting day. Problems associated with the distribution of these documents have damaged confidence in this aspect of the electoral process."
Moreover, before the official campaign the media was used to full effect to cover the campaign in disguise of Abdou Diouf, his ministers and his wife who had been put in charge of a foundation called "Solidarity and Sharing". During the official campaign, the PS candidate received a disproportionate amount of media coverage, in spite of the limits set by the electoral code.
Then there was the huge expenditure; with its budget around 14bn CFA francs (280m French francs= $52m), the PS distributed enormous sums to influence-peddlers to get their support. PS leaders went so far as to offer 10 to 15,000 CFA to those who agreed to tear up their electoral cards or to attend Diouf's public meetings. All Senegalese are wondering: where did all this money come from?
Threats and selective repression by the minister of the interior also played an important role. For example, two central youth leaders, Talla Sylla of Youth for an Alternative (JPA) and Brin of Daneel Abdou ("overthrow Abdou") were arrested.
Pressures were exerted against the opposition from the NDiggeul, the Supreme Leadership of obedience to the spiritual head.
There was widespread distribution of false ordonnances - legal forms which in specific cases are used to replace election cards — for purposes of multiple voting. The minister of infrastructure and maritime affairs, a member of the political bureau of the PS, was caught in the process of distributing them in Ziguinchor in the south of the country.
Stocks of US-manufactured indelible ink, acquired to identify those who had already voted, suddenly disappeared.
The international media supported the fraud and provoked the Senegalese people. How else can one interpret the broadcast by Radio France Internationale of the February 26 results crediting Diouf with victory - while the work of the National Electoral Commission was still incomplete?3
The Constitutional Council confirmed the results in spite of the fact that the oppo sition and a significant part of the population contested them. When the Electoral
* member of And Jef/PADS (And Jef/African Party for Democracy and Socialism, an organization founded in 1991 uniting groups of the radical left.
1. The electoral code made voter identification, polling booths and indelible ink obligatory.
2. This means "those that share the same hope" and brings together parties, groups, unions and indivuduals.
3. The Electoral Commission is composed of representatives of political parties and a magistrate, who are all fulltime members. Diouf wants to change its character before the May legislative elections and make party members observers. As for RFI, it will soon be allotted another time slot on the Senegalese airwaves.
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International Viewpoint #245 May 1993
Commission found itself unable to continue its work, with the reports from voting stations being transmitted directly to the Constitutional Council, its president Keba Mbaye resigned, thus totally discrediting the highest legal body in the land.
In spite of all the fraudulent practices, the PS was defeated in Dakar, the capital city, as well as in This, Pikine and other important districts. This will undoubtedly have a big effect on the relationship of forces between the union federation which collaborates with the regime, the CNTS, and the new and powerful independent union federation, the UNSAS.
1 ne left ran a separate Campagn. Long before the elections. the question of left
MAURITANIA
Rariway
100
AFRICA
..-
Senegal
Richard Toll
Saint-Louls
Matam
Louga
-Atlantic
• Linguère
Thiès
Diourbel
Kidira
DAKAR Rufisque
SENEGAL
Kaolack
MALI
Tambacounda
SECA
SG-A-M
ANJI
-Mansa:
Gambia
Ocean
Konko
Santa Su
A
A
S
N
E
A
C
Kolda
Kédougou
~ Ziguinchor /
GUINEA - PISSAU
GUINEA
132 81 before the elections, the question of lett unity was placed on the agenda. The former prime minister, Mamadou Dia, from the Movement for Socialism and Unity (MSU), took initiatives in this direction which unfortunately ended in separate candidacies.
The Democratic League/Labour Party Movement (LD/MPT) had the slogan Jallarbi, a word which means "far-reaching change" - but at the same time did not reject the programmes of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank After the events in the ex-USSR and Eastern Europe, this formerly pro-Moscow party became a supporter of the mixed eco nomy. It ran its campaign around the idea of running the country in a different way, and came in fourth position behind the PS, the liberals of the Democratic Party of Senegal (PDS) and And Jef/PADS.
The PAI and its split-away group, the PIT — both of Stalinist origin — made a block with the PS to support Diouf. The nationalist organizations (PLP, RND) got relatively low scores even though the themes of their campaigns took up the general concerns of the population: "ethical management" ", "ministers who do work" , and so forth.
The And Jef/PADS campaign was waged in the framework of the Rassemblement Bokk Yakaar under the slogan "Folli Abdou", which means "depose Abdou" This call is based on the living conditions of the Senegalese people, which have deteriorated as a result of the application of the IMF's structural adjustment plans, and on their desire to get rid of Diouf.
Through the promotion of the "Folli" the Rassemblement Bokk Yakaar had two principle objectives: to defeat Diouf and to put an end to the bipolarization of political life around the PS and the PDS.4 As such, the "Folli" can be seen as an objective of a "republican revolution" — that is, the dismantling of an all-powerful presidency and of clientelism and corruption.
The hope was that such a campaign would accelerate the emergence of an alternative political force around themes such as:
• the abrogation of agreements which preserve the country's economic and military domination (including the foreign debt and the French bases)
• making the big debters who pillaged the banks and state enterprises pay and recovering money deposited in foreign banks 5
• implementing an agrarian reform through a revision of the national property law
• building African unity along popular lines
In the end, the presidential elections did not lead to a "folli". The absence of a single left candidate partially explains this state of affairs, as do the many illusions regarding the new electoral law.
In spite of its score of 2.94%, the AJ/PADS candidacy of Landing Savané is credited with having run the best election campaign. This score is very much lower than the actual social forces of And Jef/PADS and the Rassemblement Bokk Yakkaar and their relationship with the urban and rural population.
Before and during the elections, there was a kind of strategic voting which worked in favour of the liberal candidate, A. Wade, who was seen as the best placed to defeat Diouf — which deprived Savané of thousands of votes. It was not surprising to hear during the campaign, "the country should be run by those who are familiar with the State."
Nevertheless, And Jef/PADS has definitely carved out an audience for its project, which has been translated into a flux of several hundreds of youth, women, workers and peasants into the party. While the party has to fulfill the immense organizational responsibilities which this presents, it also has to prepare for the May legislative elections.
Indeed, the opposition finds itself trapped in a kind of electoral noose: the people of Senegal will return to the polls four times between now and 1995: regional, municipal and rural elections. But the deepening of the social crisis (regionalist flare-ups, student strikes, and so forth and the inability of the PS, undermined by the various clans, to respond to the situation only deepens the population's rejection of Diouf.
The slate of PS candidates created serious tensions at its base, since it contained a number of candidates known to be involved in embezzlement and the pillage of the state enterprises.
But the opposition has not been able to develop any resistance to the electoral strong-arm tactics. Aside from the spontaneous resistance of youths who burned down the houses of certain PS leaders, there is no significant activity.
The PDS call to make April 5, 6 and 7 days of national mourning runs the risk of failure. The opposition is more concerned about the legislative elections which it feels will produce a parliament in which it holds a majority of seats.
Even the left has been swept up in this logic, characterized by an inadequate understanding of the role of the Parliament and its place in the "Folli" process. This absence of response is disorienting the masses, who doubt the effectiveness of elections as a means to capture power.
The future of the left is at stake: in the run-up to the elections it is still divided -the LD-MPT going alone, the PLP boycotting the elections, while And Jef/PADS, the RND, the CDP and independents have formed a single slate under the name Jappoo ("unity"). *
4. The PDS formed a government with the PS, called "the cake-sharing government". The liberals quit the government in October 1992.
5. Elites can borrow from the banks without ever having the intention to pay back their debts.
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International Viewpoint #245 May 1993
The n FUTURE historians will describe the neo-liberal decade of the 1980s as one of extreme conservatism - a decade of decline in culture, artistic creativity and political liberties. They will conclude that it failed to end capitalist crisis. On the contrary, they will note how the radicals who imposed the liberal economics merely created new problems. JESUS ALBARRACIN Madrid, March 29, 1993 M ANY factors determined the development of the economic crisis, but the most significant, and the factor that sums up all the others, was the decline in the rate of profit that began in the early years of the 1970s. Economists described this period as one of crisis of supply or, as Marx said, a crisis determined by the bourgeoisie's weakness.
For the moment, the strategy of capital was to create the conditions for a recovery in the rate of profit by means of austerity and adjustment policies — reducing wages and employment protection, withdrawing welfare provision, and the rest of the monetarist package. The cost of the crisis was to be borne, in its entirety, by the workers.
Faced with the internationalisation of capital and the extent of the crisis any proposed solution cannot be isolated to one country alone. This is what explains the generalization of austerity and adjustment policies and the super-exploitation of the Third World. The present situation of course has other economic dimensions: a crisis of the international monetary system, the decline in American hegemony, or the sharpening of inter-imperialist competition - fundamentally between three blocs - the USA, the European Community (EC) and Japan, fighting to open new markets in Eastern Europe following the crisis of
WORLD ECONOMY eo-liberal i really existing socialism.
Keynesianism, which inspired economic policy during the post-Second World War period of expansion, lost ground to neo-liberal thinking with the advent of the crisis since the ruling class considered neo-liberalism a far more effective framework for putting austerity policies into effect.
In the first place, liberalism tried to claim that the crisis was the result of a failure to allow the market free rein. The rise in oil prices was blamed for the onset of the crisis — defined as a "supply shock" that had adversely affected the conditions for production. However, so the argument went, the crisis would have been short-lived if the workers had accepted lower wages, short-term unemployment and a change in working conditions - that is to say allowed free play to the market. The theorists urged governments of the industrialized coun tries to deregulate the economy to and set the market free. The crisis was to be allowed to work itself out, permitting a restructuring of production and allow a restoration of the rate of profit through cutting the price of labour.