WADE'S ELECTORAL PROSPECTS UNSURE IN EAST AND SOUTH

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 DAKAR 001011 SIPDIS SIPDIS STATE FOR AF/W, AF/RSA, DRL/PHD AND INR/AA E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/26/2016 TAGS: PGOV ECON SG SUBJECT: WADE'S ELECTORAL PROSPECTS UNSURE IN EAST AND SOUTH REF: A. DAKAR 0817 ¶B. DAKAR 0681 ¶C. DAKAR 0565 Classified By: Political Counselor Roy L. Whitaker for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d). SUMMARY -------------- ¶1. (C) Ten months before presidential and parliamentary elections, there is broad disenchantment with President Wade in Senegal's East and South. Were the election held now, he would likely lose in sparsely populated Tambacounda Region. In Kolda and Ziguinchor, he needs to discipline his ruling Democratic Party of Senegal (PDS); assure voters he is working to mitigate southern isolation, and keep the molasses-slow Casamance peace process from becoming an electoral issue. The opposition, and above all Ziguinchor Mayor Robert Sagna, appears strong in both East and South. END SUMMARY. TAMBACOUNDA: HUNTING CAMP AND TRUCK STOP -------------- ¶2. (SBU) Tambacounda Region covers a fifth of Senegal's land area but has few people. A reporter told us the city was "a hunting camp" until the 1970's, but it has grown as northerners from the Senegal River Valley moved in to farm grasslands or plant bananas in the southern hills. It now lives from small-scale commerce of truck drivers on the Bamako-Dakar run. Passenger and freight trains stop at its sadly ramshackle station. The stationmaster, burrowed in a tiny trackside depot, says they run "with some regularity," but his thrice-weekly claim differs from a guard's estimate of twice. Schedules are haphazard: "It departs Wednesday or sometimes Thursday." The station offers few local jobs; the rail crew are mostly from the railway center in Thies. ¶3. (C) The local PDS is riven by at least six factions, with some leaders weakened by former membership in the Socialist Party (PS),origins in a non-local ethnic group, or generational differences, etc. All fear that some factions will forego voting for the PDS in favor of a "vote sanction," a purposeful abstention or even a spoiler vote for the opposition. Local journalists tell us this has already happened twice, resulting first in loss of the Regional Council and then of the Municipal Council. As a result, Wade has assigned national PDS organizer and Dakar Municipal Council Chair Abdoulaye Faye to monitor the PDS in Tambacounda. ¶4. (C) This decision, predictably, does not sit well with the local PDS. Samba Diop, a PDS founder 30 years ago, is loyal to Wade although he resents that Socialist Party (PS) "transhumants" or turncoats were given jobs he wanted. He says PDS reliance on transhumants left longtime militants feeling "abandoned," which in turn undermines enthusiasm and harms efforts to organize. Despite this, though, he concludes that even after six years, PDS-inclined voters' judgment of Wade is "not clear ... it's still settling in people's minds." That may be, but beyond the generational divide, PDS youth activist Hamadou Diallo calls his party sclerotic, with two old guards, "ancient ones," and newly-arrived transhumants, competing for power "from comfortable parliamentary seats in Dakar," and frustrating any chance for new PDS leaders to emerge. ¶5. (C) Thanks to the PDS' troubles, Tambacounda City and Region are dominated by the PS, who, according to Deputy Mayor Mountada Dabo, are energetically mobilizing voters. PS strategy, he says, is to focus on strategic villages identified as influential. Opposition organizers get their message out by local means -- donkey wagons, bicycles or "50cc Honda motorcycles bought with money from Tambacounda emigrants." This renewed mobilization is targeting the young, women and "village wisemen." Still, Dabo fears PDS "intimidation, corruption and fraud," in the upcoming elections. There were irregularities in the past, he says, including substitution of voting bureaus' proces verbaux (vote tallies). In 2002, he says, the organization then in charge of vote monitoring had inadequate staff to cover the Region, and he knows of one PDS organizer who simply took it upon itself to pedal around several villages collecting vote totals to deliver for authorities' compilation. The PS won nevertheless and should again this time, Dabo believes, but they would be stronger if they incorporated good-faith challenges by internal dissidents, such as that of Ziguinchor Mayor Sagna and his ally, Tambacounda's own mayor, Souty Toure. KOLDA: GUTTERS AND GUTTERSNIPES -------------- DAKAR 00001011 002 OF 004 ¶6. (C) Koldois are separated from most of Senegal by a sovereign country and long bad roads, and, despite an almost-completed impressive new highway linking Kolda to The Gambia, they despair that Dakar pays them no heed and overlooks their social and economic woes. They resent Socialist ex-President Diouf's 1986 splitting of "Natural Casamance" to isolate Casamance rebels in Ziguinchor. They resent Wade for not keeping promises of large-scale construction: "all Dakar has given us is a new town drainage gutter and an overpriced mammoth of a mayoralty ... and Diouf planned that!" They lament Ziguinchor's receipt of "massive international aid while we receive none," and complain bitterly that Kolda lacks a governor's office to demontrate that it is an independent region. Finally, they blame Mayor and Defense Minister Becaye Diop for failing to improve life. They claim that despite a brand new albeit yet-to-be-equipped hospital, the entire region has only eight doctors and one gynecologist. They say poor roads keep crops from markets, and that farmers' financial plight is so bad "even burglars and roadside thieves aren't bothering to rob them this year." ¶7. (C) Prime Minister Macky Sall visited last July and was met with jeers and protest, red armbands. Moussa Diao, local PDS Federation head, thinks Sall is "trying to work up the courage to come back" and predicts any campaign structure Sall tries to impose will be "an inoperational monster." There are at least four PDS factions, including the Defense Minister's, but PDS regional counselor Dia despairs at Dakar's lack of attention: "It's as though we've worked 15 years for these people ... for nothing." To prove his point that Wade favors transhumants over loyalists, he cites numbers: 18 of 38 municipal counselors are transhumants, as are 7 of 12 regional counselors and both Kolda representatives on the Council of the Republic for Social and Economic Affairs. Dia fears Wade will lose young Koldois, and the PDS Convention des Jeunes' Abdoulaye Cisse blames PDS MPs who "suffer from sleeping sickness." Cisse, pretending not to have a favorite, notes that his club some years ago named ex-Prime Minister and current presidential candidate Idrissa Seck "Senegal's best mayor." ¶8. (C) Kolda's opposition thinks it can beat Wade and his legislative candidates. Tidiane Ndiaye, Talla Sylla's local organizer, sneers at huge pro-Wade rallies as "bush taxi crowds" bused in for the occasion. The sophisticated Socialist Alphousseyni Ba complains Wade is allowing a "two-speed society where cities prosper while farmers starve," and describes a distinction between factionalization in the PS and PDS. In the PS, he argues, disputes did not affect the functioning of the state, but in the PDS, factions act out quarrels by undermining institutions run by rivals." True or not, Ba wants to reverse Wade's strategy of co-optation, and claims he has talked six PDS counselors frustrated with their mayor into joining the opposition. ZIGUINCHOR: WITH AN INCUMBENT MAYOR, SOCIALISTS HAVE EDGE -------------- -------------- ¶9. (C) 2007 will be the first election since the late 2003 start of the peace process. It is uncertain to what extent potential voters will register, and how and where they will do so. We do not know whether Casamancais will reward or sanction Wade for his handling of negotiations with the rebel movement. Nor is it clear whether public resentment of the region's isolation from northern Senegal, and the lack of any real economic development, will translate into an anti-Wade vote. ¶10. (C) The greater Ziguinchor area has some 400,000 residents, which, if many voted, would give it real weight in the national vote count. Yet it is unclear how many potential voters will register and participate. Security in former rebel areas, says Sud-FM reporter Ibrahima Gassama, has become an election issue: registration commissions have asked for a military escort, but rebels find this unacceptable. Some voters, eager to receive identification cards that go with voter registration, have come to the city to register, but poor transportation facilities may limit the numbers who do so. ¶11. (C) Infrastructure and transportation are major issues, since Ziguinchor has gone through a particularly rough time in recent months. Ferry service from Dakar has been reestablished after a three-year hiatus, but the new boat, the "Willis," is designed to allow only a few pounds of freight to each passenger and is widely disdained. Ziguinchorois have awaited renewed air service for months, but as of our early April visit were frustrated by ongoing delays. Temporary closure of the Gambian border in 2005 was a severe blow, and road service through Tambacounda and Kolda, no matter how much it pleased those two cities, did DAKAR 00001011 003 OF 004 little to relieve Ziguinchor. Finally, there is resentment that the only major road-building in the South links Kolda to the Gambian border without a direct link to Ziguinchor. The only reason for optimism we heard, in both Ziguinchor and Kolda, was a recent visit by Indian engineers to explore construction of a rail link to Tambacounda. ¶12. (C) The PDS in Ziguinchor has the usual factions pitting a local deputy against a minister against the president of the regional council ... we even identified a brand new youth faction. In 2002, these factions applied a "vote sanction" against rivals and allowed the PS' Robert Sagna to regain the mayoralty and reestablish himself as a national political power. Wade in turn "parachuted" a trusted adviser, Secretary General at the Presidency Abdoulaye Balde, into SIPDIS Ziguinchor to knock heads (literally, in a late 2005 party meeting) and discipline the party, but he has not yet succeeded. We talked to two of his organizers, a Dr. Niakaly and a second who would not give his name and whom we remember fondly as the political commissar. Possibly because of inexperience in dealing with foreigners, the two seemed incapable of anything but fawning praise for Balde, and whenever Niakaly seemed in danger of objectivity, the commissar intervened to correct him. ¶13. (C) Oumar Lamine Badji, the Regional Council President who helped create the local PDS, is known to be beside himself with rage over Balde's presence, and barely restrained himself in his talk with us. Balde, he fulminated, is "not from here, doesn't speak the language, and in any case lacks eloquence." Sharing Badji's contempt for Balde, Magaye Gaye has set up a youth group, the Blue Belts (after the PDS official color),to "tie down the PDS discontents who would otherwise abandon us." PDS militants, Gaye complained, "no longer recognize the PDS or the people who lead it. If you take the time and trouble to build a house, you don't turn it over to strangers." ¶14. (C) The local PS, thanks to Robert Sagna, may be as strong as anywhere in the country. He has somehow managed to create some local jobs, and even former enemies on the Left vouch for him. Local Democratic League leader Mr. Badji said Casamancais were distrustful of Dakar after 20 years of war, and have fastened onto Sagna as a "son of the locality" with ideas, contacts and energy to achieve something in the peace process. Matar Diop of And Jef, despite his party's national-level alliance with Wade, lamented that the "PDS doesn't want to do anything for Ziguinchor, because they are afraid Sagna will be seen as too successful as an opposition mayor." ¶15. (C) Sagna, while challenging the leadership of the PS with formation of his own "way of thinking," or faction, has been widely reported to be exploring cooperation with Wade. We asked Deputy Mayor and Sagna loyalist Yaya Mane about this, and heard that Wade had proposed the vice-presidency to Sagna. Sagna, said Mane, had agreed to accept the position, but only if the PS as a whole, and not he as an individual, were to enter government. ¶16. (C) A week later in Dakar, Sagna seemed to us not at all in the mood for any deal with Wade. He lambasted Wade's alleged lack of interest in peace negotiations and unwillingness to pay attention to the Casamance until after elections "unless large-scale violence forces him to." Sagna criticized attacks on rebel recalcitrant Salif Sadio, whom he saw as becoming increasingly flexible, and predicts the "no war, no peace" impasse will continue. On politics, Sagna sees ex-Prime Minister Seck as a factor only insofar as he will split the PDS vote. He believes Wade is "miscalculating if he thinks he can lose the countryside but win the cities ... because he is rapidly losing the urban youth vote." Wade will "do anything" to win and will permit PDS violence. The opposition, contrary to expectations, will have means to counter this violence by using leftist and labor union organizers and agitators. Perhaps reflecting his 20-year experience in a militarized region, Sagna is concerned the military will react to unrest, but he had no details to offer. COMMENT -------------- ¶17. (C) Even after a fairly intensive examination of three regional cities, we are uncertain that we have a clear idea how eastern and southern voters are tending. While Tambacounda and Kolda are both regional capitals, for example, they do not necessarily reflect other major cities in their region. Even more troubling as we attempt anything like a prediction, is that we are never really comfortable that our interlocutors truly understand the mind of the peasant in remote areas. As the opposition provides us more detail on mobilization of voters -- identification and use of DAKAR 00001011 004 OF 004 strategic influential villages, the use of bicyles or mopeds to get about, etc -- we are becoming somewhat surer of what they tell us. ¶18. (C) Certainly PDS factionalization could be damaging to Wade, or even more so to PDS parliamentary candidates. One Socialist argued to us that PDS internecine rivalries are acted out not only in personal enmities and casting of spoiler votes, but also in attacks on governmental institutions headed by rivals. Wade's best hope must be that such bitterness marks only the early stages of the pre-campaign, specifically the April period when the Prime Minister and others attempt to reform local structures and put their loyalists in power. There will, however, be renewed struggles in November or December when parties choose parliamentary candidates. ¶19. (C) Registration is proceeding painfully slowly throughout the east and south, with inadequate mobile registration boards for rural areas especially. Yet there are signs that some voters are making an effort, despite bad roads and spotty transportation, to go to cities to register. Critics charge Wade is making registration easy in the cities and hard in the countryside. Paradoxically, though, in creating a kind of "motor-voter" system in which voters register at the same time they receive useful and highly-desired new identification cards, Wade and the PDS may have created incentive for critics in rural areas to go out of their way to sign up to vote. It seems increasingly clear that the number of registered voters could significantly exceed the 3 million originally expected to register by the end of the official registration period at the end of May; in fact, the number already exceeds 3 million. END COMMENT. ¶20. (U) Visit Embassy Dakar,s classified website at http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/af/dakar/. JACOBS