"RENTREE POLITIQUE 2006:" ARROGANCE, CALCULATION,

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 DAKAR 002271

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/19/2016
TAGS: PGOV SOCI PINS PINR SG
SUBJECT: "RENTREE POLITIQUE 2006:" ARROGANCE, CALCULATION,
DESPAIR AND (JUST A LITTLE) HYSTERIA

REF: A. DAKAR 2245 (NOTAL)


B. DAKAR 1427 (NOTAL)

Classified By: Political Counselor Roy L. Whitaker for reasons 1.4 (b)
and (d).

SUMMARY
--------------

1. (C) Senegalese are returning from vacation to warnings
that social equilibrium is in peril. President Wade's
fiercest critics slander him in turn as a ruthless, scheming
tyrant or vainglorious doddering relic. The opposition is
wallowing in hapless self-pity, and the more histrionic among
them predict crisis before the February 25 elections. Even
as rumors of reviving the charges against former Prime
Minister Idrissa Seck appear in the press, Jean-Paul Dias has
been released, and his son has been transferred back to
Dakar. Dakarois are irritated by energy blackouts, fuel
shortages and the traffic mess around Wade's prestige
construction projects. Urban youth seem either
intellectually anaesthetized by hip hop or set to hitch a
midnight pirogue to emigration in Spain. Coming as the peace
process in the southern Casamance is breaking down, this is
the gloomiest, most unsettled rentree politique in years.
END SUMMARY.

A TRULY BUMMER END OF SUMMER
--------------

2. (SBU) September is the month of slow return from summers
in Europe or home villages, when the air and the rains are
heavy, the rhythm of life is still easy and old friends or
enemies exchange heartfelt or hypocritical best wishes for
the coming year. This year, however, is different. Those
who read the lively "Wal Fadjri" daily -- and everybody reads
its headlines -- joined its editor in asking "But where is
Senegal going?," and wonder if it is true that there is "a
crisis of education, energy and justice ... the flower of
industry is on its knees ... desperate youth flee our shores
... justice is turned upside down ... education is in
turbulence ... and social equilibrium is in peril." Those
who read the competing "Sud," similarly, learned quite simply
that "the true Senegal is collapsing."

THE MUSEUM PIECE PRESIDENT
--------------

3. (C) Over lunch, an odd couple of old friends who edit the
prestige news/opinion journal "Nouvel Horizon," and the
20-cent street rag "Le Temoin" agreed that President
Abdoulaye Wade and perhaps the entire political elite are on
a collision course with a dissatisfied population. They
believe Wade is increasingly incapable of governing
effectively or even rationally, and fear his pride and desire
to leave office with honor will not allow him either to drop
out of the presidential race or accept a loss.


4. (C) One of our most judicious interlocutors, Wade's
2000-2004 Labor Minister Yero De, firmly believes Wade wishes
only the best for his country. He fears, though, that Wade
has shown as willingness to act illegally, as in manipulation
of preparations for election. Even graver, De believes,
Wade's ruling Senegalese Democratic Party (PDS) has "no real
conception of what constitutes the state." Socialists in
power occasionally "aggressed" the functioning of the state,
but never for long or irreversibly. Wade, De argues, has so
violated commonly accepted "rules of the game," that he risks
his own legitimacy. Wade's personalization of power and
weakening of government institutions, combined with
managerial incompetence at a time of rising social demands
threatens "destabilization of the entire political class and
the system on which it is built." The octogenarian Wade's
core problem, De adds, is that he has become blind to
long-term consequences of his actions since, for him, "the
future is now." De said an example is Wade's "unnecessary"
recent authorization of military force in the Casamance.


5. (C) Landing Savane, the left's only remaining
representative in Wade's government, has reaffirmed that he
will run for president. His number two, Bassirou Sarr,
asserted to us over lunch that Landing's candidacy is a kind
of "insurance policy" for the ruling coalition, providing an
alternative in case the aged and mercurial Wade dies in
office, unexpectedly drops out of the presidential race, or
fails to win a spot in the run-off.

THE POKER PLAYER PRESIDENT
--------------

6. (C) In contrast to the image of Wade as senescent and
myopic, his one-time biographer and current Justice Ministry
senior civil servant Marcel Mendy, says the President is
carefully calculating the balance of political forces before

DAKAR 00002271 002 OF 003


deciding whether to go ahead with elections or postpone them
for two years. Mendy (strictly protect) says Wade is leaving
nothing to chance, adding that Wade predicts a very close
election and therefore authorized the military to vote for
the first time, and that Wade personally ordered the Interior
Ministry to slow voter registration in opposition areas.
Mendy says Wade and Senior Minister of Justice Cheikh Tidjane
Sy are serious about bringing corruption charges of
opposition leaders Tanor Dieng and Moustapha Niasse, and that
Wade would not hesitate to arrest them even during the
campaign. However, Wade did pardon and release Jean-Paul
Dias, and son Barthelemy has been transferred back to Dakar
from distant and hot Tambacounda.


7. (U) On September 14, the Council of Ministers approved
Wade's draft law to increase the number of deputies from 120
to 140, giving Wade an opportunity to allocate more
parliamentary seats where his party is strong. There are new
rumors the Council is once again considering eliminating the
second election round in favor of a "first-past-the-post"
election which Wade true believers and opposition cynics
agree he can win or rig easily. In recent weeks, Wade raised
the forfeiture fees which parties must pony up to run for
office. While this will have little effect on the leading
opposition parties, it will probably discourage ruling
coalition leaders from following Landing Savane's lead and
running an independent presidential campaign.

WADE'S CLEVEREST ENEMY
--------------

8. (C) The political elite agree that to win elections in
2007, Wade absolutely must co-opt, intimidate or otherwise
neutralize former Prime Minister and declared presidential
candidate Idrissa Seck. Wade and Sy are allegedly preparing
to revive the embezzlement and illicit enrichment charges
that kept Seck in jail from July 2005 until February 2006.
The only disagreement is over how many in the ruling party
will either vote for Seck (estimates range from five percent
to a majority),or simply refrain from voting for Wade. Back
from three weeks with Seck in Paris, Oumar Sarr tried to
convince us with copious detail that the Interior Ministry
has engaged a hit squad of non-Senegalese Africans to take
Seck out. Sarr then said Seck would return to Senegal "by
and possibly even before" the start of Ramadan September 24.
Seck would campaign by showing his deep interest in the most
voter-rich areas, for example by spending an uninterrupted
week in Sarr's hometown and Mouride religious center Touba.
Sarr said the opposition recognized Seck's considerable
appeal, and claimed Socialist leader Tanor and Seck had
"reached an understanding." Indeed, Sarr added, the only
opposition leader still unwilling to join Seck was Moustapha
Niasse.

OH, WOE IS US!
--------------

9. (C) The opposition was showing some scrappiness a few
months ago, but it seems to have lost its nerve during
vacation. Socialist spokesman Elimane Kane and key organizer
Gueorgui Cisse were hard-pressed to lay out for us even a
strategy for an effective campaign, let alone electoral
victory. They complained that Wade controls election
mechanisms, uses national radio and television as part of his
campaign apparatus, was jiggering the registration process in
his favor, was holding the possibility of election
postponement over their heads, knows how to keep his rivals
off balance, and still controls gangs of young political
hooligans. Tanor and Niasse, though, they argued, would not
succumb to Wade's threats of arrest and prosecution.


10. (C) Independent Labor Party activist and labor leader
Ibrahima Sene, was in an apocalyptic mood as he joined us for
coffee. The donor community, he pleaded, must help Wade
abandon the "unfair" new electoral rolls, relinquish his
tight hold on national media, and stop arresting opposition
leaders and other critics. If things go on as they are, he
shook his head, "this country will fall apart, and the army
will have to intervene, maybe even before the elections."

GETTING AROUND, GETTING HIGH, GETTING OUT
--------------

11. (SBU) Senegalese are generally pretty laid-back for the
first few weeks of the rentree, but this year people seem
unusually irascible. Last May, Dakarois reacted with
impressive patience to Wade's closure of yet another of the
capital's primary roads for construction of a prestige
project. Now, though, months of wear and tear and weeks of
rain have worn away alternate side routes; commuters are
coping daily with delay, mud, gravel, heavy trucks and
bulldozers, and heavy-handed exercise of power by voluntary
police charged with keeping traffic in order. To top it off,

DAKAR 00002271 003.2 OF 003


the Government seized diesel fuel without advance notice or
explanation, creating panic over gas supplies, long lines at
filling stations, shortages, and renewed anger at ministries
seemingly unable to provide electricity, garbage pick-up,
smoothly functioning schools or other essential services.


12. (SBU) While the working class is complaining, there is a
perception that urban youth are simply tuned out of politics.
More seriously, there are signs that the urban poor are
showing less and less commitment to the democratic system. A
riot erupted over the governments failure to pick up the
garbage in Colobane, resulting in both injuries and arrests.
Hip hop is allegedly a culprit: although some singers have
political messages, two urban sociologists told us most tunes
reflect alienation or willingness to use violence. For those
not into music, there is another form of escape: buying a
seat on a nighttime fishing boat to the Canaries and the
dream of work and security in Spain.

CASAMANCE IN THE BACKGROUND
--------------

13. (SBU) Violence in the Casamance is an exception and an
affront to the Senegalese sense that theirs is a consensual
and non-confrontational society. While recent fighting,
laying of mines and banditry in the city of Bignona may be
distant, they create both self-doubt and criticism of the
government's approach to reestablishing peace. Wade, people
often said, was far better positioned than the Socialists to
wage peace in the Casamance, but he has not succeeded in six
years. Some question whether it was wise for Wade and the
military to seek, so far unsuccessfully, to destroy
recalcitrant rebels.

COMMENT
--------------

14. (C) This cable depicts current social and political
atmospherics in Dakar. The intensifying cynicism about
Wade's style of governing may be even worse in parts of the
countryside, but this hardly means all the criticism is true
or even well-founded. The widely-respected Director General
of Elections, Cheikh Gueye rejects the twin charges that Wade
has undermined the state and is rigging electoral
registration. Gueye told visiting Public Diplomacy speaker
Sheldon Gellar emphatically that elections are being prepared
by rofessionals who owe loyalty only to the state, an not
to Wade or the ruling party. Similarly, chages that Wade's
electoral maneuvers are illegal emain unproven. Our
impression is that Wade strves both to show his formal
respect for nationalinstitutions and to stay just within the
boundares of the law, for example by seeking parliamentary
approval of a political amnesty law or the eightmonth delay
in parliamentary elections.


15. C) A real danger is that an unfortunate "conjunctue"
or combination of events including energy shortages, problems
at high schools and universities, evidence of corruption in
the judiciary, deteriorating urban mobility in Dakar, gas
lines, mismanagement in the public sector, and the exodus of
young people to Spain, all set against the context of renewed
violence in the Casamance, will raise questions about Wade's
inability to provide either social services or stability.
Doubts about his competence are increasingly joined by
suspicions that he will hold onto power at all cost and rig
the coming elections. Before long, some Senegalese argue,
questions will be raised about his legitimacy as president
and these, in turn, could mutate into challenges to the
legitimacy of the democratic system. END COMMENT.
JACOBS