Senegal Election Delay Sparks Protest Bans, Internet Shutdowns

Welcome to Foreign Policy’s Africa Brief.

The highlights this week: Ukraine battles Russia in Sudan, the Rafah operation threatens Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel, and Ivory Coast wins AFCON.

If you would like to receive Africa Brief in your inbox every Wednesday, please sign up here.

Nigerian President Bola Tinubu has postponed a Monday meeting with his Senegalese counterpart, Macky Sall, at which he was expected to call for a reversal of the 10-month delay to Senegal’s presidential elections announced by Sall’s government last week.

Tinubu, who is the head of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) regional bloc, instead sent a delegation headed by the speaker of the ECOWAS parliament, Sidie Mohamed Tunis. Senegal’s National Assembly voted to postpone the election from Feb. 25 to Dec. 15 after forcibly expelling opposition members who tried to block the delay.

At least three Senegalese were killed in weekend protests over the postponement decision. Police used force and live ammunition as demonstrators shouted chants that included “Macky Sall is a dictator.” Opposition leader and former mayor of Dakar Khalifa Sall (not related to the president—Sall is a common surname in the country) extended his condolences to the family of Alpha Yoro Tounkara, a geography student at Gaston Berger University, who was killed during protests in the northern city of Saint-Louis. “The hearts of all democrats bleed in the face of this outbreak of clashes provoked by the unjustified halting of the electoral process,” he posted on X, formerly Twitter.

Thierno Alassane Sall, also no relation, is a presidential candidate who heads the Republic of Values party. He denounced what he called the “unacceptable brutal repression” of peaceful marches and called on President Sall to leave office on April 2, when his term was originally set to end.

A fresh round of demonstrations planned for Tuesday was postponed after the government banned protests and cut access to mobile internet services.

West African leaders gathered in Nigeria’s capital city of Abuja last Tuesday for an emergency ECOWAS session that had originally been convened to discuss last month’s announcement by Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger to jointly quit the now-12-member bloc. Discussions had to pivot to take into account Sall’s decision to overstay his mandate beyond the official April handover. ECOWAS called on Senegal to “urgently restore the electoral calendar,” but the bloc holds little leverage at a time when three nations led by military governments are already defying its demands.

Senegal was long considered the last bastion of West African democracy, having never postponed a presidential election or had a coup since independence in 1960. Former Prime Minister Aminata Touré, accused the president of “tarnishing” Senegal’s democratic image, “once respected everywhere.” Touré was briefly arrested and detained at a protest last week.

Experts say that Sall’s handpicked successor, current Prime Minister Amadou Ba, was in danger of losing the election and did not have the full backing of his governing coalition.

It’s a turn of fate in which the ruling party can be held responsible for its own downfall. In December, Ba was predicted to win after Sall ruled out seeking a third term, yet his margin narrowed significantly amid public resentment over the use of the courts to repress potential popular candidates and disqualify major opposition figures, including Ousmane Sonko, from the official candidates list. Both Sonko and the presidential candidate he endorsed after being banned, Bassirou Diomaye Faye, are in prison.

Sonko, a popular opposition politician among young Senegalese, was once seen as the greatest threat to the ruling coalition, but his African Patriots of Senegal for Work, Ethics, and Fraternity (PASTEF) party was dissolved amid accusations of inciting insurrection. In June 2023, Sonko was sentenced to two years for “corrupting youth”—a sex crime. Karim Wade, the candidate of the opposition Senegalese Democratic Party and son of Sall’s predecessor, Abdoulaye Wade (who attempted a third term), was disqualified for having dual French nationality, although Wade claimed he had renounced his French citizenship.

Unlike his mentor’s, Faye’s candidacy was approved by authorities, but he has been in prison since April 2023 on charges of insurrection, undermining state security, and plotting against the authority of the state. He is awaiting trial and is yet to be released to even engage in election campaigning.

A Ba presidency would have continued policies that many young Senegalese did not see as effective at providing jobs for them, as many have sought out irregular migration routes to Europe. Senegal performs poorly when it comes to measures of education, poverty, and human capital—“only slightly better than military-run countries in West Africa,” according to an analysis by the risk intelligence company Verisk Maplecroft. There is talk that Sall and his inner circle want to see how to reorganize or replace Ba as their candidate during the election delay, possibly with former Prime Minister Idrissa Seck. His critics, such as Khalifa Sall, say that the president intends to stay in power through a “constitutional coup” or play godfather to whoever succeeds him, which Macky Sall denies.

“I am absolutely seeking for nothing except to leave a country in peace and stability,” Sall said an interview with The Associated Press in Dakar on Saturday. Sall’s critics contend he should release Sonko and Faye.

Thirty-nine lawmakers in Senegal’s main opposition coalition, Liberate the People, and several others have filed legal challenges with the constitutional court.

However, Aïssata Tall Sall (no relation), Senegal’s justice minister, argued that the legal challenges did not fall within the constitutional court’s jurisdiction. “The postponement of the presidential election was carried out in full compliance with the Senegalese constitution,” she said.

Amid the chaos, the reputation of regional blocs such as ECOWAS and the African Union has been significantly damaged over their failure to deal with democratic backsliding. Tinubu’s threats last year to send a military force to Niger never materialized because Nigerian lawmakers opposed a war on their borders at a moment when Nigeria is struggling economically.

“ECOWAS is just a club for privileged diplomats and their heads of government,” said Saleh Bala, a retired brigadier general from the Nigerian military. He noted that the bloc does not provide any humanitarian services to the African public, adding that it is “only a noise maker.”

Niger and Nigeria have shut airspace to each other over sanctions imposed by Abuja. Over the weekend, Burkina Faso and Niger reiterated that they were also looking to quit the West African Economic and Monetary Union, which maintains the euro-pegged CFA franc “It’s not just the currency. Anything that maintains us in slavery, we’ll break these bonds,” said Burkina Faso’s military leader, Ibrahim Traoré.

In December, those two countries and Mali said they were looking at the option of creating their own monetary union, but this would require a newly created central bank and the adoption of another currency. The countries could consider resurfacing an old plan to help: Two years after independence in 1960, Mali created its own currency, the Malian franc, but abandoned it under pressure from France.

Monday, Feb. 12, to Saturday, Feb. 17: U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Molly Phee, U.S. Horn of Africa envoy Mike Hammer, and U.S. global AIDS chief John Nkengasong will travel to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, for the African Union Summit.

Thursday, Feb. 15: Nigeria releases its latest inflation data.

Thursday, Feb. 15, to Sunday, Feb. 18: Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will visit Egypt and Ethiopia, where he will attend the African Union Summit.

Saturday, Feb. 17, to Sunday, Feb. 18: African Union Summit takes place in Addis Ababa.

Egypt-Israel peace treaty. Egyptian Foreign Affairs Minister Sameh Shoukry has dismissed reports that Cairo is threatening to void a peace treaty with Israel over the expansion of Israel’s military offensive into Rafah, a southern Gaza Strip city that shares a border with Egypt. The agreement—signed at Camp David, Maryland, under U.S. mediation in September 1978—has facilitated more than 40 years of peace between Israel and Egypt. Israel insists Rafah is Hamas’s last remaining stronghold, but Egypt opposes any move that could send desperate Palestinians fleeing across the border onto its territory, arguing that Israel must provide safety for Gazans. Egypt warned against “systematic” Israeli measures aiming to displace Gazans into Egypt’s Sinai region, describing them as a “red line.”

South Africa ICJ case. The South African government has made an appeal to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for it to decide whether Israel’s extension of military offensives into Rafah violates the rights of Palestinians in Gaza. The ICJ previously ordered Israel to take measures to prevent genocidal acts, prevent and punish incitement to genocide, and immediately enable humanitarian relief in Gaza.

Congo protests. Congolese demonstrators gathered in the capital Kinshasa at the U.S. and French embassies and the offices of the United Nations mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, known as MONUSCO, to protest insecurity in the eastern part of the country. They demanded that Western organizations leave Congo. “We don’t want your hypocrisy,” some chanted. Police dispersed the crowd using tear gas.

South Africa said on Monday that it will send 2,900 troops to eastern Congo as part of its contribution to the Southern African Development Community (SADC) regional bloc, which has deployed a force to tackle armed groups in Congo.

Ukraine-Russia in Sudan. Several videos have appeared over recent months showing Ukrainian special forces operating counteroffensives in Sudan. Video reportedly from Ukrainian intelligence, published last week in the Kyiv Post, shows two Sudanese soldiers and a Russian soldier taken prisoner and blindfolded with yellow duct tape. The Russian prisoner claims that he is one of 100 “PMC Wagner” mercenaries who came into Sudan from the Central African Republic “to overthrow the local government.”

The clashes are reportedly part of Ukrainian efforts to deepen ties overseas by working with the Sudanese military to weaken Russia’s interests abroad. In September, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he’d held an impromptu meeting with the head of Sudan’s military government, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, while traveling through an airport in Ireland. “We discussed our common security challenges, namely, the activities of illegal armed groups financed by Russia,” Zelensky said.

Previous videos have circulated showing Ukrainian drone strikes against Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which reports suggest are backed by Moscow and the United Arab Emirates.

Sudan’s warring generals—RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemeti, and Burhan, who commands Sudan’s army—are fighting for control of the country. The presence of Ukrainian soldiers further adds to unaccountable military violence in the country. Some 25 million Sudanese—nearly half the population—need humanitarian assistance and protection, according to U.N. experts, and nearly 18 million are going hungry. Aid agencies say Sudan’s war has been forgotten as relief funds are diverted to Ukraine and Gaza.

AFCON’s comeback kings. Ivory Coast beat Nigeria 2-1 to win its third Africa Cup of Nations on Sunday, capping off a dramatic journey for a team that lost two out of its three group stage matches and sacked its French coach mid-tournament after a humbling 4-0 defeat by Equatorial Guinea. The host nation replaced former coach Jean-Louis Gasset with his assistant, French-born Ivorian Emerse Faé, who made several key changes to turn around his country’s fortunes and eliminate reigning champions Senegal in a penalty shootout. “We showed that we know how to bounce back despite the hard times,” Faé said. This is the third consecutive AFCON tournament in which an African coach has led a team to victory, following Senegal in 2021 and Algeria in 2019.

There was a 40 percent increase in prize money, to $7 million, which motivated players and resulted in the electrifying upsets seen at this year’s games. Beyond that, it means a lot for African soccer players to play for their national teams as AFCON’s global popularity rises. Nearly 2 billion people around the world watched AFCON. “We should be proud as Africans and the next one will be even better,” said Patrice Motsepe, the president of the Confederation of African Football, which organizes AFCON.

Europe’s concerns around migration now drive its engagement with African nations, as covered in last week’s brief. But it’s evident that Africa’s interests are fundamentally different from Europe’s.

Leaders in Egypt and Nigeria—Africa’s largest economies—are looking to increase official remittances from skilled workers abroad as a significant source of foreign exchange earnings, as India and China have done. Evidence from the Asian Development Bank and World Bank suggests that “remittance-receiving households spend more on housing, health, and education than those with no remittances.” Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly wants to double the money sent from Egyptian expats, aiming to reach $45 billion by 2026.

AFCON’s reverse migration. “Aspiring soccer players used to leave the continent to pursue their dreams in Europe. Now they are coming home,” writes Afolabi Adekaiyaoja in Foreign Policy. European national teams have largely built their squads on players with family roots across the African continent. In 2022, Morocco became the first African nation to reach a semifinal at a FIFA World Cup, using the reverse tactic and drawing players from its European diaspora. Among Nigeria’s ranks at this year’s AFCON were U.K.-born Ademola Lookman and Dutch-born captain William Troost-Ekong.

Myths on Fanon. Frantz Fanon is often regarded by scholars as a staunch anti-colonial figure due to his unwavering support of the Algerian war of independence from France. In Foreign Policy, Kevin Ochieng Okoth argues that “Fanon had little influence over its direction and politics” and had instead “become a captive of the revolution he’d hoped to ignite.” Okoth reviews Adam Shatz’s new biography of Fanon, which suggests that his thinking was often contradictory. Fanon underestimated the Cold War’s impact on Africa, “insisting that it was merely ‘a distraction,’” Okoth writes.