Why unpopular Macky Sall tried to postpone the elections

By Amy Niang

The botched attempt by Senegalese president Macky Sall to postpone the presidential election has stirred unnecessary tension in an already strained electoral process. The move reflected deeper governance problems in the country.

Sall’s decree, subsequently annulled by the Constitutional Council, was the latest in a range of government interventions that exceeded the scope of the executive authority. These have included the disqualification of key opposition candidates, the manipulation of judicial procedures, and the arbitrary detention of dissenting figures.

Sall’s 12-year tenure has been marked by contradictions. His administration boosted investment in transport and urban infrastructure. Notably, he worked on the motorway network, the new Diass international airport, the development of major roads and the completion of public transport projects.

But these investments have not translated into improvements in the lives of Senegalese. Thousands of young people still go on perilous journeys to Europe having lost hope of fulfilling their potential in their own country.

This is the backdrop to his move to postpone the elections in a last bid to secure a winning strategy for his camp. His anointed successor, Amadou Ba, remains a contested figure within the ruling Alliance for the Republic Party.

I have a research interest in state formation in west Africa. As I have argued in my work, states sustain themselves by producing and alienating internal “others”. This refers to a scenario where governments assert sovereignty not against outside forces but against internal cultural groups and existing logics of governance. Sall’s style of government follows this pattern closely.

Crisis within his party

Sall said he was postponing elections because of an alleged conflict between parliament and the Constitutional Council. The parliament had approved the creation of a commission of inquiry into the process of validation of presidential candidacies by the Constitutional Council.

Sall in fact latched onto an accusation of corruption levelled by Karim Wade against two Constitutional Council judges following Karim’s disqualification from running in the election due to his dual citizenship.

But the most plausible reason was a crisis within the ruling camp. The Alliance for the Republic is a divided party that is going to the elections in disarray. Sall’s chosen successor, Ba, has generated little enthusiasm among voters. He symbolises the status quo. An affluent candidate, Ba has the difficult task of convincing an impoverished electorate that he is up to the task.

Sall overstepped his constitutional powers. The Senegalese constitution’s limitation of the president’s term duration can’t be amended. Further, according to the electoral code, the decree setting a date for presidential elections must be published no later than 80 days before the scheduled ballot. Sall postponed the poll just 12 hours before the campaigning was due to start, and 22 days before the ballot.

Sall’s attempt at postponing the elections, which has fostered a climate of distrust in the integrity of the electoral process, has left Senegal embroiled in a serious constitutional crisis. His decree brought forth two important issues:

  • the government’s commitment to an orderly handover of power
  • the integrity of the democratic process.

Protesters barricade a street in reaction to postponement of the presidential election in Dakar, Senegal on 9 February. Cem Ozdel/Anadolu via Getty Images

Erosion of a democratic tradition

Since 2021, a series of protests and riots have pitted Ousmane Sonko, a key opposition figure facing rape allegations, and his supporters against a government accused of manipulating the judiciary to thwart a serious candidate. As a result, the economy has been severely disrupted. Each day of protests causes an estimated $33 million loss in economic output.

Further, Sall has used security and defence forces to establish an order of fear. He has resorted to heavy-handed measures against opposition figures and dissenting voices within civil society through arbitrary detention and prosecution. His government has systematically restricted the freedom of assembly, banned protests, suppressed independent media and mobilised public resources to bolster the ruling party.

For all these reasons, Senegal has seen an erosion of institutions meant to uphold the rule of law, foster political participation and ensure public accountability.

Sall was elected in 2012 after a tumultuous period under the flamboyant government of President Abdoulaye Wade. Sall owes his entire political career to Wade’s patronage. Yet their relationship soured when it became evident that Sall harboured ambitions to challenge Wade’s son, Karim, who was being groomed to succeed his father.

Sall pledged to deliver virtuous and frugal governance. But public euphoria soon petered out as scandals involving cabinet ministers and close family members laid bare the corruption within the administration.

In 2023, amid much brouhaha over the validity of a third term, Sall yielded to public pressure after violent protests. These resulted in the most serious political crisis since the 1960s, claiming over 60 lives and leading to the arrest of over 1,000 people.

Where to for Senegal?

In compliance with the Constitutional Council ruling, Sall has finally agreed to organise elections before his exit.

As the election day of 24 March draws near, the absence of key contenders, and uncertainties regarding the electoral procedures, inject an element of unpredictability.

Furthermore, the erosion of trust is such that the Senegalese public still doubts Sall’s commitment to fulfil his obligations and facilitate an orderly handover.

This article was first published on the Conversation: https://theconversation.com/2024-senegal-election-crisis-points-to-deeper-issues-with-macky-sall-and-his-preferred-successor-223035

Dollar Brand: at 90 and still going strong

Abdullah Ibrahim: South Africa’s master pianist is going on a world tour at 90

By Christine Lucia

South African pianist Abdullah Ibrahim in 2014. Andy Sheppard/Redferns/Getty Images

Abdullah Ibrahim, South Africa’s most distinguished pianist, was born on 9 October 1934 in Cape Town. This year marks not only his 90th birthday but also the start of a world tour. Christine Lucia has studied Ibrahim’s work and published research articles about him. We asked her why he is so important.

Who is Abdullah Ibrahim and what shaped him?

Abdullah Ibrahim is the finest jazz pianist-composer that South Africa has ever produced – even in such a jazz-rich country. He is the country’s equivalent of the US jazz star Duke Ellington, because his legacy lies not only in his live performances or multiple recordings but also in his large number of compositions.

He was brought up going by the name Dollar Brand and was shaped personally by his mixed-race parentage and by growing up in the mixed-race area of central Cape Town formerly known as District Six. The area was demolished during the 1970s by the white minority apartheid regime and 60,000 people were forced to live far outside Cape Town on the Cape Flats. He was shaped by this violent political landscape of racism and oppression. As a young man he was also shaped by his conversion to Islam in 1968, which is when he took the name Abdullah Ibrahim, and by his practice of martial arts and zen (a form of Buddhism).

He was shaped musically by the variety of different musics he heard in Cape Town. These include jazz, the Cape carnival troupes known as klopse and the music of people who practised the Sufi branch of Islam in the Cape and whose chanting, drumming and dancing he witnessed. He was influenced by the Christian hymns played by his mother and other music he heard at the African Methodist Episcopal Church, which included gospel and African-American spirituals. He was shaped by jazz and dance band music and by African traditional music from Lesotho, the country of his father; even by Indian classical music and western art music.

What distinguishes his work?

His work as a composer is distinguished by its pianism and its international flavour with a strong dose of South Africa. He has also played flute, cello and soprano sax – which gave him insights into ensemble playing – but he is above all a brilliant pianist.

He has written great tunes but it is his harmonies, textures, colours, rhythms, phrasing and pianistic flow that make his compositions outstanding. His recordings are distinguished by the huge development of jazz style and treatment within them over 70 years. His music of the 1960s contains some really avant-garde (experimental) sounds; his music from the 1970s and 1980s is full of references to Africa in the titles of pieces and within the music itself. In the 1990s, with the fall of apartheid, Ibrahim’s music took on a more sentimental mood. In later life he became more interested in arrangements, in orchestrating his music.

Another thing that distinguishes his career is that while he has always written new pieces he has also constantly reinvented and reimagined old ones, mainly through his own playing and often in his solo playing. It is as if he is remembering through his hands.

Memory plays a key role in all his music: he is always looking back, and sometimes he finds something there that helps us face the future. This doesn’t just apply to pieces, it applies to the way he plays. He could always be quite sparse, but in the past 10 years the pared-down simplicity of his playing, its clean lines, is more introspective, more philosophical.

In the 1970s and 1980s he was the darling of the anti-apartheid movement because of the promise of freedom in his music and his going into exile. The same music speaks now to scattered hopes, which makes it almost unbearably poignant.

You can hear this in his rendition of Wedding on his 2021 album Solotude. Listening to this, people of my generation remember those fierce solo performances he gave when this song first appeared in the 1970s, those huge build-ups on the keyboard that ended very loud, both hands playing rapid repeated chords (his trademark tremolo). It sounded like a hymn to freedom. Now, when playing this same piece his hands trace notes sporadically and gently on the keyboard, like a ghost, with the tune in his right hand occasionally ahead of the change of chords in the left. Minimal.

What are his career highlights?

The album Jazz Epistle – Verse 1, made in 1960 with Dollar Brand, Mackay Davashe, Hugh Masekela, Jonas Gwangwa and Kippie Moeketsi, a quintet of the foremost jazz musicians of the day, was among the first black jazz recordings in South Africa. It was also a milestone in the careers of all participants, several of whom went into exile.

Dollar Brand and his wife Sathima Bea Benjamin went into exile in 1962, at first in Zurich. While he was there, Duke Ellington heard him play in 1963 and immediately produced the album Duke Ellington presents The Dollar Brand Trio.

In 1965 the couple moved to New York, which was their home for many years with only occasional trips back to South Africa. They founded their own record label in 1981, Ekapa (The Cape), although he continued to record with the Enja label. Ekapa also became the name of the septet he formed in 1983. He composed music for the award-winnning film Chocolat in 1988.

In 1990 he gave triumphant “homecoming” concerts when Nelson Mandela and other anti-apartheid activists were released from prison. In the 1990s, now spending part of his time abroad and part at home, Ibrahim began expanding his sound world into orchestral arrangements of his music, performing his African Symphony in Munich in 2001. In 1994 he performed, memorably, at Mandela’s presidential inauguration. There have been many other memorable concerts and awards in his recent career. His “home concert” online during the COVID-19 pandemic reveals his more intimate side.

Is it common to be performing at 90? What’s his secret?

In some professions, like conducting, yes. But it’s rare. Great pianists of the past played on into their 90s but made more and more mistakes playing the same music the same way. Abdullah Ibrahim has pared down his playing as he has grown older, distilled it. Like well-matured brandy, you only need a sip and everything is there.

Of course, he could also be minimal in his youth, but now it’s for a different reason, because he’s in a very different space. He has become more and more zen. I imagine him as very disciplined, which I am sure has helped him maintain his health and strength as an artist. His 2024 tour looks punishing, but he is taking plenty of breaks in between concerts in Italy, South Africa, Germany and the US. Abdullah Ibrahim ends his world tour in Bavaria, where the final concerts are scheduled to be given immediately after he turns 90, on 9 October.

This article was first published on the Conversation: https://theconversation.com/abdullah-ibrahim-south-africas-master-pianist-is-going-on-a-world-tour-at-90-225026

Undersea cables for Africa’s internet are vulnerable

By Jess Auerbach Jahajeeah Associate Professor, Graduate School of Business, University of Cape Town

Large parts of west and central Africa, as well as some countries in the south of the continent, were left without internet services on 14 March because of failures on four of the fibre optic cables that run below the world’s oceans. Nigeria, Côte d’Ivoire, Liberia, Ghana, Burkina Faso and South Africa were among the worst affected. By midday on 15 March the problem had not been resolved. Microsoft warned its customers that there was a delay in repairing the cables. South Africa’s News24 reported that, while the cause of the damage had not been confirmed, it was believed that “the cables snapped in shallow waters near the Ivory Coast, where fishing vessels are likely to operate”.

Jess Auerbach Jahajeeah, an associate professor at the University of Cape Town’s Graduate School of Business, is currently writing a book on fibre optic cables and digital connectivity. She spent time in late 2023 aboard the ship whose crew is responsible for maintaining most of Africa’s undersea network. She spoke to The Conversation Africa about the importance of these cables.

1. What’s the geographical extent of Africa’s current undersea network?

Fibre optic cables now literally encircle Africa, though some parts of the continent are far better connected than others. This is because both public and private organisations have made major investments in the past ten years.

Based on an interactive map of fibre optic cables, it’s clear that South Africa is in a relatively good position. When the breakages happened, the network was affected for a few hours before the internet traffic was rerouted; a technical process that depends both on there being alternative routes available and corporate agreements in place to enable the rerouting. It’s the same as driving using a tool like Google Maps. If there’s an accident on the road it finds another way to get you to your destination.

But, in several African countries – including Sierra Leone and Liberia – most of the cables don’t have spurs (the equivalent of off-ramps on the road), so only one fibre optic cable actually comes into the country. Internet traffic from these countries basically stops when the cable breaks.

Naturally that has huge implications for every aspect of life, business and even politics. Whilst some communication can be rerouted via satellites, satellite traffic accounts for only about 1% of digital transmissions globally. Even with interventions such as satellite-internet distribution service Starlink it’s still much slower and much more expensive than the connection provided by undersea cables.

Basically all internet for regular people relies on fibre optic cables. Even landlocked countries rely on the network, because they have agreements with countries with landing stations – highly-secured buildings close to the ocean where the cable comes up from underground and is plugged into terrestrial systems. For example southern Africa’s internet comes largely through connections in Melkbosstrand, just outside Cape Town, and Mtunzini in northern KwaZulu-Natal, both in South Africa. Then it’s routed overland to various neighbours.

Each fibre optic cable is extremely expensive to build and to maintain. Depending on the technical specifications (cables can have more or fewer fibre threads and enable different speeds for digital traffic) there are complex legal agreements in place for who is responsible for which aspects of maintenance.

2. What prompted you to write a book about the social history of fibre optic cables in Africa?

I first visited Angola in 2011 to start work for my PhD project. The internet was all but non-existent – sending an email took several minutes at the time. Then I went back in 2013, after the South Atlantic Cable System went into operation. It made an incredible difference: suddenly Angola’s digital ecosystem was up and running and everybody was online.

At the time I was working on social mobility and how people in Angola were improving their lives after a long war. Unsurprisingly, having digital access made all sorts of things possible that simply weren’t imaginable before. I picked up my interest again once I was professionally established, and am now writing it up as a book, Capricious Connections. The title refers to the fact that the cables wouldn’t do anything if it wasn’t for the infrastructure that they plug into at various points.

Landing centres such as Sangano in Angola are fascinating both because of what they do technically (connecting and routing internet traffic all over the country) and because they often highlight the complexities of the digital divide.

For example, Sangano is a remarkable high tech facility run by an incredibly competent and socially engaged company, Angola Cables. Yet the school a few hundred metres from the landing station still doesn’t have electricity.

When we think about the digital divide in Africa, that’s often still the reality: you can bring internet everywhere but if there’s no infrastructure, skills or frameworks to make it accessible, it can remain something abstract even for those who live right beside it.

In terms of history, fibre optic cables follow all sorts of fascinating global precedents. The 2012 cable that connected one side of the Atlantic Ocean to the other is laid almost exactly over the route of the transatlantic slave trade, for example. Much of the basic cable map is layered over the routes of the copper telegraph network that was essential for the British empire in the 1800s.

Most of Africa’s cables are maintained at sea by the remarkable crew of the ship Léon Thévenin. I joined them in late 2023 during a repair operation off the coast of Ghana. These are uniquely skilled artisans and technicians who retrieve and repair cables, sometimes from depths of multiple kilometres under the ocean.

When I spent time with the crew last year, they recounted once accidentally retrieving a section of Victorian-era cable when they were trying to “catch” a much more recent fibre optic line. (Cables are retrieved in many ways; one way is with a grapnel-like hook that is dragged along the ocean bed in roughly the right location until it snags the cable.)

There are some very interesting questions emerging now about what is commonly called digital colonialism. In an environment where data is often referred to with terms like “the new oil”, we’re seeing an important change in digital infrastructure.

Previously cables were usually financed by a combination of public and private sector partnerships, but now big private companies such as Alphabet, Meta and Huawei are increasingly financing cable infrastructure. That has serious implications for control and monitoring of digital infrastructure.

Given we all depend so much on digital tools, poorer countries often have little choice but to accept the terms and conditions of wealthy corporate entities. That’s potentially incredibly dangerous for African digital sovereignty, and is something we should be seeing a lot more public conversation about.

This story was first published by the Conversation: https://theconversation.com/undersea-cables-for-africas-internet-retrace-history-and-leave-digital-gaps-as-they-connect-continents-225912