About 84% of Senegalese citizens want democracy ahead of any other form of governance.

An Afrobarometer survey says 79% of the sample population also want to stick to presidential term limits.

There’s a growing concern that, under current President Macky Sall, democracy is on the decline.

The majority of Senegalese citizens are not happy with the way democracy is working in their country and are strongly opposed to a third presidential term, a recent Afrobarometer survey has found.

The report adds the vast majority of Senegalese reject presidential dictatorship (89%), one-party rule (87%) and military governments (71%), and affirm their preference for democracy (84%).

This attitude over limiting presidential terms has been strong since 2013 when President Macky Sall, 61, replaced Abdoulaye Wade as head of state.

Wade had attempted to force a third term, but the electorate rejected him for Sall, then a rising champion for democracy.

“Eight out of 10 citizens (79%) have campaigned in favour of limiting presidential terms to two, and have done so since 2013,” Afrobarometer said.

Senegal was rocked last week by nationwide riots after the two-year sentence of 48-year-old presidential aspirant Ousmane Sonko, of the African Patriots of Senegal for Work, Ethics and Fraternity (PASTEF) party.

Sonko was sentenced to two years in prison for “corrupting the youth”, a “sexual crime” lesser than rape. If the conviction stands, he will not be eligible for next year’s elections.

Sonko has a robust youth following, and many are starting to believe that Senegal’s democracy is backsliding under Sall.

The report states:

The majority (53%) of citizens think that Senegal is ‘not a democracy’ or is a ‘democracy with major problems’, an increase of 8 percentage points compared to 2021.

“More than half (51%) of Senegalese say they are dissatisfied with the way democracy works in their country.”

In 2001, during Wade’s first year in office, Senegal had a constitutional referendum that enacted the two-term limit clause.

Each term was for five years, down from seven.

But in July 2008, still under Wade, the term limit was changed back to seven years.

This extension had no effect on Wade’s second term between 2007-12.

This meant that the next president of Senegal would enjoy a seven-year term.

But Wade had bigger ideas – a third term.

In his way stood a youthful Sall, who forced the January 2012 poll to a March runoff and eventually came to power.

In 2016, Sall reduced the presidential term limit from seven years to five years. This meant that instead of a possible 14 years in office, he would have a decade.

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With current developments, if he pushes for a controversial third term, Sall could stretch his rule to 15 years.

However, like Wade, there’s a youthful challenger in his way and an agitated electorate.