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DAKAR: Senegal’s former leader Macky Sall, who earlier this year sparked one of the worst crises in decades by delaying the presidential election, is seeking a controversial comeback in Sunday’s snap parliamentary elections.
Sall left office in April after 12 years in power, handing over the reins to his successor Bassirou Diomaye Faye and departing Senegal for Morocco.
The ex-president is now leading a newly formed opposition coalition from abroad, raising questions over the motives behind his return to the political fray and what it could mean for the West African country.
Sall’s longtime political foe, current Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko, has repeatedly suggested that members of the former administration, including Sall, could be brought before the courts.
He has accused Sall’s administration of leaving behind “catastrophic” public finances and manipulating financial figures given to international partners, which the previous leaders deny.
Political science professor Maurice Soudieck Dione sees Sall’s return as an attempt “to get a grip on the political game in order to protect his own interests” in the event of any “political recriminations.”
There is also a “personal dimension around him not having had his fill of power,” Dione suggested, pointing out that Sall had for a time toyed with the idea of running for a third presidential term.
Well respected on the international stage, Sall’s final years in power were marred by a political standoff with Sonko that led to dozens of deaths and hundreds of arrests.
His last-minute decision to postpone the presidential election in February then sparked one of Senegal’s worst crises in decades.
The thirst for change among a hard-pressed population saw Sall’s hand-picked successor, Amadou Ba, crushed at the ballot box by Sonko’s former deputy Faye.
Faye and Sonko had been released from prison just ten days before the vote.
Faye dissolved the opposition-dominated parliament in September, paving the way for legislative elections.

In returning to politics so soon, Sall has broken with the restraint normally adopted by former presidents in Senegal.
As the lead candidate for the Takku Wallu Senegal coalition, Sall justified his comeback in a five-page letter, citing the need to defend the “achievements” of his time in power.
He warned of the looming political and economic “dangers” faced by Senegal after months of “calamitous governance” by the new administration.
Presidential spokesman Ousseynou Ly decried Sall’s “indecency” on social media, blaming the former head of state for years of what he described as deadly unrest, debt and corruption.
As the election approaches, Sonko is traveling the length and breadth of Senegal promising economic transformation to excited crowds, while Sall addresses less rowdy audiences via speakerphone.
The former president can, officially, return to the country whenever he chooses.
“If he were to return to the country, we would ensure his safety because he is a citizen and former President of the Republic,” government spokesman Amadou Moustapha Ndieck Sarre told the Senegalese radio station RFM.
“But if he returns and the courts decide to arrest him, neither the prime minister nor the head of state can do anything about it,” he said.
Sonko has recently spoken of “high treason” in relation to what he termed the “catastrophic” state of public finances left by Sall’s administration.
High treason is the only case in which a president can be charged.
Legally, this would be “very complicated,” said El Hadji Mamadou Mbaye, a political science lecturer and researcher at the University of Saint-Louis.
Sall is returning to politics because “in reality he never wanted to leave power,” Mbaye said. “He feels indispensable.”
But “I don’t think the Senegalese are ready to forgive,” he added.
“If he had returned, the campaign would have been much more eventful, bordering on violent,” said political science professor Dionne.
“He had to carry out a very harsh crackdown on the opposition,” he added, referring to the years of turmoil.
“The wounds have not healed.”
 

NEW YORK CITY: Not only are Israeli authorities seeking to clear northern Gaza of Palestinians by displacing them to the south of the territory, but their actions pose a grave risk of atrocities of “the most serious nature,” the UN warned on Tuesday. 

Ilze Brands Kehris, the organization’s assistant secretary-general for human rights, urged all states to assess their arms sales or transfers “with a view to ending such support if this risks serious violations of international law.”

Speaking during a meeting of the Security Council to discuss the growing risk of famine in Gaza, she described the humanitarian and human rights situation for Palestinians across the battered enclave as “catastrophic.”

The meeting followed an alert issued at the weekend by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification Famine Review Committee, which said there was “a strong likelihood that famine is imminent in areas within the northern Gaza Strip.” It called for the international community to act “in days, not weeks” to address this threat.

Figures verified by the UN Human Rights Office reveal that almost 70 percent of those killed in Gaza since the war began in October last year were children, mostly between the ages of 5 and 9 years old, or women. According to the Palestinian health ministry, the total death toll from the conflict stands at least 43,000 Palestinians, and more than 100,000 have been injured.

However, these figures are likely to be “a serious understatement,” Brands Kehris told the Security Council, because the bodies of many other victims are thought to be buried under rubble.

Nearly 1.9 million people in Gaza have been displaced, many of them repeatedly, including pregnant women, people with disabilities, the elderly and children, she said. Meanwhile, Israeli strikes on shelters and residential buildings continue to kill unconscionable numbers of civilians, she added: women, men, young and old.

“Attacks on so-called ‘safe zones’ prove that nowhere in Gaza is safe,” Brands Kehris said.

The destruction of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure by the Israeli military — including facilities that enjoy protected status under international law, such as hospitals, schools and vital services such as including power supplies, water and sewage — is directly contributing to the risk of famine, she added.

In addition, Israeli forces have killed hundreds of medical personnel, civilian police officers, journalists and humanitarian aid workers, including more than 220 UN staff, she said, and thousands of Palestinians have been taken from Gaza to Israel, usually shackled and blindfolded, where they are held incommunicado.

“Meanwhile, there is constant and continued interference with the entry and distribution of humanitarian assistance, which has fallen to some of the lowest levels in a year,” Brands Kehris added.

“The cumulative impact of more than a year of destruction in Gaza has taken an enormous toll. Basic services for Palestinians in Gaza, the fabric of society, have been decimated. Conditions of life, particularly in northern Gaza, are increasingly not fit for survival.

“This horrific possibility cannot be separated from the unrelenting attacks on the human rights of civilians there.”

Over the past five weeks, she said, Israeli strikes have resulted in massive civilian fatalities in northern Gaza, particularly among women, children, the elderly, the sick and people with disabilities, many of whom are reportedly “trapped by Israeli military restrictions and attacks on escape routes.”

She added: “The pattern and the frequency of these reported attacks suggest the systematic targeting of locations known, or which should have been known, as sheltering significant numbers of civilians, coupled with the continued use of weapons with wide-area effects in populated areas.

“The Israeli military has also conducted repeated attacks on the three major hospitals in the area and on other vital infrastructure, while unlawfully restricting the entry and distribution of humanitarian assistance to northern Gaza.”

Brands Kehris echoed a call by the high commissioner for human rights for an end to the war, the release of Israeli hostages, and the urgent delivery and distribution of humanitarian aid to Gaza “by all routes.”

There must also be “due reckoning” over allegations of serious violations of international law, she said, overseen by “credible and impartial judicial authorities.”

She added: “In line with the International Court of Justice’s advisory opinion and the General Assembly resolution, Israel must end its continued presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory as rapidly as possible, allowing the Palestinian people to exercise their right to self-determination.”