Senegalese opposition protest against government and power cuts

Senegalese opposition supporters took to the streets of Dakar on Saturday to protest against President Abdoulaye Wade. More than 1,000 demonstrators say they are fed up with electricity outages, flood water and increasing food prices.

AFP / I. Sanogo

“Mainly women lined up in the streets of central Dakar for at least two hours,” Dakar correspondent Sheriff Bojang told RFI.

“Senegal is fed up with a regime of lies and deception,” sang some of the protestors on the streets of the capital.

Not even the humid weather, hunger or thirst could stop the protesters from singing and chanting

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Senegal protests report

Sheriff Bojang jr

There have been weeks of power cuts in the west African country, which come at a time when the rainy season brings flooding to the suburbs.

The protesters, under the banner of the main opposition coalition, Bennoo Siggil Senegal (United to Boost Senegal) were initially denied a permit by the police to hold the march for what the authorities claimed to be issues of national security.

Dakar mayor Khalifa Ababacar Sall said he took to the streets to show “solidarity with the population” of his city.

Mustapha Niasse, a former Prime Minister and opposition leader describes "so many difficulties in this country,” which he blames on the government.

Wade, the 84-year-old Senegalese president, has been in office since 2000, and recently there have been some accusations that he is positioning his 41-year-old son Karim to inherit his premiership. Karim was made minister of international cooperation, regional planning and air transport and infrastructure in Wade’s government.

“He should clear off with his son and family, we don’t want him anymore, and we don’t want his thugs around anymore,” one of the female protestors told Bojang.

“The people have had enough of Abdoulaye Wade, enough of his regime, enough of his misgovernance,” says Abdoulaye Batchily, another opposition leader.

Bojang says Wade’s supporters still “insist he is still the right man for the job” although the “popularity and momentum that brought him to power in 2000 is quickly fading”.

Government spokesperson Mamadou Lamine Keita told a press conference on Friday that the march was “an intolerable cowardly act”. The power cuts were “in the process of returning to normal”. Some reports indicate an end to outages by Sunday.