Civil society groups have urged Senegalese authorities to change the process through which political reforms are carried out, as a new wave of reforms are announced by the country's new leadership.

The groups said unless the process changes, the many years of efforts towards democratic reform will yield no results for the benefits of the Senegalese people, among other things, according to findings of a study just released by AFRIMAP.

AFRIMAP, a project of the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA) has just released the latest in a series of research studies on Old Democracies and Lack of reforms—a case study of Senegal.

"In Senegal, the country has done quite well on the surface. They have experienced political transition at least twice in 2000 and then 2012. So you'll think this is a country that is functioning and yet (this is one of the biggest findings of this report) you see that democracy has many illnesses/shortcomings in Senegal…,” Pascal Kambale, Deputy Director of AFRIMAP told West Africa Democracy Radio (WADR) on Monday.

The new government of President Macky Sall recently announced the launch of new reforms to clear the public administration of fraud and malpractices, in order to benefit the Senegalese population.

But civil society groups in Senegal fear this might not yield any good results, unless there is first a fundamental change in the way political reforms are implemented in this West African nation.

The civil society groups argue that many reforms with good objectives have failed to yield expected results over the years due to "unclear procedures,” urging Senegalese officials to review the reform implementation process in place before new reforms kick off.

Although he was elected on for a seven-year term of office based on Senegal's constitution, President Sall has said he would reduce the term to five, fulfilling his campaign promise. No constitutional amendment has been made yet.

Pascal Kambale, Director of AFRIMAP holds exclusive interview with WADR Kara Thioune.

Click audio below to listen

Meanwhile, the Senegalese government has said new moves were underway to review existing reforms.

Speaking at the launch of the AFRIMAP/OSIWA latest study on Monday, Senegal's Minister for Good Governance affairs, Abdou Latif Coulibaly told WADR's Kara Thioune that efforts were being made to address reform procedures in the country.

Click audio below to listen

[plus audio links provided here: http://wadr.org/en/site/news_en/3864/New-study-identifies-illnesses-in-Senegal%E2%80%99s-democracy.htm]

Back