Senegal: Presidential Candidates Concerned about Health, Rule of Law and Youth Employment

Dakar — The campaigning continues in Senegal with the 19 candidates for the presidential election, but at this stage – with a few weeks to go – the candidates no longer have time to go to the nooks and crannies of the country to meet citizens.

Here are summaries of their plans if they were successful at the March 24 polls:

Khalifa Ababacar Sall, a candidate of the Khalifa President coalition, presents to the Senegalese a program inspired by the conclusions of the national meetings, he indicates, which is centered around the triptych ‘Human, Water, Earth’, and is structured around five strategic points.

His concern is to strengthen “our living together by relying on the genius of our people and on our republican motto: one people, one goal, one faith”. Family, school, culture, and Senegal’s values, he said, will be the “levers” on which he is committed to “preserving the tradition of the united nation, rich in its diversity and open to all fraternities”.

Sall wants to rebuild governance around a republican pact, with the necessary reforms for a republic – guaranteeing the rule of law, the effectiveness of the separation of powers, and the free exercise of human rights.

He will position employment as a national cause to encourage and promote the skills, energy, and creativity of young people.

Candidate Déthie Fall said his vision is to make Senegal “a country good to live in and beautiful to see” in the next five years.

The result of this is to free, as a priority, the Senegalese people from social stress, a consequence of difficulties in accessing health, to have a quality school, to eat regularly of good quality, and to find decent accommodation, Fall said.

In his presentation, he underlines his desire to transform Senegal into a sovereign country, a complete democracy and economic emergence driven by industrialization supported mainly by the national private sector.

For Thierno Alassane Sall, making the country the showcase of democracy in West Africa, is key. This will be done by strengthening the credibility and authority of the institutions of the Republic.

He also wants to make Senegal the factory of West Africa by developing an industrial infrastructure capable of developing national resources and helping to transform the structure of the national economy.

Thierno Alassane Sall mentioned making Senegal the hospital of West Africa by reducing inequalities in access to health services and placing emphasis on prevention, thus expanding coverage and adapting it to new social needs.

In his presentation, he lays the foundations of an integrated knowledge economy encompassing education, training, research, culture, and sport.

The candidate of the Union and Rally Party (PUR), Aliou Mamadou Dia with his Humanism and Prosperity program shares his vision of a “prosperous Senegal built on equity, transparency, righteousness, unity and respect for human dignity”.

In his program, he expresses his vision of change which is based on the hypothesis of popular support for the new action points adopted. “We have developed a theory of change which describes the mechanisms that we will implement to make Senegal prosperous,” he says.

According to Aliou Mamadou Dia, the implementation of this vision will be done through 4 transformative pillars which are the development of human capital, the competitive, sustainable, and inclusive economy, governance, peace, balance of institutions, and finally inclusion and social protection.

In light of the above, Senegalese citizens can hope for a better future after the election on March 24.