"Republican elegance," to the very end (By Dr. C. Tidiane Sow)

A beautiful page deserves to be taken at its word, according to its own principle.

One could not put it better, and that is why I take the author at his word. “Republican elegance is the strength that accepts to bow before the law.” So be it. Let us then take this principle to its logical conclusion—for a principle that only holds true for one side immediately ceases to be a principle at all.

Let us begin with the law itself, since it is being invoked. Article 103 of the Constitution entrusts the initiative for its revision concurrently to the President of the Republic and to the members of Parliament. Concurrently: on equal footing. A majority that submits a proposal for revision is therefore not usurping anything; it is exercising a prerogative that the Fundamental Law recognizes, word for word, on the same basis as for the Head of State. Therefore, to speak of a "usurped majority" regarding a mandate resulting from one hundred and thirty seats out of one hundred and sixty-five is to deny a body elected by suffrage the legitimacy of its vote; it is to commit, against Parliament, the very same delegitimization that Parliament is accused of plotting against the institutions. In this entire section devoted to boundaries, the word "usurped" is the only one that crosses one.

Let us turn to the judge, since he is being celebrated—and let us celebrate him with the author. Yes, referring the matter to the Council rather than forcing the issue is elegant; and no one here disputes his decision, for the honor of a Republic lies in its rulings being binding on all, beginning with those they contradict. But elegance dictates that we read the judge, not make him say more than he actually did. Regarding the constitutional revision, the Council annulled a procedure. It decreed neither a "deconstruction of the republican architecture" nor a "conquest of the institutions": these words are not its own; they belong to one side. And an annulled procedure is restarted according to proper procedure; this is the absolute right of a majority.

But if we want to see, not just in principle but in practice, this "force bowing to the law," we shouldn't look to a rejected bill, but to this very week. For the majority, which is being called an usurper, is currently putting to a vote a law that puts an end to the opacity of secret funds: these discretionary sums long hidden from public scrutiny. It limits their use to defense, security, and intelligence; it prohibits any political use; it places them under control. Submitting to the law a portion of public spending that had escaped its control—including that which reaches the highest levels of government—that is, quite precisely, "power subject to the law." And that, too, is what the head of state himself promised the country in 2024.

What do we observe then? That it is the executive branch, this time, that resists; that multiplies amendments so that the modalities of this control remain, by decree, in its hands. A strange kind of elegance indeed, that which bows before the judge on the day he serves it, and bristles before the law on the day that law might shed light on its own coffers. The power that accepts to bow before the law does not choose the days when the government must bow.

There remains the matter of the heart, and I subscribe to it without reservation: a party is not the State, a majority is not the Nation, a mandate is not a license. Let us simply add what elegance, if it is complete, cannot conceal: a presidency is no more the Republic, and to serve it is to treat the national representation as a power, not to suspect it as a threat—it is to recognize the people's elected representatives' right to exercise, in due form, the initiative that the Constitution gives them on an equal footing with the head of State.

Republican elegance is therefore not only force bowing to the law. It is also probity that never mistakes the vocabulary of one side for the voice of the Constitution.

Right to the end, then. But for everyone.

Dr. C. Tidiane Sow, Political Communication Coach