Aminata Touré : "Tous nos efforts politiques se conjugueront pour la construction d’un parti fortement implanté dans tout le pays"
Aminata "Mimi" Touré, President Bassirou Diomaye Faye's right-hand woman, is now tasked with structuring the president's future political party. With over 300 mayors and 500 political groups, they aim to build an effective structure with a presence throughout the country. In an interview published in L'Observateur (which Seneweb presents in full below), "Mimi" Touré outlines President Faye's major new project, while also responding to Ousmane Sonko, who described the party's creation as a "political distraction."
The Observer: Ms. Aminata Touré, you have just been appointed to head the Task Force responsible for preparing the future party of President Bassirou Diomaye Faye. How do you feel about this mission and what will your priorities be in the coming weeks?
This is in line with our commitment to supporting President Bassirou Diomaye Faye. All coalition leaders and deputy general supervisors will be involved in drafting the documents and other elements necessary for the party's creation. We are moving towards a more organic form of unity to be more effective. All our political efforts will be combined for a single cause: building a party with a strong presence throughout the country.
The President announced that he wanted to build a party from scratch, without merging with existing parties. Have you already begun considering the party's name, colors, emblem, and, above all, the ideology it intends to embody on the Senegalese political scene?
This is precisely the work we, the 500 organizations and parties that we represent, will undertake together. We will remain true to the philosophy and ideological foundation of the Coalition, centered on strengthening our democracy, good governance, shared prosperity, and consensus and dialogue as our guiding principles. Our coalition is evolving into a party; we are not starting from scratch, but rather with a culture of openness towards all those who wish to support the President of the Republic in his noble ambitions for Senegal.
You are also responsible for leading the investiture process for mayors who have joined the presidential majority. What criteria will be used to guarantee a transparent, fair, and consensual process?
We are not yet at the investiture stage; we are establishing our coalition across the country with many local leaders who have joined us. We have been working together for many months. Many of these mayors supported our list in the legislative elections to give President Diomaye a majority. This is what allowed us to win the departments we did not win in the presidential election, such as the departments of Fatick, Dagana, and Bakel.
The Alliance for the Republic (APR) accuses you of having "set a trap" for the mayors invited to the Presidential Palace. According to this party, these elected officials were responding to an invitation from the Head of State in his official capacity, and not to Bassirou Diomaye Faye as a political figure. The APR believes that the president used this meeting to announce the creation of his party and present these mayors as his supporters. What is your response to this?
This is a complete lack of respect for these mayors, who have been active members of the Diomaye President coalition for months and many of whom supported us in the legislative elections. The APR (Alliance for the Republic) knows very well that these mayors are committed to the Diomaye President coalition and intend to support the President of the Republic more than ever. They all reaffirmed their commitment at this political meeting, to which only the mayors of the Diomaye coalition were invited. I remind you that when Macky Sall took office in March 2012, he had only two mayors, those of Fatick and Gossas. A few months later, the majority of the PDS (Senegalese Democratic Party) mayors joined him because they want to work with the President of the Republic, whom they represent in their localities, according to the terms established by law. They are extensions of the State and they believe that working with the Head of State is the best option for their constituents. The APR should have the same dignity as the PDS and stop treating these local executives as their property! This is a total lack of respect for those mayors and presidents of departmental councils who have chosen to support the President of the Republic.
Doesn't the fact that the creation of this formation was announced at the Palace of the Republic, in front of officially invited mayors, fuel this accusation of instrumentalizing institutions for political purposes?
The President of the Republic's official residence is the Palace; he conducts his private business there and receives his family and friends. And why shouldn't he receive his political partners there? I really don't see any particular problem; let's not split hairs. The idea that a President of the Republic should no longer be the head of a political party was a noble one, but it has proven impractical: nowhere in the world has a President of the Republic been so attacked and vilified by the party of which he was the Secretary General! Without his own political apparatus, the President of the Republic becomes a political hostage in the hands of forces with conflicting interests. We've tried it, and everyone can see that it doesn't work. It has even become a risk for the Republic. Members of Parliament elected to give the President a majority so he can govern smoothly are turning against the same President to prevent him from governing. Unprecedented!
The electoral calendar is particularly tight. Do you think you can, by December, meet all the administrative, legal and organizational requirements necessary for the official creation of the party and its deployment throughout the country?
We are truly picking up the pace and we are all working non-stop, everyone is fully committed. It's a great team effort. Our 300+ mayors are also at work, as well as the more than 500 organizations and parties that make up the
Diomaye Coalition President.
The reforms stemming from the national dialogue aimed, in particular, to make the conditions for creating political parties more demanding in order to limit their proliferation. Some believe that the creation of a new party today could appear to contradict this spirit of reform. What is your response to them?
You're playing right into our hands because the future party will absorb many political entities, and this will help streamline the number of parties. We're moving towards the formation of large political blocs, and that's a good thing.
Pastef party leader Ousmane Sonko stated that the creation of this party was a "political distraction" and that it would be more appropriate to inform the Senegalese people whether or not there would be a referendum to ratify the constitutional revision already initiated by the majority in the National Assembly. How do you respond to this criticism?
I have no comment on the comment. The referendum will take place, and he knows it. To want to change, for purely political reasons, a stable regime that has allowed for three democratic transitions of power without consulting the Senegalese people is to be naive. Let me tell you this: the PASTEF list received 1,991,770 votes out of an electorate of 7,371,890.
These 130 members of parliament were elected by 27% of the electorate. And they want to decide the future of our democracy alone, purely for power-hungry reasons? Because that's what it's about: taking powers from the President of the Republic and giving them to the President of the National Assembly. Let's go to a referendum and ask the Senegalese people for their opinion: do they want to trade their stable system of governance for individual power-hungry concerns?
Observers have singled you out, along with Dr. Abdourahmane Diouf, as one of those who contributed to the political alienation of President Bassirou Diomaye Faye and Ousmane Sonko. Some even go so far as to call this new party project a "bad idea" likely to lead the head of state, who claimed to be above the fray, to political failure. What is your response to these accusations?
The dogs bark, but the caravan moves on. We, the Diomaye President coalition, have remained true to our principles: after asking Senegalese citizens to vote for candidate Diomaye, should we fight him, prevent him from implementing the program he proposed to the Senegalese people during the election campaign? No, absolutely not! We have remained loyal and consistent in our commitment to working alongside President Bassirou Diomaye Faye.
Beyond the creation of this party, what is the political objective pursued by President Bassirou Diomaye Faye? Is it to sustainably structure his own majority, to prepare for the next elections, or to redefine the political balance within the ruling coalition?
The goal is to build a political apparatus present throughout the country that will defend President Diomaye's actions and win the next municipal elections. And much more when the time comes, because we are not in a permanent election campaign; the Senegalese people primarily want us to focus on solutions to the numerous economic and social challenges.
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