by SIDI DIOP
Since its independence, Senegal has been governed by a single party, that from the first was rife with contradictory influences: the concern of preserving the interests of the former occupying power versus intransigent nationalism. This led to a political crisis in 1962. After deposing the prime minister, Mamadou Dia, with the installation of the presidential regime, all the powers were given to the president of the republic, who was also the secretary general of the party. And, as one might have expected, in spite of the establishment of a multiparty system in the mid-1970s and greater freedom of the press at the end of the two following decades, the wearing out effect of power, as well as the total absence of democracy within the ruling government, caused the management of the country to go seriously adrift.
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