That has been crucial to Macky's political survival since the euphoria that surrounded his spectacular 2012 defeat of incumbent head of state Abdoulaye Wade rapidly faded among the argumentative and power-sceptical dakarois...
In Senegal in 2012 he went head to head with the son of then President Abdoulaye Wade Karim Wade when the latter tried to dislodge Bolloré from his dominant position in the port of Dakar...
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Tables turnedToday's crisis is a turning of the tables for Macky Sall who nine years ago was himself the popular opposition challenger defeating President Abdoulaye Wade who had super-promoted his son Karim and then fudged the rules to run for a third term...
Ex-President Abdoulaye Wade's imposition of his son Karim as his number two and de facto leader of his Parti Démocratique Sénégalais (PDS) has provoked a deep split in the movement...
In 2014 ex-President Abdoulaye Wade accused President Sall's brother of 'owning 30% of Senegal's oil' with Timis and Africa Confidential then reported that the deal was under scrutiny by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (AC Vol 56 No 18 Timis under scrutiny)...
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Sall also did poorly in the centre home of the Mouride Brotherhood but he could not overcome their memory of him as the man who deposed their great patron and friend former President Abdoulaye Wade...
In protest at the exclusion of his son Karim as a presidential candidate – because of an unpaid fine and non-residence in Senegal – ex-President Abdoulaye Wade has called on supporters of his Parti démocratique sénégalais (PDS) to set fire to ballot boxes to prevent this weekend's vote taking place (AC Vol 60 No 1 Sall safe for second term)...
He has the advantage of incumbency in a much-reduced field of candidates following the publication of the Constitutional Council's 3 January decision to accept just five: the incumbent; former president Abdoulaye Wade's son Karim Wade; the rising opposition firebrand Ousmane Sonko; Dakar's jailed former mayor Khalifa Sall; and the virtually unknown Issa Sall who leads the University of the Sahel (AC Vol 58 No 16 Who loves ya BBY...
In November last year Aly Ngouille Ndiaye Senegal's former Minister for Mines and now Interior Minister announced an inquiry into the finances of both Y'en a marre (the hip-hop-driven movement which opposed Abdoulaye Wade's failed bid for a third term in 2012 and historically the reason why Sall is in power today) and its foreign supporters some of whom have been forced to stop working in Senegal...
Petro-Tim obtained a licence to prospect for oil in the Cayar Offshore Profond and Saint Louis Offshore Profond from the then President Abdoulaye Wade's son Infrastructure and Energy minister Karim Wade in 2012...
Meanwhile Karim Wade – son of former President Abdoulaye Wade – insists he will return from Qatar to campaign for the presidency...
