by Nurat Uthman
Former prime minister Amadou Ba has stepped out of the shadows telling supporters the “bandits” will not win as he battles to be Senegal’s next president after Sunday’s election.
Before a crowd of hundreds in the central town of Diourbel, he claimed the role of a last bastion against disorder.
The once discreet technocrat has reincarnated himself as a feisty orator and the uncontested candidate of the president’s governing coalition.
“We don’t want Senegal to fall into the hands of sasai,” or bandits in the Wolof language, said the man President Macky Sall has picked to replace him.
All present understood the reference to anti-establishment candidate Bassirou Diomaye Faye and his charismatic political guide Ousmane Sonko.
Faye may be the deputy to Sonko, but the latter is barred from running for office so it is Faye’s name which is on the ballot.
Ba and Faye are considered the favorites in Sunday’s vote.
Apart from having worked in the government tax offices, they appear to have little in common and reserve each other their harshest criticisms.
Faye has focused his energy on attacking President Sall and spent several months in jail for his trouble. But on Tuesday he admitted he preferred Sall to Ba.
Sonko has branded Ba a “billionaire civil servant,” questioning where his wealth came from and alleging he would be a “president for foreign countries” if elected.
Ba urged people to vote “for experience and competence instead of entrusting the reins of the country to adventurers.”
