On the day after Rick Santorum’s hat trick in the bible belt,
it seems fitting to return Senegalese politics.
While I take great pleasure in the rare Republican inability to anoint a
candidate, in their beautiful self-destruction this year, their more
classically democratic public squabbling, a similar failure of the Senegalese
opposition to unite behind a credible candidate has left some bloggers to
conclude that Wade will win reelection, perhaps on the first ballot Feb. 26th. The campaign has officially started now,
although that seems to just mean ramped up.
Large trucks loaded with massive speakers like this one troll the
neighborhoods blasting music that if not compelling is at least attention
getting. Although I didn’t catch the
show, this parade included 30 or 40 guys on rollerblades who were resting after
some kind of performance I just missed.
Tanor, the guy who’s arm gestures and expression I liked in
the first round of posters has gotten a bit clichéd this round, claiming a
return to ‘values’ and giving us all a reassuring thumb’s up. That’s just more empty positivity than I can
really stomach.
Here, Mackey Sall, like Wade poses in alternating western
and traditional dress, often is sequential billboards, seems stuffed into both
outfits. While American candidates
clothes need to signal both power and the common touch, here this plays as both
western and African, perhaps a larger span to bridge. In both cases, however, his overripe physical
quality suggests his widely known corruption, at least according to Pape.
But the headlines on the newspapers clipped to strings along
the VDN highway have settled into normal hysteria, one that suggests an
acceptance of Wade’s third term, a relief over the end of violence and a
fatalism over the ability of anything else to disrupt the power of an incumbent
government that many believe will steal any vote that eventually occurs.
No comments:
Post a Comment