before elections February 2007.
the West African country has been interpreted as a model for democracy in Africa, it experienced since its independence from France in 1960 not a single coup: In Africa, the rare
Senegal! is also considered a model because in 2000 held a democratic change: The Liberal Abdoulaye Wade was elected president after he was decades in the opposition to the socialist president Leopold Sedar Senghor and Abdou Diouf, who ruled the country for forty years.
In 2000, Abdoulaye Wade promised a change, "sopi" was the buzzword in national language woloff. Seven years later, the former lawyer turned to his campaign rallies to the youth, to whom he owed his election at that time. (With nearly 43 percent of the population under 20 years of Senegal is a young country!) The argument of the President for his re-election: He wants the Land to expand.
"
The youth I hailed throughout the country, as now in Tambakounda. Will be built here an important railroad junction, with a line from Dakar. The train will cross out once up to Bamako and all of Western Africa!
Around the country to further to develop, we need a well-educated youth. All the important sites in the country to begin with the strict instructions to give priority to the youth and the workers in each department and the region. " 
"Pharaoh Wade called the magazine L'Express, the Senegalese president, given his enormous building mania: On the coast road Dakar announces a concrete base of a future five-star hotel, at a bridge pillar of the main thoroughfare of the capital of Senegal under Chinese construction workers build Komando from the street. A ring road is planned and a new airport and the railway network across the country will put in order. To relieve Dakar, is even a new capital 120 km north-east are stamped out of the ground. The awarding of the construction work offers the opportunity for corruption with totals that are supposedly always gigantic.
The face of the 80th President Wade in Dakar and its suburbs is emblazoned everywhere from the walls. But overall 15 political compete for the highest state office, including Ousmane Dieng, leader of the Socialist Party which had ruled Senegal for 40 years before Wade. Including two former prime ministers Wade, Idrissa Seck and Moustapha Niasse are. Niasse was already under the socialist Prime Minister, but then switched in 2000 to the camp of the newly elected Wade. Moustapha Niasse today criticized the many building sites!.!
"Dakar has been transformed into a Swiss cheese, but we are not insects, but people we do not live in holes, but on the Earth President Wade will not talk because he does not credible record can show. "
"We, the Senegalese people ask: What did he do in the seven years we also ask what he did with the 16 million dollars from Taiwan, we also ask:? What happened to the 13 billion from Spain , which were meant for the youth. Where are the 13 billion? " 13 billion CFA francs are about 20 million euros, the Madrid of the Senegalese government had promised for the reported illegal immigrants.
His rivals accuse Wade of being responsible for the biggest exodus that knew the country since independence: For most of the 30 000 Africans, in the last year, the coasts of the Canary Islands in simple Fishing boats reached were Senegalese. Also this year, more than 1,000 migrants have arrived on the English islands, more than in the same time last year! Hundreds of Africans have already been sent back from Spain to Senegal.
Mbour is almost one hundred kilometers south of Dakar. The city has over 150 000 inhabitants and is the second largest fishing port in the country. The "port" is really just a beach, where the leak pirogues. Mothers who have tied their babies on their backs waiting for the water to the return of the fishermen. The women sell squid and shellfish. Leydou Diop cleans the sea snails from the sand. She is a widow and has to provide their children alone, and a small piece of dried animals are 12 kilos of rice a taste!
"People want to go to Europe because they have no work. If you stay here does not deserve enough. A boy has to earn the money to Germany! His father is old, his mother is old, what to else to do? " The other women clap their words applause. The 37 year old Abdou shows on the boats in the water..
"There are the large canoes invite 22 people and 9 tons of fish all the canoes go out into the night and come back at noon with the same pirogues drive out immigrants. sea. You see, we have build new dugouts, because so many are gone! - The bottom will be built there. This shows that a shortage of canoes.
If a two or 300 000 CFA pays and you put 100 people in your canoe, you have made millions, even if the dugout after that break! The fishermen do that because there is nothing left to fish. When I was younger, you could not go on the market, then I was running on nothing but fish! But today there is nothing more, look around you. " 
The men act against their baskets at the price of fish. Abdoulaye comes from Saint Louis in the north. At the beginning of work of fishermen, like many other in Mbour, because the Water is warmer. A big catch, he has not yet made. The European fishing fleets have fished the coastal waters of empty, Abdoulaye scolds. It requires 4000 CFA francs [francs de la Communauté financière d'Afrique] for the whole basket, he explains in the local language Woloff. That is about six euros, but nobody wants to buy the small fish.
"If this continues, we all go to Spain!" 
explained The 24 year old Ibrahim:
"For us there is a saying. Barcelona or Barzakh This means that if I did not create to Barcelona, I'd rather die than to stay in Senegal Barzakh. is death. .'s Paradise after death " Even the 29-year old taxi driver wants to emigrate Modou In Senegal, he earned the minimum wage of around 60 € a month.
" So you can not feed your family. Since it is better that you will cut off. Even if you die, that's fine. You've got away, even if you die on the road. Then at least you have your peace. This is not madness. to die the way is better than to stay in Senegal. " Barcelona or Barzakh agrees six-to Mbenge. He has already tried to make the dream of Europe. He paid 300 000 CFA for the trip in a canoe . The roughly 450 €, the fishermen in three Years saved up.
"We had a mishap with the boat and had to drive back to Senegal. To come up with another boat on, you need money, and I had no more. But if I have 000 300 back together, I try again. " 
Radio Oxyjeunes sends Pikine, a half million inhabitants, suburbs of the Senegalese capital Dakar. The fishing district of Thiaroye-sur-mer at least a hundred people were killed there, which came at the crossing in canoes killed. Is regularly discussed at the transmitter via the so-called "clandestine emigration." With millions of European roads are built and jobs will be created to keep the Senegalese in the country. Thanks also to the farming they are to find a livelihood: Retour vers l'agriculture - back to agriculture - that the government program "Reva".
Reva is not only there to appease Western donors? Ask the studio guests on radio Oxyjeunes. The youth was not informed of the plan.
"We hear of billions. Belonging to us, the European Union has given the government billions. He needs the money to give only the illegals, so they can organize themselves, how they want it." Prov. 1: Secant is a fisherman from Thiaroye-sur-mer, who survived the illegal journey to the Canary Islands, but was then expelled from Spain:
"I thought at first, that this plan really is And I tell you who. wants to Agriculture? But then all had expelled a meeting on the country in the fields. I really saw that there was already sown. The Minister said that we could harvest, everything was ready. " Sekan remained still in Thiaroye. Yaiyou Mayam is the president of an association of mothers whose sons in the illegal crossing were killed. They also criticized that the population the implementation of the program Reva is not included:
"The mothers of the children had to be contacted first my impression is that we are better known abroad than in Senegal to us journalists from around the world, but the Senegalese government has other... concerns to worry about than worrying about its citizens. " Senegal is working closely with the European Union to the problem of illegal immigrants to be master. Agreements with France and Spain to the legal emigration and to prevent illegal. French air patrols indicate the Senegalese authorities illegal pirogues. Spaniards and Italians help in monitoring the coasts. That Senegal has signed with the French Interior Minister Sarkozy, an agreement to regulate immigration is criticized in the campaign but also that President Wade has accepted the designation of the Africans. Abdou Latif Coulibaly, director of the Institute of Information and Communication:
"If I were President, I had refused to sign such an agreement Why Europe must import its goods from us and our children will not have with him self.? find it irresponsible of African governments to sign agreements with Europe that forbid young Africans to go to Europe. It's criminal that Abdoulaye Wade for 13 billion accepted , Added that young Senegalese are reported. It is a shame for Africa to sit down with Europe even at the table and negotiate. Europe should solve its problems with immigration alone! " Abdou Latif Coulibaly is an outspoken opponent of President Wade. But the reasons for the emigration of well-known journalist and author seeks not only to the government.
" Africa has to one percent of world trade, 80 percent of the people are illiterate and have no access to medical care! This shows the disaster. And if the West lends us a billion euros, he can pay back four billion. That's the problem, not the despair of young people on which to point the finger. The problem is how the international economy is organized, and second, it is because of the political regimes in our countries who have not the slightest awareness that they are responsible for the nation, but think first of themselves and their own destiny and that of her clan and family.
It's because millions of lives. And if the European Commission subsidies to European farmers, the Europeans must understand that they kill so that our African farmers (because an EU chicken is cheaper than a local)! You must understand that they do not always enforce the law of the jungle to the law of the jungle. " 
Of the more than eleven million Senegalese, many living abroad, about 50 000 in France alone, which every year receives a further 10 000 legal, one-fifth of .. students, but the Senegalese work in the United States or South Africa your send home make about twelve percent of Senegal's gross national product, almost as much as development aid
This diaspora dream of Europe feeds. Massamba Mbenge, for example. The 59 year old is always elegantly dressed tax consultant, drives a brand new Jeep, has a house in the Paris suburbs and an apartment in Deauville. A happy man who is proud of what he has built up in France.
"I was lucky enough to get into a good time when there was no unemployment. You could study in peace, you might incidentally work, evening study and during the day to work without problems, and you had no problems with the papers . You were in a normal legal situation and the work could change how you fit. " Massamba Mbenge than 23 years came from Dakar to Paris to study. He had a scholarship by the Senegalese state. The grant ran out, when he had his degree as a tax expert. From now on jobbed and incidentally he made his doctor. For nine years he worked as a manager in the accounting department of a major film company.
In the holidays in Senegal, he met his first wife, the moved in with him in Paris. They had three children who are now adults. Twelve years ago, Massamba a French citizen. Then he lived with a French bank director, with whom he has a five year old daughter. After he left his French wife, whom he married last year in Dakar, a young Senegalese woman. He now divides his time between France and Senegal. Massamba has a house in Dakar, as well as a holiday home in the tourist paradise of the Saly little coast 80 km away from Dakar.
"I work ten to twelve hours a day and ask me so slow if I should stop at 60, working, traveling, and in Senegal live in Africa know. Europe I know well, but when I'm retired I'll probably know at last Africa. " 
success stories such as these have a great effect. The young Senegalese who want to imitate the emigrants. And if they get a visa, they try it just without.
"Since it's all about the question of transport, a young Africans 18-30 dreaming of going to Europe and make money We must not forget. that have many immigrants in Europe achieved something. They have built a home in Senegal, have a nice car, they can help each month of her family. . The young people dream of to do it just to earn a lot of Euros and then to help their parents to have a house and marry a beautiful woman " Lamine Gueye is a journalist at Radio Oxyjeunes:
" The young champion brought Wade to power, and today the young people so desperate that they get out in canoes to the Canary Islands. That's a problem. It is difficult to find a job in Senegal. I know people who have studied that have a degree or vocational training and find work. They have tried their luck on a canoe and were again reported. You have to these young people offer an alternative. " It appears that the first concern of President Wade to be the one to remain at the helm. He twice postponed the parliamentary elections, which will now take place in June. He has dissolved the Senate and the number of seats in Parliament increased to favor the majority of money in his senses. Moreover, he can now divide the constituencies new, officially on the grounds of population growth of 2.3 percent a year.
on January 28 banned Wade Demonstration the opposition and let several presidential candidates for a few hours arrest. For the critic Abdou Latif Coulibaly, an example that democracy "is taken from their elites as a hostage," as he laments in his latest book:
"When justice does not deserve its name because it is not in a position is to protect the liberties of the citizen, represents the number of problems. If Parliament is just a stooge of the political power and passed laws that will read through not even accurate, then that's a problem. If the civil society that the action of the politicians to monitor, so weak and so little is organized and has so little resources, this is a problem. Last but not least, the press. She throws herself on anecdotes and sensations, without having to go to things on the ground " his popular former Prime Minister Idrissa Seck President was Wade from July 2005 to February 2006 sitting in custody on charges of" endangering of national security ". Seck was suspected to have embezzled large sums. accused his supporters acknowledge President Wade, a rival out of the way to do. For Idrissa Seck also wants to be president.
On 7 February 2006" Idy Seck " as he is called by the Senegalese, acquitted. The 47 year old has recently reconciled with President Wade, he remains a potential successor.
Some see it as a tactic to split the opposition and finally President Wade to help re-election. What the people think, given the election maneuver? The 58 year old father of Pierre Williams, an insurance agent in Dakar:
"The politicians here in Senegal, as elsewhere in Africa: they want to be in power to enrich themselves, or have privileges is shown by the scandals, the political. determine life: people who have nothing when they come to power and after a few years, millionaires This is really discouraging to the ordinary citizen who is not in a party and feel. has to be lubricated. However, it is
better than before, there is more transparency. Under the regime of Socialists, they made their salad on among themselves, without anyone knowing it, " taxi driver from Modou Mbour:
. I hear of billions, and I got nothing. I am dying of hunger. I am completely against Wade. The country has received billions, I have seen nothing " Alassane The 24 year old studying journalism in Dakar:
!" It was always, Senegal is the showcase of democracy in Africa. The politicians have let their personal interests aside. The choice must be transparent and free, they must accept that we democratically elect our Senegalese president, whoever wins always " Moussa Ndiaye, director of a small village school on the coast:
." enrich the people at the top at the expense of others, buy nice cars, nice houses. And where are we staying? An example: recently increased the price of bread. For now, the nice cars and houses, does not do a lot. But what the future of our children here, if this continues? We hope that what does " On 25 February 2007, the Senegalese president chose her again now -.. 2008 - has the phenomenon but shifted to the south: In Pikine is now more expensive than the life, the increase in raw materials, etc. discussed.
