My first day back on the road.
Act Two, Scene Two
My second African Odyssey, my second time around, my second overlanding trip in as many years, my second time to leave a trail of red buttons and to follow the fragrance of shooting stars--------
--
many thoughts.. a maelstrom of memories, anticipation, fears, thrills, expectations, ---- and not a single preconceived idea. Surely that is true intellectual freedom... What a pleasure!
No small amount of trepidation; who is going to be in the group this time? Will they be people who are here to learn and experience and discover? Where are they from? Why are they here? HOW are they here? -- are they on holiday? Perpetual holiday? How do they afford to do this -- the time, the money, the relationships they leave behind, the homes, the jobs, the responsibilities they leave behind?
So much to find out..
I left home in the dark -- the backback and the sleeping mat (wrapped separately in a rubbish bag) were heavy heavy -- to walk all the way to the station.... Catherine and Nathalie -- bless their cotton socks! were already set up in front of their little bistro and insisted I have a cup of coffee and that they would take me to the station in their car! What a fabulous way to start the adventure!
Gorgeous train ride through the early morning autumn mist which then enticingly revealed the vineyards, heavily weighed down by the lush dark purple bunches of grapes -- so abundant and rich in promise!
Then -- on the wrong bus to Merignac -- but not the airport and, what felt like hours later, getting off and then onto another bus, backpack and daypack and plastic parcel lugged along, finally got to the airport, booked in and time for a grande creme and croissant. I look at my fellow passengers -- somehow people who travel to Africa look different -- more casual, more ragged and creased, more laden with luggage. Too many people are coughing and spluttering -- I wish I had brought a face mask for the plane journey...
On the plane I lock myself in, put my head back and sleep -- only every now and then opening my eyes to look below me at the passing world below us... over France, over the ocean, Corsica -- and then, I wake up in time to see the coastline of Africa -- beautiful, clear, blue ocean, city spread out along a huge bay -- Carthage/Tunis -- the home of Hanibal. I desperately try to recall all the stories from history class in grade 3 about the Carthagians, about Hanibal and his elephants, about the Romans and the wars -- very little comes back to me and my first item under "List to look up" is written in my little notebook.
Tunis airport looks like a large, grandiose European train station -- high vaulted ceilings, white marble, friezes and reliefs of battles of yore and caryatids and chariots and kings and slaves, the floors in mosaics, the windows soaring up to the sky -- an altogether strange kind of space to be called an airport. My layover is 12 hours. The question: do I want to spend the entire day in the airport or do I go have a look at Tunisia?
Not hard to guess which side won. I stood in line at the money exchange to get a few dinar and get some information as to what one should absolutely not miss if you have a few hours in a place where you have never been.
Jeanette – woman of a certain age, from north of Bordeaux, on her way to go visit her sister who lives north of Dakar, sidles up behind me. "How much money are you changing?", she wants to know. "20 Euro" I said. "I believe a taxi is only about 5 dinar to centre ville, a cup of coffee about 3 dinar. 30 euro is about 40 dinar so that should be more than enough." She changes ten and sticks to me like a leech. Outside we are subjected to the taximan assault. I keep walking, Jeanette trailing behind, asking how much to centre ville. The response is generally 20-30 dinar. I shake my head and say no – 5 dinar is what I am willing to pay. One man sticks to us. Do we want a two hour tour of the town – 25 euro for the privilege. Crazy, I say if you offer it to us for 20 dinar, we’ll accept.
"What? I am not paying 20 dinar to go into town!" from Jeanette behind me No, I say – it is 5 dinar each but for a two hour tour we can get it for 20 dinar. No no no! – she is scared, she does not like to spend money, in fact she turns away and declares she is rather staying in the airport. I don’t really want her tagging along but also feel it my duty to make her take the big step into adventure. She has never been Tunisia either. "You don’t know anyone there. How do you know it is safe? How do you know the taxi driver will take us to the centre ville?"
The taxi driver, in the mean time, is still there and persists – "for 25 euro I give you a two hour tour." "Then I also bring you back to the airport in time for your flight. Very reasonable". I am seriously thinking that I wouldn’t mind getting a two hour tour – that way I can also go to the ruins of Carthage and walk, once again, in the footsteps of Hanibal. – as well as being brought back to the airport. Jeanette is starting to get on my nerves. We are in the car and she insists on him switching on the ‘clime’. I look around me and smile. Not surprised when the driver suggests she opens her window – that should start the AC any moment. It is so hot. We are dressed for European autumn and the temperatures are somewhere up in the forties, the humidity definitely over 100. The perspiration is running off me. I roll my window down and marvel at the modern buildings, the excellent roads, the newness of it all around me. Interesting there is not a sign of the old Carthage – no pillars fallen down, no grand portals or arches, no carved stones.
"I am not going to pay 25 euros," Jeanette is still complaining in the back seat. "I am scared!. Where is he taking us?" I am now ignoring her. Too much noise and wind from the open windows as we speed towards the centre ville.
"Is there a vieille ville?", I ask. "Yes – right next to the centre ville". "That is where I want to go then". "Good – I drop you at the vieille ville and you can go into the medina".
I am thrilled – a medina! Always ready for a medina with its incense filled coves of treasure.
The city is beautiful – wide boulevards lush and green and shady, big trees everywhere, lots of little sidewalk cafes, lots of people around seeming to enjoy their Friday afternoon relaxing and talking and drinking coffee. Suddenly all the roads are blocked. The taxi driver curses under his breath. Of course. It is Friday afternoon. Everyone is about to come out of the mosques and this is the time the muslim world demonstrates. It was the same in Khartoum. The same in Aswan. The same in Cairo. The same in Amman. The driver snakes his way around the blocked junctions and finds a ratrun through the back street until we arrive at the entrance of the medina. A beautiful square, sidewalk cafes, only marred by the presence of the military/riot police dressed in Ninja turtle outfits, black leather carapaces, black stockings over their heads, black balaklavas, black boots, black machine guns and black shields. A scary sight.
We get out and there in front of us is a little donkey cart laden with prickly pears—‘n big pile and next to the pile a large red bucket with peeled fruit – bright pink and bright yellow. "OOOOooo we have to have some Jeanette!" " What is it?" " Barbary figs." "Oh I have heard of them..." "Jeanette, if you have never tasted one now is the moment you are going to taste heaven." I am fast beginning to feel like a reall royal bully.
I buy four prickly pears, two yellow and two pink each, and offer them to Jeanette. She hesitates but takes one and bites into it. I am about to look to see her reaction when I bite into mine and like a magic carpet am transported back to a Monday morning on Pretoria university campus, Hennie de Klerk standing in front of me with a huge smile, a tupperware box held out to me, shimmering with condensation, brimful with ice ice cold prickly pears, peeled and juicy and fat and delicious, from his home somewhere near Kroonstad, I think. Ah Hennie – I thought of you and remembered those generous offerings of the most delicious prickly pears in the world! But I have to tell you – the Tunisian market seller’s prickly pears were just as mouthwatering good!
Jeanette decides to stay in the square and goes to sit at a table under an umbrella and with a promise that I will be back in about two hours, I set off intrepidly into the depths of the medina. I immediately find myself fighting my way through a river of people going in the opposite direction. I quickly realise that I have chosen the exact moment to enter the medina that half the population of Tunis have chosen to exit the many mosques. Hundreds and hundreds of people stream past me. Are they the ones we read about in the press and see on television throwing petrol bombs and shooting and fighting the police? Difficult to credit. They all look like anyone who has just spent an hour praying and communing with their god. They look calm and content and many smile at me and greet me with a friend Bon Jour! Sala’am! Even a soyez la bienvenue every few minutes. A stark stark contrast of how the muslims are portrayed to the west.
I love the medina. Not very different to any other median – the same chinese jewellery, the same polyester kaftans and cotton djellebas, the same incense and frankinscence and machine made babouches and embroidered shirts and stamped silver mirror frames and shiny Balinese mosaic bowls and plates. Even the carpets are not very different from those authentic Moroccan or Jordanian or Omani or Muscat or Cairo or Khartoum carpets. I stop at one stall where an old white haired man sits reading his qoran. What is here that is really typical Tunisien, I ask. Everything is what I see in every medina in the world and most of that has been imported from Shanghai or Bali. He smiles and nods. I am afraid that is true, he says. The beautiful embroidered table cloths ‘from Fes’ are made in China. The djellebas, “100% camel hair” come from India. The ornaments come from Bali. The carpets come from factories in the cities. I would tell you the only really authentic items here that are different to what you find in other medinas, are the Tunisien carpets and the bird cages – but as you will see, the carpets in the medina are not Tunisien – those you only find in expensive carpet shops in Europe, and the bird cages – well – look for yourself. Very cheap Chinese rubbish. I had noticed the bird cages and wondered whether there was some special significance to them. It turns out that the Carthagians were the first people to use cormorants to do their fishing for them and thus a fisherman’s fishing bird was very precious and merited a beautifully crafted cage.
I loved the medina anyway. Being Friday afternoon and everyone just having exited the mosques, the place was relatively quiet, the vendors sitting reading, contemplating, drinking tea and talking quietly. I too stopped for a glass of refreshing mint tea and simply sat there for a good while drinking in the atmosphere, the smells, the colours, the experience.
After a long while, I started making my way back and eventually reached the square and the café table where I had left Jeanette. She was beaming. The first smile I had seen on her face. An oldish guy (well -- older than me!) – by all accounts originally from Italy but now having lived for more than 40 years in Tunis, had struck up a conversation with her and she was obviously blossoming in the spell of his charm and attention. She said her goodbyes -- reluctantly it seemed, we collected our belongings and went looking for a taxi to take us back to the airport.
30 Dinar, quoted the driver. REALLY? I did not even bother to bargain. I gestured to Jeanette to get in at the back, I opened the front door, got into the taxi and informed the driver that we will pay him the real price of 5 Dinar each and he could get going. "Times are hard", he smiled resignedly. "Tell me about it", I said. So hard no one is even bothering to keep tradition artisinal crafts alive and everything you sell to tourists comes from elsewhere. A sad sad day when that happens in a country…
Our flight was only at 10:30 so there was still a long wait – in this strangest of strange airports – and I spent three hours people gazing. When we were finally called to board, it was with huge relief that I did so ----- except. We boarded, the place was relatively empty and I tried to persuade the woman with a tiny baby on her lap, seated next to me, to go sit further back where there were two or three seats to be had which would make life so much easier for her. She decided to wait until we were sure all the passengers were on. We waited – and waited – and waited – a full 40 minutes after we were supposed to have taken off, another two buses stopped at the bottom of the stars and its contents of about two thousand people spilled out of the buses and up the stairs into our plane! Chaos! For a good while there I was sure there was standing room only. And need I mention that when two thousand people arrive 45 minutes late for a plane, they also have luggage for Africa and I am quite sure it was not my imagination that the overhead lockers were creaking and groaning under the weight of all those bags pushed and shoved and wedged into them. But – we finally took off almost two hours late and by this time I no longer knew whether I was coming or going, but did not even care and, once again I strapped myself in, put my head back and fell asleep, only to wake up five hours later when we finally landed in Dakar – at 3:30 on Saturday morning, 29 September.
It is goooooood to be back in Africa!
SENEGAL
The French colonies of Senegal and the French Sudan were merged in 1959 and granted their independence as the Mali Federation in 1960. The union broke up after only a few months. Senegal joined with The Gambia to form the nominal confederation of Senegambia in 1982. The envisaged integration of the two countries was never carried out, and the union was dissolved in 1989. The Movement of Democratic Forces in the Casamance (MFDC) has led a low-level separatist insurgency in southern Senegal since the 1980s, and several peace deals have failed to resolve the conflict. Nevertheless, Senegal remains one of the most stable democracies in Africa and has a long history of participating in international peacekeeping and regional mediation. Senegal was ruled by a Socialist Party for 40 years until Abdoulaye WADE was elected president in 2000. He was reelected in 2007 and during his two terms amended Senegal's constitution over a dozen times to increase executive power and to weaken the opposition. His attempt to change the constitution in June 2011 prompted large public protests and his decision to run for a third presidential term sparked a large public backlash that led to his defeat in a March 2012 runoff election with Macky SALL.
Senegal relies heavily on donor assistance. The country's key export industries are phosphate mining, fertilizer production, and commercial fishing. The country is also working on iron ore and oil exploration projects. In January 1994, Senegal undertook a bold and ambitious economic reform program with the support of the international donor community. Government price controls and subsidies have been steadily dismantled. After seeing its economy contract by 2.1% in 1993, Senegal made an important turnaround, thanks to the reform program, with real growth in GDP averaging over 5% annually during 1995-2007. Annual inflation had been pushed down to the single digits. The country was adversely affected by the global economic downturn in 2009, when GDP growth fell to 2.2%. As a member of the West African Economic and Monetary Union, Senegal is working toward greater regional integration with a unified external tariff and a more stable monetary policy. High unemployment, however, continues to prompt migrants to flee Senegal in search of better job opportunities in Europe
Act Two, Scene Two
My second African Odyssey, my second time around, my second overlanding trip in as many years, my second time to leave a trail of red buttons and to follow the fragrance of shooting stars--------
--
many thoughts.. a maelstrom of memories, anticipation, fears, thrills, expectations, ---- and not a single preconceived idea. Surely that is true intellectual freedom... What a pleasure!
No small amount of trepidation; who is going to be in the group this time? Will they be people who are here to learn and experience and discover? Where are they from? Why are they here? HOW are they here? -- are they on holiday? Perpetual holiday? How do they afford to do this -- the time, the money, the relationships they leave behind, the homes, the jobs, the responsibilities they leave behind?
So much to find out..
I left home in the dark -- the backback and the sleeping mat (wrapped separately in a rubbish bag) were heavy heavy -- to walk all the way to the station.... Catherine and Nathalie -- bless their cotton socks! were already set up in front of their little bistro and insisted I have a cup of coffee and that they would take me to the station in their car! What a fabulous way to start the adventure!
Gorgeous train ride through the early morning autumn mist which then enticingly revealed the vineyards, heavily weighed down by the lush dark purple bunches of grapes -- so abundant and rich in promise!
Then -- on the wrong bus to Merignac -- but not the airport and, what felt like hours later, getting off and then onto another bus, backpack and daypack and plastic parcel lugged along, finally got to the airport, booked in and time for a grande creme and croissant. I look at my fellow passengers -- somehow people who travel to Africa look different -- more casual, more ragged and creased, more laden with luggage. Too many people are coughing and spluttering -- I wish I had brought a face mask for the plane journey...
On the plane I lock myself in, put my head back and sleep -- only every now and then opening my eyes to look below me at the passing world below us... over France, over the ocean, Corsica -- and then, I wake up in time to see the coastline of Africa -- beautiful, clear, blue ocean, city spread out along a huge bay -- Carthage/Tunis -- the home of Hanibal. I desperately try to recall all the stories from history class in grade 3 about the Carthagians, about Hanibal and his elephants, about the Romans and the wars -- very little comes back to me and my first item under "List to look up" is written in my little notebook.
Tunis airport looks like a large, grandiose European train station -- high vaulted ceilings, white marble, friezes and reliefs of battles of yore and caryatids and chariots and kings and slaves, the floors in mosaics, the windows soaring up to the sky -- an altogether strange kind of space to be called an airport. My layover is 12 hours. The question: do I want to spend the entire day in the airport or do I go have a look at Tunisia?
Not hard to guess which side won. I stood in line at the money exchange to get a few dinar and get some information as to what one should absolutely not miss if you have a few hours in a place where you have never been.
Jeanette – woman of a certain age, from north of Bordeaux, on her way to go visit her sister who lives north of Dakar, sidles up behind me. "How much money are you changing?", she wants to know. "20 Euro" I said. "I believe a taxi is only about 5 dinar to centre ville, a cup of coffee about 3 dinar. 30 euro is about 40 dinar so that should be more than enough." She changes ten and sticks to me like a leech. Outside we are subjected to the taximan assault. I keep walking, Jeanette trailing behind, asking how much to centre ville. The response is generally 20-30 dinar. I shake my head and say no – 5 dinar is what I am willing to pay. One man sticks to us. Do we want a two hour tour of the town – 25 euro for the privilege. Crazy, I say if you offer it to us for 20 dinar, we’ll accept.
"What? I am not paying 20 dinar to go into town!" from Jeanette behind me No, I say – it is 5 dinar each but for a two hour tour we can get it for 20 dinar. No no no! – she is scared, she does not like to spend money, in fact she turns away and declares she is rather staying in the airport. I don’t really want her tagging along but also feel it my duty to make her take the big step into adventure. She has never been Tunisia either. "You don’t know anyone there. How do you know it is safe? How do you know the taxi driver will take us to the centre ville?"
The taxi driver, in the mean time, is still there and persists – "for 25 euro I give you a two hour tour." "Then I also bring you back to the airport in time for your flight. Very reasonable". I am seriously thinking that I wouldn’t mind getting a two hour tour – that way I can also go to the ruins of Carthage and walk, once again, in the footsteps of Hanibal. – as well as being brought back to the airport. Jeanette is starting to get on my nerves. We are in the car and she insists on him switching on the ‘clime’. I look around me and smile. Not surprised when the driver suggests she opens her window – that should start the AC any moment. It is so hot. We are dressed for European autumn and the temperatures are somewhere up in the forties, the humidity definitely over 100. The perspiration is running off me. I roll my window down and marvel at the modern buildings, the excellent roads, the newness of it all around me. Interesting there is not a sign of the old Carthage – no pillars fallen down, no grand portals or arches, no carved stones.
"I am not going to pay 25 euros," Jeanette is still complaining in the back seat. "I am scared!. Where is he taking us?" I am now ignoring her. Too much noise and wind from the open windows as we speed towards the centre ville.
"Is there a vieille ville?", I ask. "Yes – right next to the centre ville". "That is where I want to go then". "Good – I drop you at the vieille ville and you can go into the medina".
I am thrilled – a medina! Always ready for a medina with its incense filled coves of treasure.
The city is beautiful – wide boulevards lush and green and shady, big trees everywhere, lots of little sidewalk cafes, lots of people around seeming to enjoy their Friday afternoon relaxing and talking and drinking coffee. Suddenly all the roads are blocked. The taxi driver curses under his breath. Of course. It is Friday afternoon. Everyone is about to come out of the mosques and this is the time the muslim world demonstrates. It was the same in Khartoum. The same in Aswan. The same in Cairo. The same in Amman. The driver snakes his way around the blocked junctions and finds a ratrun through the back street until we arrive at the entrance of the medina. A beautiful square, sidewalk cafes, only marred by the presence of the military/riot police dressed in Ninja turtle outfits, black leather carapaces, black stockings over their heads, black balaklavas, black boots, black machine guns and black shields. A scary sight.
We get out and there in front of us is a little donkey cart laden with prickly pears—‘n big pile and next to the pile a large red bucket with peeled fruit – bright pink and bright yellow. "OOOOooo we have to have some Jeanette!" " What is it?" " Barbary figs." "Oh I have heard of them..." "Jeanette, if you have never tasted one now is the moment you are going to taste heaven." I am fast beginning to feel like a reall royal bully.
I buy four prickly pears, two yellow and two pink each, and offer them to Jeanette. She hesitates but takes one and bites into it. I am about to look to see her reaction when I bite into mine and like a magic carpet am transported back to a Monday morning on Pretoria university campus, Hennie de Klerk standing in front of me with a huge smile, a tupperware box held out to me, shimmering with condensation, brimful with ice ice cold prickly pears, peeled and juicy and fat and delicious, from his home somewhere near Kroonstad, I think. Ah Hennie – I thought of you and remembered those generous offerings of the most delicious prickly pears in the world! But I have to tell you – the Tunisian market seller’s prickly pears were just as mouthwatering good!
Jeanette decides to stay in the square and goes to sit at a table under an umbrella and with a promise that I will be back in about two hours, I set off intrepidly into the depths of the medina. I immediately find myself fighting my way through a river of people going in the opposite direction. I quickly realise that I have chosen the exact moment to enter the medina that half the population of Tunis have chosen to exit the many mosques. Hundreds and hundreds of people stream past me. Are they the ones we read about in the press and see on television throwing petrol bombs and shooting and fighting the police? Difficult to credit. They all look like anyone who has just spent an hour praying and communing with their god. They look calm and content and many smile at me and greet me with a friend Bon Jour! Sala’am! Even a soyez la bienvenue every few minutes. A stark stark contrast of how the muslims are portrayed to the west.
I love the medina. Not very different to any other median – the same chinese jewellery, the same polyester kaftans and cotton djellebas, the same incense and frankinscence and machine made babouches and embroidered shirts and stamped silver mirror frames and shiny Balinese mosaic bowls and plates. Even the carpets are not very different from those authentic Moroccan or Jordanian or Omani or Muscat or Cairo or Khartoum carpets. I stop at one stall where an old white haired man sits reading his qoran. What is here that is really typical Tunisien, I ask. Everything is what I see in every medina in the world and most of that has been imported from Shanghai or Bali. He smiles and nods. I am afraid that is true, he says. The beautiful embroidered table cloths ‘from Fes’ are made in China. The djellebas, “100% camel hair” come from India. The ornaments come from Bali. The carpets come from factories in the cities. I would tell you the only really authentic items here that are different to what you find in other medinas, are the Tunisien carpets and the bird cages – but as you will see, the carpets in the medina are not Tunisien – those you only find in expensive carpet shops in Europe, and the bird cages – well – look for yourself. Very cheap Chinese rubbish. I had noticed the bird cages and wondered whether there was some special significance to them. It turns out that the Carthagians were the first people to use cormorants to do their fishing for them and thus a fisherman’s fishing bird was very precious and merited a beautifully crafted cage.
I loved the medina anyway. Being Friday afternoon and everyone just having exited the mosques, the place was relatively quiet, the vendors sitting reading, contemplating, drinking tea and talking quietly. I too stopped for a glass of refreshing mint tea and simply sat there for a good while drinking in the atmosphere, the smells, the colours, the experience.
After a long while, I started making my way back and eventually reached the square and the café table where I had left Jeanette. She was beaming. The first smile I had seen on her face. An oldish guy (well -- older than me!) – by all accounts originally from Italy but now having lived for more than 40 years in Tunis, had struck up a conversation with her and she was obviously blossoming in the spell of his charm and attention. She said her goodbyes -- reluctantly it seemed, we collected our belongings and went looking for a taxi to take us back to the airport.
30 Dinar, quoted the driver. REALLY? I did not even bother to bargain. I gestured to Jeanette to get in at the back, I opened the front door, got into the taxi and informed the driver that we will pay him the real price of 5 Dinar each and he could get going. "Times are hard", he smiled resignedly. "Tell me about it", I said. So hard no one is even bothering to keep tradition artisinal crafts alive and everything you sell to tourists comes from elsewhere. A sad sad day when that happens in a country…
Our flight was only at 10:30 so there was still a long wait – in this strangest of strange airports – and I spent three hours people gazing. When we were finally called to board, it was with huge relief that I did so ----- except. We boarded, the place was relatively empty and I tried to persuade the woman with a tiny baby on her lap, seated next to me, to go sit further back where there were two or three seats to be had which would make life so much easier for her. She decided to wait until we were sure all the passengers were on. We waited – and waited – and waited – a full 40 minutes after we were supposed to have taken off, another two buses stopped at the bottom of the stars and its contents of about two thousand people spilled out of the buses and up the stairs into our plane! Chaos! For a good while there I was sure there was standing room only. And need I mention that when two thousand people arrive 45 minutes late for a plane, they also have luggage for Africa and I am quite sure it was not my imagination that the overhead lockers were creaking and groaning under the weight of all those bags pushed and shoved and wedged into them. But – we finally took off almost two hours late and by this time I no longer knew whether I was coming or going, but did not even care and, once again I strapped myself in, put my head back and fell asleep, only to wake up five hours later when we finally landed in Dakar – at 3:30 on Saturday morning, 29 September.
It is goooooood to be back in Africa!
SENEGAL
 | |
Wolof 43.3%, Pular 23.8%, Serer 14.7%, Jola 3.7%, Mandinka 3%, Soninke 1.1%, European and Lebanese 1%, other 9.4%
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French (official), Wolof, Pulaar, Jola, Mandinka
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Muslim 94%, Christian 5% (mostly Roman Catholic), indigenous beliefs 1%
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| |
12,969,606 (July 2012 est.)
country comparison to the world: 71 | |
The French colonies of Senegal and the French Sudan were merged in 1959 and granted their independence as the Mali Federation in 1960. The union broke up after only a few months. Senegal joined with The Gambia to form the nominal confederation of Senegambia in 1982. The envisaged integration of the two countries was never carried out, and the union was dissolved in 1989. The Movement of Democratic Forces in the Casamance (MFDC) has led a low-level separatist insurgency in southern Senegal since the 1980s, and several peace deals have failed to resolve the conflict. Nevertheless, Senegal remains one of the most stable democracies in Africa and has a long history of participating in international peacekeeping and regional mediation. Senegal was ruled by a Socialist Party for 40 years until Abdoulaye WADE was elected president in 2000. He was reelected in 2007 and during his two terms amended Senegal's constitution over a dozen times to increase executive power and to weaken the opposition. His attempt to change the constitution in June 2011 prompted large public protests and his decision to run for a third presidential term sparked a large public backlash that led to his defeat in a March 2012 runoff election with Macky SALL.
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