JUNIOR vs SENIOR

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JUNIOR vs. SENIOR

"You can't make something new out of something old

The principle of seniority: a discriminatory criterion in the Electoral Code.

Since our leaders want a reform of the Electoral Code, here is one that seems to me essential and infinitely more effective than the others. This is the approach that the political authorities seem to be taking.

It costs nothing, because it suffices to take the old French electoral code and replace the "French" term with the "Senegalese" word. Are the authorities intellectually out of order or do they do it knowingly by copying what is most obsolete and totally deleted in the old French code to apply it systematically to our electoral code.

 Since when a law has created discrimination between age groups. Articles L.230 and 265 are more for the benefit of older people. In other words, these articles are detrimental to the younger people's interests. Indeed, the principle of equality enshrined in the Constitution is unlawfully violated by these two articles.

How could the drafters of the reform of the Electoral Code have left this unequal crack on the good sheets of the Electoral Code?

If there was a tie vote in an election for instance, what would happen between two candidates? This is an implausible hypothesis - one chance in ten, but it does exist: what to do if we could not decide between the candidates for mayor of a locality in the next elections?

The possibility of a tie in number of votes is regulated by the age factor which will be the sufficient element to elect the city councilor. This creates two different citizens who are contrary to the Constitution.

In the silence of the texts, the role of the "wise men" of the Constitutional Council would then be decisive, either by canceling, if necessary, these provisions, or by noting the need to proceed again by rewriting these aforementioned articles.

Applying the principle of seniority again is tentamount to distort the electoral game which would favor the most senior or even the oldest. Whatever interpretation is given to the principle of seniority, it will always be divisive or even discriminating.

 Why do we want to create a consensual code and introduce a discriminatory “primitive model” into the electoral code? The reforms initiated by the authorities of the country need a great new grooming.

We must dare to say that the drafters of this new code did not succeed in the reform process. It is necessary to start from the beginning ; that is to say, to open a national debate which would make it possible to define a social project in which all the Senegalese can identify themselves and then talk about reforms.

The societies that we generally agree to call either "lineage" or "segmentary" are societies where the relations of filiation and alliance, that is to say what is called "kinship», were the dominant social organization principle. The consequence is that the preeminent political roles (decision, authority) were above all related to eldership and seniority. Strictly speaking, seniority is the structuring principle of the genealogical model, a vertical type model, linked to generational anteriority of which filiation is the most direct expression.

If the principle of seniority makes it possible to avoid organizing new elections, it turns out that it creates two different Senegalese: "the oldest Senegalese would be chosen to the detriment of the youngest Senegalese".

Let us be fair in the choice of making our laws.

ARD