Abdoulaye Wade

Niasse gets along well enough with President Abdoulaye Wade but disagrees with his way of running the government; he has recently spent much of his time abroad in France and the United States (where he spent several weeks) giving most of his energy to getting his Alliance des Forces du Progrès ready for next year's Assembly elections...

In the first two the victors are trying to consolidate power: in Senegal where Abdoulaye Wade won the presidency from incumbent Abdou Diouf in March and in Côte d'Ivoire still reeling from last month's coup de théâtre when supporters of Laurent Gbagbo chased out military leader General Robert Gueï...

Seven heads of state including the heavyweights Thabo Mbeki Olusegun Obasanjo Abdelaziz Bouteflika and Abdoulaye Wade arrived in Abidjan on 24 September while the affair of the sacked generals was at its height...

The democratic elan and spirit survive but the 'state of grace' is fading as President Abdoulaye Wade's new team faces the new political realities...

The referendum is also expected to lower the voting age from 21 to 18: like new President Abdoulaye Wade in Senegal General Robert Gueï likes to talk about the role of young people in his rise to power - though in Gueï's case they were soldiers not voters (AC Vol 41 Nos 1 & 2)...

That the Wade-Niasse ticket won the election for President Abdoulaye Wade is clear but by intervening directly in the choice of ministers he has made it known that his victory is also that of his party the Parti Démocratique Sénégalais...

By voting out their President of 17 years Abdou Diouf they have steered the country into the unknown territory of Sopi (meaning 'change' in Wolof) the main slogan of Abdoulaye Wade's victorious campaign...

Much of the opposition refusing to be coopted by Diouf's ruling party has coalesced behind veteran oppositionist Abdoulaye Wade who has coveted the presidency for two decades...

For now the usually fractious opposition parties and the leading candidates Mustapha Niasse Djibo Kâ and Abdoulaye Wade have formed the Front pour la Régularité et la Transparence des Elections to press for a clean vote...

Eternal opponent Abdoulaye Wade (74) knows this is his last chance: his partisan say they'll stop at nothing if ruling Parti Socialiste fraud skews the polls...