A mass opposition party, the African Party for Democracy and Socialism (PADS) is growing rapidly in Senegal after the break-up of a broad opposition front. At the centre of these developments, vital for West Africa, are members of the Fourth Intornationalist current. SOCIALIST interviewed one throughout the underdevelof their leading oped world and are characmembers. terised in Senegal by two main elements. THE POLITICAL situ- Firstly, the membership of ation in Senegal is charac- the Socialist Party and their terised by something very allies treat the country as a specific. The ruling Social- cake which they divide up ist Party have built a coali- amongst themselves.
And secondly, there is no tion with the Party for economic growth, low proIndustry and Workers ductivity and large scale sack(PIT) and the Democratic ing of the workforce. Movement for Workers But resistance has led to Party (LDMPT). some victories, as when, for exBoth are former sections of ample, the teachers' unions the Communist Party which forced the government to pay were co-opted into govern- dues owed to them, despite opment with the specific aim of position to these payments from disrupting opposition to the the World Bank and IMF. World Bank and IMF policies As far as opposition goes, within the trade unions. the PADS represents the largThis year the government est party refusing any collaboattempico to enlarge is base ration with this government of through co-opting the Liberal "cake sharing" Party into this coalition as well. This is a coalition for Clientelism war against the working class, The right wing remains in youth, women and the peas- power for different reasons. antry. After Senegal gained indeUnfortunately for the gov- pendence, the ruling party inernment there is still very herited a state and organised it strong resistance among imaccording to the needs of poportant sectors of the populalitical clientelism through a tion, for example within the number of measures. teaching unions and from teleThe higher ranks within the communication workers.
army were given a number of Despite this fightback there privileges, and the religious has been a continuation of the hierarchy was given both fiprivatisation programme and nancial and material support further attacks on society.
to keep the clerics on board.
These attacks are becomThe ruling party also oring a common feature ganised at a national level a INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR RESEACH AND EDUCATION Behind Senegal's corrupt, right wing government stands the IMF and its calls for austerity union which incorporated industrial and tertiary workers. The National Confederation of Senegalese Workers (CNTS) was given a permanent quota of 6 MPs in the list of MPs of the Socialist Party. They were also offered the presidencies on a number of administrative councils of big enterprises, and ambassadorial posts in several foreign countries.
In return for all this the bureaucracy conceived a plan called "responsible participation", which means no strikes, no rejection of the national union leadership, and acceptance of Ine ongoing economic, political and social policies.
They also created a layer of small businessmen, organising them and giving them borrowing facilities from the state banks with state guarantees. In return they support the government and generally don't pay back the loans, thus passing the debt on to the state.
The government also built up a movement opposed to freedom of speech, demonstrations and democratic liberties. All these elements made the government very powerful, despite the Socialist Party being very small.
The PADS was created at the end of December 1991 by four organisations of Maoists, Trotskyists and Lambertists, which, although they still have tendency rights within PADS, had already carried out PADS General Secretary Landing Savane party that broke from the programmes of the SP and the Liberals.
We were not so much aiming to gain a big vote as to raise awareness among the masses of the ongoing situation and the choices we were faced with.
Unification
We succeeded in being recognised as a group of parties. that could play a significant role. From that moment we began to discuss the possibility of the unification of the left and the definition of our plan of action in the national arena. This is how the PADS was created.
Between November 1993 and February 1994, many of us on the left were arrested, along with some of the leaders of the Liberal Party. We were fighting for democratic liberties.
On the one hand we developed the idea of creating a broad alliance with other parties such as the Movement for Socialism and Unity, and including the Liberals, to launch a mass protest movement against the regime.
On the other we launched a call for a national consultation process with a broad range of social forces from civil society and a number of key leaders to diagnose the overall situation and to propose reforms at the social, institutional and political level.
During this consultation process the Liberal Party entered into secret talks with the government over its inclusion nio a governmeni coalition, breaking up the broad alliance.
Since April the Liberal Party has been in government, but there has been no change in the social situation, except an increase in the number of ministers, who all receive their slice of the cake.
The Liberal leader was the leader of the national consultation process, and since he entered the government the Liberal Party has lost thousands of its militants to the PADS.
Within the opposition coalition the Liberals had put forward the slogan Sopi (change), counterposed to this PADS put forward the slogan Folli (destitute) to highlight the need to make the ruling party destitute to bring about change.
Recruiting
Many of the women, youth and workers from both urban and rural areas are now leaving the rainbow coalition. PADS on the other hand, has recruited thousands of these militants, its last membership count was around 20,000, though it is growing rapidly all the time.
When you live in a country such as ours where corruption is massive, it is easy to be in government. When you refuse this corruption, you create a pole of attraction for all those who want to oppose the government and IMF policies.
We are faced with many organisational and political challenges, we have a party which is very young, we have faced massive repression, massive austerity measures, particularly in the universities, and we have not yet been able to create the organisational structures needed for Thic kingst movement Now we must build a party in a situation that will not be stable, which will give us big pronlems.
This is a huge challenge for us and will be the major development in the revolutionary process in Senegal and the West of Africa.