Senegal: No Country for MCC?

Senegal, once a stable democracy, is on shaky ground as it approaches controversial presidential elections this weekend. President Abdoulaye Wade’s arguably unconstitutional bid for a third term is sparking protests and violence. Meanwhile, the U.S. Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC)—whose raison d’etre is to work with just and democratic governments—maintains a $540 million, five-year development package in the country. Sunday’s elections will test the strength of Senegal’s democracy and the future of its MCC funding.The MCC-Senegal relationship has been bumpy from the start. Senegal was widely-expected to be the very first MCC compact country but after three years of negotiations, there was no compact. MCC doled out some tough love and Senegal pulled together a new team, invested large amounts of their own money and eventually signed a $540 million compact in 2009.

Then came more warning signs. President Wade, in a Capitol Hill event commemorating the MCC Senegal compact, said he was proud of the compact because it acknowledged the country’s commitment to good policies. But at the end of his speech, he asked one of his staff members to hand him the picture of the giant “African Renaissance” statue he was constructing—at odds with the policies and programs the MCC seeks to reward. The expanding role of President Wade’s son, Karim Wade, to become uber-minister of international cooperation, urban and regional planning, air transport and infrastructure raised more flags. And you can add President Wade’s cash “gift” of $170,000 to an outgoing IMF representative and other reports of corruption to the list of concerns.All the while, Senegal ranked in the top quartile of the MCC’s good governance indicators and the MCC put rigorous procurement and monitoring procedures in place. This is well and good, but I flagged the high-level, visible concerns about corruption as major risks to the MCC reputation. My colleague Todd Moss argued all aid to Senegal should be cut off.Fast forward to today and you have an 85-ish year-old president running for a third term, violating the term limits passed while he was in office, but supported by a (Wade-picked) constitutional court. (As a side note, perhaps the MCC should add an age-chasm indicator to its supplemental data.) And all eyes are on the February 26th elections to see if Senegal’s democracy holds and with it, the MCC compact. As of last September, the MCC had only spent $7 million of the $540 million, five-year compact so the majority of funds remains at stake.The MCC can’t tie its funds to the outcome of an election, nor should it. But the MCC can and most definitely should be watching the February 26 elections to see that elections are free, fair, and uphold democracy in Senegal. One hopes the MCC and the U.S. Ambassador to Senegal have been extremely clear with the Senegalese government on this point.  MCC gave Senegal a pass when the other warning signs went up, but the elections—and their aftermath—could leave MCC with little choice but to suspend or terminate its MCC Senegal compact, just as it did with Madagascar, Niger’s threshold program, and portions of compacts with Nicaragua and Armenia.