Dakar Riots...

Normally I only write blog posts about myself (I know I’m so modest), but today I must share these gems of Senegalese news with you all at home.

So yesterday we received endless text-message update about the intense rioting in Dakar, let me explain. Yesterday the National Assembly was set to vote on a new Constitutional Amendment put forth by Senegal’s President Abdulaye Wade. The amendment was to lower the required percentage of the vote needed to be elected president and to create a position of Vice President. Clearly the 90-something year old Wade (the articles say 84-85, but everyone knows he’s much older, but no one really knows…) was planning this to be more easily elected in Feb 2012, have his son as his Vice President and then soon after hand over power…the people in Dakar did NOT like this, so as with the trend these days towards all nepotistic rulers who never want to leave power, there were riots all over the place, except here in Kedougou…people down here care more about Guinea.

I thought all of this was interesting so read some of the articles, or watch the video, or view the pictures at the links below…the best part was seeing that he actually proposed lower the minimum vote percentage from 50% to only 25%!!!! That was just too ridiculous to not let you guys know.

Spoiler Alert: The vote didn’t pass and Wade pulled back on it, let’s see how things go the next couple months…

Some of the links of articles about the protests:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-13887613

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-13899277

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-13892506

http://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFJOE75N0GQ20110624?pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=0&sp=true