Failed hereditary succession in comparative perspective: The case of Senegal (2000–2024) (2024)

Abstract

MEDIA COMMENTS ON AFRICAN POLITICS regarding the endurance of patrimonial governance often suggest that leaders frequently transfer power to their relatives.1 In reality, family successions, such as in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in 2001, Togo in 2005, Gabon in 2009,2 Malawi in 2014, or Chad in 2021, are rare in sub-Saharan Africa. Family executive successions (between a ruler and their relative) among heads of state only occur in 7 percent of all leadership transfers.3 Hereditary transitions (a ruler to their child) are even rarer (2.6 percent of all leadership transfers). This means that most cases of executive succession in sub-Saharan Africa occur between two rulers who are unrelated to each other. As such, the modal case of executive succession in sub-Saharan Africa is non-familial.

This article probes the following empirical puzzle. While many rulers have co-opted relatives through patronage appointments for a long time,4 only a few succeed in setting up a family succession. Are they trying but eventually fail to do so? Among the large subset of cases of non-familial transitions of executive power, failed attempts of family succession remain unexplored. Two sets of reasons might explain this. First, they are largely invisible from the large-N data of all executive succession cases and, as such, constitute an empirical challenge: How to assess whether a ruler has tried to transfer power to their relative but failed to do so? Second, the scholarship is reluctant to examine failed attempts,5 even though they are empirically rich and relevant to both theory-testing and theory-building.

Enduring theoretical expectations on patrimonialism and patronage, executive overreach, co-optation of political allies and family members within the government and institutions, and party weakness in sub-Saharan Africa suggest that a ruler could easily implement a family succession. This is not, however, the case. Such successions are, in fact, rare because they are difficult to set up: It is much easier to co-opt relatives within the regime and state apparatus6 than it is to transfer executive leadership to one of them. Little attention in the literature has been paid to this distinction. Tackling this empirical puzzle and building on the growing scholarship on political dynasties and family successions in broader comparative politics, identify scope conditions that need to be in place for a family succession to succeed in semi-democratic regimes: The grooming of a biological heir into a political successor, the support of a cohesive ruling party elite, and the validation of the successor through elections.7 This article contributes to such scholarship by building a theory of failure of hereditary successions in electoral democracies. This study of failed attempts helps unveil specific mechanisms that prevent these three conditions from being met and eventually caused the succession to fail. Consequently, it also enhances our understanding of what drives variation in the success or failure of a family succession.

This article examines the failed attempt at implementing hereditary succession in Senegal between former President Abdoulaye Wade (in office 2000–2012) and his son Karim. At the time, the country was a credible candidate for family succession owing to the patrimonialization of power due to the endurance of rulers’ survival in power8 and their co-optation of family and non-family elites in the regime apparatus.9 Following a ‘passive revolution’10 President Diouf (in office 1981–2000) and his Parti Socialiste (PS) undertook since introducing full multipartyism in 1981, the historic turnover in 2000, which brought Abdoulaye Wade and his Parti démocratique sénégalais (PDS) to power, did not put an end to patrimonial governance nor did it result in genuine democratization. A semi-democracy,11 the country has remained an ‘electoral democracy’ since 1988, meaning that it possesses democratic institutions but is characterized by significant limitations regarding the quality of democracy.12 A ‘democracy without democrats’,13 Senegal under Wade’s rule was marred by ‘the mirages and abuses of the democratic turnover’14 and Wade’s ‘authoritarian temptation’.15

Thus, Wade’s strong incumbency advantage16 and his control over both state institutions and his ruling party17 might have suggested that transferring power to his son would be easy. This did not, however, turn out to be the case. During his two terms in office (2000–2012), President Wade groomed his son Karim as his ‘heir apparent’ to the detriment of his former Prime Ministers and political ‘protégés’ (Idrissa Seck and Macky Sall). Wade also promoted his son Karim within the ruling party and manipulated institutional rules to ease the succession but ultimately failed to transfer power to him.

As such, Senegal is a case worth studying for two reasons: It is a rare case of a failed hereditary succession and an extreme case of failure, as the mode of failure is unusual.18 The succession failed, I underline, because the ruler could not gain the cohesive support of the party elites behind his son’s designation as his successor, as others were also vying for party leadership and executive power. The effort to groom Karim to replace his father led to the defection of influential regime insiders to the opposition, which weakened both the ruler (within the party and in the public opinion) and his party. The process in turn prevented President Wade from stepping down in favour of his son and led him to manipulate constitutional rules and run for a controversial third mandate in an attempt at surviving in power. The opposition rallied to run against him (and his family succession planning) and ultimately defeated him.

Through a longitudinal single-country case study (2000–2023), this article employs process-tracing to uncover specific dynamics at play in the failure of family succession in Senegal while contributing to the theoretical understanding of succession dynamics in semi-democracies. I demonstrate empirically that three main reinforcing mechanisms led to this failure: Popular resentment towards the succession attempt; a succession crisis due to the ruler not leaving power; and elite defection, which led to party split. The latter constitutes the main reason for the succession’s failure, but the two other factors also played a role. The intensity of widespread resentment and the deadlock in leadership succession due to Wade’s refusal to step down were sufficiently significant to persuade several insiders from the PDS to defect. This structure of opportunities affected how non-familial party elites could access power and executive leadership: Not by challenging the ruler and his son within a weakened ruling party with no experience of leadership succession but by leaving the party to challenge them through elections in an environment where popular discontent towards Wade’s regime had grown, making a turnover a realistic prospect. Therefore, building on the Senegal case, I argue that executive control over power and institutions may be constrained in an electoral democracy not only by the existence of institutional rules of competition but also by public opinion (in this case, unpopularity) and internal regime dynamics (elite defection and party splits following leadership succession crisis). In mutually reinforcing each other, these dynamics converged to block the transfer of power from the ruler to his offspring.

In a semi-democracy, succession constitutes a greater challenge than in autocracies, as incumbents must secure succession towards a loyal insider, who will also have to win competitive elections.19 Given such tension between loyalty and electability, incumbents might resolve this dilemma by attempting a family succession towards a loyal heir. Despite executive control over power and institutions, however, the negative reactions of decisive actors, such as party elites and the population, to such succession in a context where rules of selection and competition exist might thwart this plan.

The article starts by empirically demonstrating that contrary to expectations stemming from personal and neopatrimonial rule theories, family successions are rare in sub-Saharan Africa. It then examines the theoretical importance and empirical challenges of studying non-cases of family successions and, more specifically, failed attempts while documenting them in sub-Saharan Africa to frame the Senegal case from a comparative perspective. Then, it uses process-tracing to explore the mechanisms leading up to the failed succession in Senegal. A concluding section opens avenues to discuss these mechanisms in a comparative perspective.

Family successions of executive power in Africa: An empirical puzzle

As the scholarship on neopatrimonialism has documented, dominant rulers often and easily co-opt family members.20 However, the literature does not outline how frequently such co-optation results in the effective transfer of executive power. Familial successions in sub-Saharan Africa have not raised much scholarly attention compared to studies on political dynasties elsewhere, especially in the Americas and Asia.21 More generally, political successions in sub-Saharan Africa have generated little scholarly interest,22 although they were considered ‘the gordian knot of African politics’23 in post-independence regimes ‘precisely because the rules governing succession—like all constitutional rules in personal regimes—lack legitimacy and therefore the predictable capacity to shape political behaviour’.24

Scholarly interest in African politics has focused primarily on understanding predatory politics with the spread of autocratic regimes from the late 1960s and 1970s up to the political transitions of the 1990s. In the 1980s, most scholars agreed on the paradigm of the privatization of political power and developed concepts such as personal rule, nepotism, prebendalism, big man rule, the politics of the belly, and neopatrimonialism, which prevailed for decades, to describe how elites informally co-opted formal institutions.25 This scholarship documented and theorized how elites use their positions (either political or administrative) and power for personal accumulation and redistribution of public resources. Through their ‘rents’, they also consolidated their positions as ‘patrons’26 by allocating resources towards indebted and loyal ‘clients’ and thus sustaining an informal system of political and economic regulation. Over time, the latter fuelled a familial matrix of legitimate governance, shaping incumbents as ‘good fathers and family men’ with ‘rights and responsibilities within a highly idealized family’.27

Such theories, while asserting the persistent executive overreach of presidents,28 the weakness of parties,29 and more generally of institutions to regulate leadership successions,30 do not tackle familial transfers of executive power. More recently, they have also been criticized for their lack of explanatory power in accounting for political change and cross-national variations.31 Nonetheless, this type of politics should lend itself to family succession, as leaders exercising power ‘as a form of private property’ could transfer such ‘patrimony’ to one of their relatives without facing significant constraints. However, against these theoretical expectations and despite extensive media coverage of a so-called ‘sons’ craze’ among sub-Saharan leaders, family successions are quite rare, as Figure1 shows.

As no cross-national dataset explores the various aspects of these executive familial successions in sub-Saharan Africa, I developed the FamRULafrica dataset, which lists all occurrences of familial successions of executive power in Africa (1950–2022).32 Family successions involve two successive rulers belonging to the same family, whether they succeed each other directly (such as between the Jugnauths in Mauritius in 2017 and the Déby Itnos in Chad in 2021) or not (as with a delay of 4 months between the Bongos in Gabon in 2009, 2 years between the Mutharikas in Malawi in 2014, or 35 years between the Kenyattas in Kenya in 2013). Out of the 422 rulers in non-monarchical regimes in sub-Saharan Africa during this period, only 7.1 percent (n = 30) were relatives of a former ruler.33 Figure1 also shows that family successions towards offspring are even rarer: 2.6 percent (n = 11, sons only) of all political successions and a little less than 40 percent of all family successions.34 Thus, data show that familial successions are rare in sub-Saharan Africa. Even rarer are political dynasties involving three executive leaders from the same family consecutively holding the highest office.35 While the latter can be observed repeatedly in non-monarchical regimes in various regions, such as Asia (India, Japan, North Korea, and Sri Lanka), the Middle East (Lebanon), and Latin America (Bolivia, Panama, and Dominican Republic),36 in sub-Saharan Africa, such dynastic successions have only occurred in Liberia within the Barklay/Tubman family (in 1930 and 1944).

Familial successions in sub-Saharan Africa have remained relatively few since the 1960s despite the 1970s–1980s autocratic wave. The 1990s transitions have not significantly impacted the trend. The scarcity of family successions shows that they are not the modal case of leadership successions in sub-Saharan Africa; most successions involve unrelated rulers and are thus non-cases of familial succession.

What are non-cases?

Cases of family succession are easy to observe, as the ruler is succeeded by one of their relatives (directly or indirectly). They have recently raised some scholarly interest,37 as country case studies documenting successions following a ruler’s death-in-office demonstrate: The Kabilas in the Democratic Republic of the Congo,38 the Eyadémas in Togo,39 the Bongos in Gabon,40 and the Mutharikas in Malawi.41 Studies investigate several aspects, including the political capital inherited by the legacy candidate,42 the manipulation of rules in implementing succession and international reactions to it,43 regime survival, and the role played by regime elites.44

In contrast, non-cases include most cases of succession where no family successor was involved either because the latter was not selected within the succession process or because such succession failed to occur. Therefore, non-cases may be divided into two distinct subsets: No-family successor cases and failed attempts. First are cases (most of them) where succession does not involve any of the ruler’s relatives once the latter contemplates his exit from power. This scenario might materialize for different reasons: No viable heir is considered or available, the ruler has groomed a non-relative political successor, a coup ousted the ruler from power, or the ruler died before he had time to groom and impose his heir. Second are cases where the ruler has groomed and positioned a family member to succeed them but eventually fails to transfer power to their relative. Such is the focus of this paper.

Failed attempts

How can failed attempts be studied? As Smith argues, there is an analytical bias in focusing on ‘winning candidates’45 given ‘the inability to disentangle the attractiveness of legacy ties in the candidate selection stage from the electoral advantages enjoyed by legacy candidates once they are chosen (that is, the roles of party elites versus voters in the perpetuation of dynasties)’. As such, the study of failed attempts helps to distinguish the selection process from the electoral one and to uncover the specific mechanisms that led to candidate selection within the family and his appeal to voters in the electoral arena. It helps us to better understand the succession process and how the decisive interaction of context (rules and governance) and actors (the ruler and his clan, party elites, voters, and civil society) impact a family succession plan.

How to identify failed attempts? While it is clear when a family succession is a success, failed attempts are more challenging to detect. To identify such non-cases, I apply the ‘Possibility Principle’ method: Choosing cases ‘where the outcome of interest is possible’.46 Considering that rulers might co-opt family members to positions of power, the possibility exists that they might groom one of them as their successor. However, how can this be ascertained? And how can this attempt be considered to have failed?

With respect to the first question, scholars have mainly studied succession as an outcome47 rather than a process. Therefore, to address issues of selection and competition during the succession race for leadership, one must examine the timeline of the succession process, which unfolds incrementally. The study of family successions uncovers this process particularly well: Rulers may co-opt some or several relatives while grooming one or many of them as potential successors, alongside non-family political allies, all of whom vye for leadership before the ruler designates one of them as his heir apparent. Therefore, when studying hereditary successions, one must disentangle simple cases of co-optation from overtly grooming ones. I do not retain designation by the ruler of his heir apparent as a reliable criterion, though. In most successful cases, rulers do not formally designate a family successor, as shown in Togo (2005), Gabon (2009), and Chad (2021). Former Presidents Eyadéma, Bongo, and Déby, while grooming several of their offspring to become key regime insiders, had not overtly designated their sons as their successors, which triggered, at the ruler’s sudden death, intense infighting among potential family and political successors. Eventually, Faure Gnassingbé, Ali Bongo, and Mahamat Déby emerged successful and took over from their father by securing the endorsem*nt of the ruling party (Togo and Gabon) and the military (Togo and Chad).48

Consequently, I argue that two conditions are required to consider that an attempt at implementing a family succession is made. First, before exiting power, the ruler must have overtly groomed an heir apparent by appointing them to influential governmental or institutional (elective or not) positions, which make the heir a key regime insider.49 Such positions will give them access to state resources to grow their own base of support.50 It is particularly clear in Uganda or in Equatorial Guinea, where presidents’ sons have been designated, respectively, as Commander of the Special Forces Command (2008–2017, 2020–2021) and then Commander of the army’s land forces (2020–2022) for Muhoozi Kainerugaba51 and as Vice President for Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue since 2016. Second, the family-groomed successor must have accepted to embrace his heritage52 and actively demonstrated his willingness to succeed the ruler. For example, in Cameroun, the eldest son of President Paul Biya (in office since 1982), Franck Emmanuel Biya, an informal advisor to his father, has not yet demonstrated his intention to succeed him.53 Some co-optation cases may evolve towards overtly grooming ones, therefore becoming ‘pending’ cases of succession.54

With respect to the second question, pending cases become failed ones when the incumbent, although clearly demonstrating his willingness to hand over political power to his relative while in power, is unable to do so. I assess failure when a groomed biological successor holding a powerful regime and institutional position is unable to access power after his father leaves it. I identify two main types of failure. The first type results from violent disruption. It includes cases where, despite having groomed their relative for succession, the ruler is overthrown, in a violent outbreak which ends the succession plan: A coup led by the military, as in 2020 in Mali between Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta (in office 2013–2020) and his son, Karim; or in 2017 in Zimbabwe between Robert Mugabe (in office1987–2017) and his wife Grace;55 a popular revolt, as in 2011 between Hosni Mubarak (in office 1981–2011) and his son Gamal,56 or in 2014 between Blaise Compaoré (in office 1987–2014) and his brother François; or international intervention, as in Libya in 2011 between al-Qaddafi (in office 1969–2011) and his sons. The second type results from the lack of party support. It includes cases where the ruling party trumps the family successor, terminating the succession. It counters the ruler’s plans by not selecting the heir as the party nominee for the upcoming general elections. In Angola, the party elites did not choose José Filomeno do Santos to succeed his father, President José Eduardo dos Santos (in office 1979–2017), when he exited power in 2017.57 After losing the party nomination, the heir might create their own party to run for presidential elections, as in Ghana with Samia Nkrumah, President Nkrumah’s (in office 1960–1966) daughter, who lost her father’s Convention People’s Party’s nomination race in 2016. The children might also end up running as independent candidates. This is the case for Charles Margai, nephew of Milton Margai (in office 1961–1964) and son of his brother Albert Margai (in office 1964–1967), who was defeated in 2007, 2012, and 2018 in Sierra Leone; or Jean-Serge Bokassa, one of Jean-Bédel Bokassa’s sons, who was defeated in 2016 in Central African Republic.

Why study Senegal, an extreme failed case?

Senegal’s attempted succession fits the ‘possibility principle’58 of a non-case where the outcome of interest (a successful family succession) could have happened but did not. As such, it meets the two conditions identified above. While in power (2000–2007 and 2007–2012), President Abdoulaye Wade co-opted his son Karim to powerful state and regime positions while grooming him at the expense of potential political successors. A pending case when President Wade was in office, Senegal then ended up a failed attempt when he could not impose Karim’s succession. Senegal is interesting to study because its outcome is ‘unusual’59 among the overall class of executive succession cases.

First, although rare in comparative terms, family succession in Senegal was a distinct possibility.60 Despite the narrative of the democratic Senegalese ‘success story’61 in West Africa,62 built on the institutionalization of a long-term deliberative arena since the colonial period,63 and the progressive liberalization the country has undertaken since 1974,64 which resulted in a highly institutionalized party system,65 scholars have long described Senegal as a ‘presidential monarchy’66 ruled by ‘patrimonial democrats’.67

Second, Senegal’s case is also ‘unusual’ in the way failure occurred. Because the ruler failed to achieve consensus among party elites over his son’s selection despite his control over the ruling party he founded, it triggered elite defection and ultimately led to the party’s split and defeat in the 2012 presidential elections. As such, Senegal is an extreme case within the type 2 of failed attempts cases where failure occurs when the ruling party trumps the family succession as shown in Figure2.

Given such ‘extremeness’, the study of Senegal is helpful in exploring a failed case, ‘yielding general theoretical insights with comparative implications’.68

A theory of failure in electoral democracies

Seminal studies have examined the issue of family successions of executive power in autocracies, but scholars have not demonstrated the same interest for such successions in electoral democracies. In autocracies, Herz showed that family succession might solve the ‘Crown-Prince’ problem69 every incumbent is facing. By designating a successor, the autocrat might create an alternative centre of independent power that will challenge his rule. When grooming their own child to succeed them and installing a ‘hereditary rulership’,70 the ruler secures power and resources to both familial and non-familial elites.71 Subsequently, Brownlee demonstrated empirically that hereditary successions do not rely uniquely on the ruler’s will but also on their acceptance by non-family elites within the ruling party. Successful successions depend on the extent to which the leader can co-opt party elites to support his biological heir. Brownlee shows that elites tend to endorse the heir when the ruler is the ruling party’s founder and that no formal party procedures regulate the leadership transition. In competitive authoritarianism, as Levitsky and Way stated,72 succession constitutes a more significant challenge than in autocracies, as incumbents must secure succession towards a loyal insider who will also have to win competitive elections. In electoral democracies, rulers contemplating such tension between loyalty and electability might be tempted to resolve it by planning a family succession, whose success depends on three scope conditions identified in the introduction.

My argument here is that the role of actors (party elites and voters) in the succession process and how they engage with the rules of the game (mainly over party leadership selection and elections)73 impact the succession outcome. Rulers must solve two significant issues when planning a family succession in an electoral democracy: The support of party elites in a ‘sufficiently’74 competitive context and the electability of their family candidate to ensure a successful succession. In autocracies, elites tend to endorse the biological heir groomed by the incumbent as a political successor because he appears as a bulwark against potential instability brought upon by the leader’s departure, securing meanwhile their clientelistic networks and maintaining their status.75 In addition, as shown by Bratton and van de Walle,76 the transition from a neopatrimonial regime is shaped by the degree of competition and participation allowed in such a regime. Therefore, in an electoral democracy, the hereditary successor will also have to comply with the rules of a competitive electoral game and win the upcoming presidential election. On the one hand, hereditary succession is designed to secure the transfer of power to an heir apparent (being both trustworthy and electable) and to prevent elite defection, maintain ruling party cohesion, and ensure regime survival. On the other hand, the existence of multiparty elections might empower non-familial ruling party elites who do not support the family successor. Because they also vie for leadership and cannot access it within the ruling party, they might decide to defect to the opposition to challenge the ruler and his succession plans.

Senegal’s failed case illustrates this tension most clearly. It unveils crucial mechanisms which had a powerful impact in constraining the executive succession agenda. While scholarship documents how formal constraints (such as terms limits) apply to rulers and influence executive power and how the executive tries to navigate these rules by contravening or changing them through constitutional amendments or revisions,77 I contend that other types of constraints directly stemming from public opinion and internal regime dynamics apply to rulers. Although they might also strongly impact the executive agenda, these constraints have remained underexamined. The Senegal case study helps uncover the constraints that may arise from party politics, opposition coalition, and public opinion. Senegal’s failed succession shows competitive politics at work in an electoral democracy and how three specific mechanisms have played a decisive role in this failure: Popular resentment towards Wade’s son and his father’s weakened regime, the structure of the succession (Wade never retired nor died, unlike in most successful cases of successions), and elite defection, which led to the ruling party’s split. The interaction of these three mechanisms ended the ruler’s family succession plans.

Methodology

Building on frequent fieldwork visits conducted in Senegal since 2002, original empirical data collected between 2013 and 2021 in Dakar support this argument. This article draws on 30 in-depth interviews conducted with PDS officials (mainly within the electoral and communication commissions) and PDS Members of Parliament (MPs) (elected in 2007 and 2012), founders and leaders of PDS-affiliated youth movements (Mouvement des étudiants et elèves libéraux and Union des jeunesses travaillistes libérales—UJTL), and dissident PDS elites (mostly former MPs). Group discussions with PDS members were also conducted while observing party meetings and events at the party’s headquarters in Dakar and during political rallies. In addition, extensive archival research was carried out from 2018 to 2021 to collect PDS data on the party’s organizational structures, electoral data and material (ballot papers, lists, and results for local and general elections), and biographical profiles of PDS elites since the creation of the party in 1974. Archival research was conducted in Dakar (at the Senegalese National Archives, the archives of the Ministry of the Interior, the Senegalese National Assembly, the National Autonomous Electoral Commission, and Le Soleil newspaper archives) and in France (Center of the Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Nantes and La Courneuve). I also collected existing material (biographies,78 pamphlets, and essays79) on the Wade family. Finally, I conducted informal discussions with political journalists, civil society activists (that is, with Y”en A Marre members), academics (especially at University Cheikh Anta Diop in Dakar and University Gaston Berger in St Louis), and representatives of international foundations (Konrad Adenauer Foundation, Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, and Open Society Initiative for West Africa).

Repeated attempts to contact Wade’s family members through various channels did not succeed. Access to political leaders and elites, the ‘dominant’ class,80 is challenging when one seeks to retrace their familial and social trajectory in politics, elections, and governmental positions, especially when this trajectory includes the patrimonialization of power. The study of family successions and political dynasties through interviews is a significant methodological challenge, and it has mainly been addressed through documentary and archival data sets.81

Mechanisms of failure

The following sections detail the three core mechanisms that played a crucial role in the failure of the succession attempt: The regime’s unpopularity; the leadership succession blockage resulting from Wade’s unwillingness to retire; elite defection, and, eventually, party split. While they need to be analysed separately, these three factors are intertwined and have a reinforcing effect: The strength of widespread anger was compelling enough for many PDS insiders to consider challenging the Wades through elections and not within the party.

Unpopularity

Despite the unprecedented wave of hope his election had raised, resulting in the first political turnover in postcolonial Senegal,82 Wade failed to meet popular demands for Sopi (change in Wolof) and effective liberalization.83 A French-educated lawyer,84 Wade founded the PDS in 1974 and was elected member of Parliament in 1978, an office he held until 1998 and again in 2017. He ran (and lost) against President Senghor in the 1978, 1983, and 1988 elections and again against Diouf in 1993 while, nonetheless, holding several ministerial posts in 1991 and 1995. This gave him access to patronage resources to organize his party.85 Benefiting from the erosion of the PS regime as well as the ill effects of economic liberal reforms which characterized Diouf’s era, Wade was elected in the 2000 presidential elections with the support of a broad opposition coalition built upon PS dissident elites, making it the first case of political alternation in Senegal.86 However, the victory of the Sopi coalition led by Abdoulaye Wade and his PDS party, which ended the 40 years of the PS era in 2000, did not result in greater genuine democratization. His two terms did not break with autocratic governance.87 State institutions remained highly politicized and were used to undermine the opposition.88 Wade maintained Senegal as a ‘patrimonial democracy’89 characterized by clientelism90 and entrenched political elites,91 lacking transparency, infringing on civil liberties, and increasingly relying on rents from international donors and remittances.92 Wade was criticized for its opaque methods of governance, its multiple opportunistic constitutional amendments, the hubris of its public spending in vanity projects,93 and its failure to guarantee free expression and freedom of the press.94

As Diop shows, Wade’s pervasive ‘domination system’ allowed him to suppress any opposition and perpetrate abuses.95 This was made possible through a combination of factors, including the extensive political and financial resources Wade used to build his hegemony, the infighting and fragmentation within the opposition, and the regime’s use of unprecedented violence. The fading of his popularity might have prompted him to prepare his son, Karim, for leadership. His son’s grooming was met with public disapproval. Still, the absence of a credible political opponent allowed Wade to maintain such a social and political setting of ‘constant tension’96 with only weak reactions. Ultimately, Wade’s high personalization of power, his use of clientelism, his infringement of civil liberties, and his plundering of public resources led to fierce public outrage that took the form of what Diop calls a ‘collective opponent’,97 that is, a broad social movement that unfolded from the Assises Nationales in 2008 to wide popular protests in June 2011. It took shape outside party politics because of the repeated failures of the institutionalized political opposition to confront Wade’s political agenda to holding on to power and passing it to his son. While Wade’s political charisma accounted for his enduring presence in politics, his son owed his own only to his father.

Wade gradually gave Karim access to powerful state offices to consolidate his position within the PDS and the public arena, paving the way for a possible hereditary succession. Within the family, selection occurred between Wade’s two children, Karim (born in 1969) and Sindiély (born in 1972). While Karim was increasingly presented as his father’s political heir, Sindiély remained outside the public eye until she was nominated special advisor to the President in 2000 and then appointed manager of the 2010 third Festival des arts nègres.98 Karim fulfilled better the requirements of a ‘viable’ heir set by Brownlee99 because of his age (born in 1968), his gender, and the central role he had gained in the party and state networks since the early 2000s. Toussaint Manga, a leader of the PDS youth movement at the time, outlines Karim’s abilities and resources to enter politics:

First, he is someone who knows how to communicate and who can manage power. Second, he is young. Thirdly, he is someone who has good international networks. Fourth, we must also recognize that he is backed because he is Wade’s son; he has been in his father’s administrative apparatus, and we see his father through him. People tell themselves that not only has he learned a lot from his father, but they assume that during his father’s term in office, he helped and worked a lot. Then, it’s only the age difference for some people that differentiates him from his father. They say they are the same, in fact.100

Until the late 1990s, Karim had remained a largely unknown figure in Senegal. Following his primary and secondary schooling in Dakar, Karim studied in France, obtaining a master’s degree in finance in 1995, after which he worked for the London-based UBS Warburg bank. He cultivated networks in Africa and in the world of finance and multinational corporations (De Beers, Anglo American, and Texaco).101 The Wade siblings socialized among the PDS networks in Paris until Karim returned to Senegal to help with his father’s presidential campaign for the 2000 race. Often nicknamed ‘the hidden son’, he was depicted as a ‘toubab’ (white/foreigner) in the media because of his French descent (from his mother Viviane’s side) and his shallow roots in the country and his inability to speak Wolof (Senegal’s lingua franca).

During his father’s two presidential terms, his legitimation as the ‘heir apparent’ went through various steps: Geographical (Karim came back to live in the country), identity-based (the display of his sénégalité through traditional clothes and public displays of Muslim piety), mediatic (a strategy of ultra-visibility), partisan (entrenching his position within the PDS), and institutional (member of the cabinet). After his father’s 2000 electoral victory, he was appointed personal advisor to the President in 2002, consolidating his position within the party’s networks and the technocratic elite. He assumed the role of his father’s right-hand man, overseeing key restructuring projects. These included revitalizing the Chemical Industries of Senegal (Industries Chimiques du Senegal), developing the New International Airport of Diass, and establishing the special integrated economic zone in Dakar. In the media, he cultivated the image of being a central figure in the political life of Senegal. Abdoulaye Wade’s grooming of his son also took place in the international scene. Abdoulaye Wade had, for a long time, consolidated his ‘international projection’102 through his ‘linkage’103 to both international and continental actors and organizations to gain external support. As his access to international sources of financing when in opposition104 increased while in office, he enhanced his capacity to distribute spoils to ensure the cohesion of the ruling coalition. He built his international linkages on a clientelistic politique de la valise (suitcase policy) and the use of his caisse noire (slush fund),105 which his son Karim perpetuated. Karim’s poor management of public funds while heading the National Agency for the Organisation of Islamic Conference (ANOCI in french) to organize the 11th Islamic Summit in Dakar in 2008106 was audited by the National Assembly. Karim was soon labelled ‘Mister 15%’107 within diplomatic networks, suggesting that he was perceived more as his father’s corrupt right-hand man than a respectable statesman. Wade introduced his son to his international networks, which Karim consolidated through his own links in the finance and banking sectors.

Karim’s grooming plan was then to validate him as a ‘viable’, that is, ‘eligible’ candidate by winning an electoral mandate. Following his re-election in 2007, Wade forced his son to run for Dakar’s mayoral office as the PDS nominee in 2009.108 Karim’s electoral defeat against Khalifa Sall, a PS rising figure at the time, constituted a significant blow to President Wade, as the party also lost votes, particularly in urban centres.109

Karim’s defeat led Abdoulaye Wade to act to secure his son’s political future. First, Wade reacted to his son’s defeat by appointing him to powerful ministerial positions. As Minister of International Cooperation, Regional Development, and Air Transport, his father granted him control of 46 percent of the state budget, which earned him the nickname of ‘Minister of Heaven and Earth’. Second, Wade engaged in significant institutional manipulation to ease the path toward family succession, while the electoral route appeared uncertain. In 2011, Wade tried to amend the constitution to allow a candidate to run for the presidency with a running mate for Vice President (VP), implying that there could be a transmission of power from the President to the VP without any election. A further amendment proposed lowering the threshold to win the presidential election to 25 percent in the first round, thereby removing the absolute majority principle. These attempts unleashed considerable popular discontent and allowed for new actors challenging the regime to emerge, such as the Y’en a Marre (We’re fed up) movement formed by hip-hop artists, journalists, and youth groups from the Dakar suburbs. On 23 June 2011, popular protests peaked against the adoption of these constitutional reforms, denouncing the attempt to engineer a ‘monarchical devolution of power’. Slogans such as Touche pas à ma constitution (Don’t touch my constitution) or J’ai honte (I am ashamed), combined with the financial and organizational resources of opposition parties, led to the mobilization of diverse social groups, including youth movements and the middle class.110 Under heavy public pressure, increasing strife within the PDS, and massive urban riots in Dakar, Abdoulaye Wade backed down.

The waning of Wade’s popularity led to cracks in his electoral basis, as the PDS 2009 local elections’ setback demonstrated.111 Then, as Koter shows, in the run-up to the upcoming 2012 presidential elections, power brokers and electoral intermediaries in rural areas (such as Muslim marabouts—religious leaders—and traditional elites) were less keen to support him because few pro-rural policy reforms had been adopted and less public resources had been channelled into rural areas.112 Popular protests in urban areas, where voters are less likely to approve of clientelism,113 fuelled further disaffection with Wade’s regime. Voters were suspicious of the attempts to place the ruler’s heir apparent in office.114 They were less likely to support a succession project that contradicted or might have violated institutional procedures and political competition in the context of a deteriorating economic situation.115 Although Wade had initially pushed for a two-term limit and had declared back in 2007 that running for a third term would be unconstitutional, he insisted on running for a third term for the 2012 electoral race, claiming ‘Ma waxoon, waxeet’ (I said it, I go back on my word in Wolof). The constitutional council approved his candidacy. In reaction, the Mouvement du 23 juin (an alliance of 60 civil society organizations, youth movements, and opposition political parties) committed to ousting Wade from power.116

Un-retirement

Successful cases of direct family succession117 occur when a crisis resulting from the ruler’s exit from power—following his death,118 a coup,119 or his resignation120—leads the elites to rally behind and support the presumptive heir. In Senegal, the ruler never left office nor retired to favour his son’s access to power. As such, the latter could not replace him as the leader of the ruling party nor assert his control over party elites and patronage networks. Although President Wade proclaimed that ‘if elected, he would not serve a full term’,121 paving the way for his impending succession, his refusal to leave power for good made family succession unlikely. While turning 86 at the end of his two terms in 2012, one may consider that Abdoulaye Wade was ‘ready’ to see an heir succeed him. The succession crisis triggered by his enduring impending succession started when he groomed several political successors within the PDS before Karim.

Since its creation in 1974, the PDS has remained a highly personalized party still headed by its founder and never having experienced a leadership transition. Wade had been its charismatic leader for 26 years when accessing the country’s highest office in 2000. Despite its leadership within the Sopi winning coalition in the 2000 presidential and 2001 legislative elections, the new ruling party’s cohesion has been primarily undermined by welcoming elite defectors from the former authoritarian ruling party.122 It also resulted from the ongoing defections within the Sopi ruling coalition.123 Riedl relates this vulnerability to ‘the personalized nature of the PDS [which] meant that it lacked the cohesion and social rootedness that kept much of the PS elite within the party fold’.124

During Wade’s terms, decision-making was increasingly concentrated in the hands of the leader and a few members of the party’s steering committee. Wade’s advanced age, which certainly made him contemplate several exit scenarios, led him to overtly groom two political successors before Karim—Idrissa Seck first and then Macky Sall—during his first term. Wade appointed both as his campaign directors and then as his prime ministers (respectively from 2002 to 2004 and from 2004 to 2007), giving them the required profile and financial resources to run for succession. Seck became the director of Wade’s presidential campaign in 1998 and the second-highest-ranking member of the party. Following Wade’s 2000 victory, he was appointed prime minister (2002–2004) and was later elected mayor of Thiès (one of the largest cities in Senegal) between 2002 and 2014. Initially groomed as Wade’s successor, Seck eventually fell from grace in 2004 when his mentor dismissed him as prime minister, after which he was found guilty of embezzlement (a crime for which he was imprisoned between 2005 and 2006; charges against him were dropped in 2009) and left the party with a group of rebelling PDS MPs. After Seck, Sall (twice a cabinet member between 2001 and 2004) became prime minister until 2007. He was Wade’s re-election campaign manager during the 2007 presidential elections. As head of the Sopi coalition in the 2007 legislative elections, he was elected to parliament and became president of the National Assembly (2007–2008). While holding that post, Sall made Karim Wade testify during an audit of his management of funds set aside for the National Agency for the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (ANOCI). Like Seck, Sall was later ostracized from the PDS and dismissed from his post of president of the National Assembly after most representatives voted to reduce the position’s mandate from 5 years to 1 year. Accused of embezzling public funds (charges were dismissed in 2009), he left the PDS in 2008, resigning as a member of parliament.

This double side-lining shows that both Seck and Sall eventually turned into influential ‘party insiders’.125 They became credible alternative centres of independent power within the ruling party,126 which threatened Wade’s control over it. The grooming of his son Karim appears to be an attempt to overcome this ‘Crown-Prince problem’ by designating a loyal successor to maintain his control over the party, as a PDS cadre loyal to Abdoulaye Wade recalls:

Karim began to be groomed when the President felt a lack of loyalty among the PDS cadres. When he sensed that people around him were starting to betray him, that’s when he began to really need his son; some PDS people even advised him to bring Karim closer, to appoint him to a key position within the party’.127

Karim’s appointments to powerful positions in state agencies gave him access to financial resources to develop and sustain his own patronage networks, which resulted in the formation of an association called La Génération du concret (GC, the impactful generation). Karim formed the GC when he was the president of the ANOCI with the collaboration of the agency’s executive director and general secretary for the President, Abdoulaye Baldé (2001–2009).128 Karim strengthened his dominant position within the party with the support of the GC. Initially developed outside the party, the GC turned into a youth movement and a supporting faction to Karim’s ambitions within the PDS. At the end of Wade’s first term (around 2006–2007), the GC was transformed into a semi-autonomous entity featuring rising political figures and recruiting non-party members, notably in the diaspora, not fully entrenched within the PDS party structure.129 Ibrahima Diop, Abdoulaye Wade’s spokesperson in France and head of the PDS Federation of Paris, recounts:

Karim and his GC friends, they recruited people who came out of nowhere, activists who were not there during the battle for power [in 2000]. And now they have occupied the highest positions of responsibility within the state, and they wanted to supplant the legal and regular structures of the PDS by saying they are obsolete and no longer function.130

The GC also aimed to promote Karim’s public achievements through major infrastructure projects in Dakar to boost his popularity in the context of frequent allegations of public funds mismanagement and in the perspective of his upcoming candidacy for Dakar’s municipal elections.131

Faced with a weakened popularity and popular discontent with his son, fuelled by criticism over poor governance and institutional manipulations as shown in 2011 massive protests, President Wade decided not to retire from politics when facing his two-term limits nor to step down from the ruling party leadership, forcing a third controversial presidential candidacy in 2012 to secure re-election for himself.132 As such, his son was not selected as his father’s successor within the ruling party nor was he granted the party nomination to run in the 2012 elections.

Elite defection and party split

Following Karim’s rise within the PDS, the party elites split over whether to support hereditary succession or not. While the father-to-son succession was meant to resolve the party succession crisis, it created instability instead within the party and undermined its cohesion. Consequently, it empowered dissident party elites, buoyed by the growing public disapproval of Wade’s regime, to defect.133

Wade loyalists and the GC’s new incoming elites opposed long-time activists—militants de souche (grassroots activists)—who had positioned themselves in the succession race.134 Modou Diagne Fada, same age as Karim and a long-time PDS activist, explains his disillusionment with the prominence Karim had gained, which eventually led to his exclusion from the PDS in 2015:

As soon as Karim got involved in politics, and because he had many more assets than the others, it created conflicts that created factions. (…) Karim Wade’s entire rise has been at the expense of several leaders, first of all, Seck and then Macky. It has cost him and us a lot. (…) The party must be left to militants, to those who were there before, to those who worked and organized democratic competition (…) It created aggressiveness towards the GC, and between the militants and the party, I saw grassroots leaders who didn’t want to hear about the PDS any longer. (…) I don’t believe Karim can be like his father or lead the party because he isn’t familiar with the party or the country.135

The rise of the GC within the PDS exposed the clash between the activists in local branches and the party elites. PDS long-time activists complained that the 2000 victory and the PDS’ access to power had radically changed how the party functions. They stated that combining daily management of the party’s problems with the desire to manage state power leads to the party’s decay, as party elites invest in state functions and no longer in the everyday politics of the party:

We lost power [in 2012] because, at one point, there was a “dictature” (dictatorship) between the base and those in charge, between the base and the party committees, and between the base and Abdoulaye Wade. He made those in charge untouchable; they allowed themselves to do anything. People must understand that it is the base that gives power.136

Despite repeated demands to respect organizational and succession procedures, Wade refused to renew the party structures, fuelling party elites’ dissatisfaction. His advanced age and ambiguous declarations on his retirement resulted in a period of uncertainty, which fostered prolonged leadership disputes within the party.137 Despite his patronage and distribution of spoils, Wade could not provide the ‘disowned sons’ (Seck and Sall) and rebellious elite with ‘credible’ power-sharing deals,138 leading to instability and, finally, elite splits. After Seck and then Sall left the party in 2005 and 2008, respectively, Wade attempted to negotiate a reconciliation with them. However, Seck turned into a rival in the 2007 presidential race (Seck ran against Wade), and then both Seck and Sall ran in 2012 against Wade (Seck supported Sall in the run-off).139 Upon leaving the PDS in 2009, Sall resisted Wade’s advances despite the latter calling for the ‘reunification of the liberal family’. As Kelly shows, insiders’ resistance to reconciliation combined with an impending succession constitutes a distinctive feature of turnover in Senegal.140 Only Sall was able to convert his insider advantage as an opposition front-runner in 2012, ending up forming a united opposition coalition—Benno Bokk Yakaar—to defeat his former ‘father’. Sall’s ‘insider advantages’141 made him a credible opposition leader with solid bases of support and significant financial resources,142 as he built on his cabinet experience, campaigning abilities, and access to international financing through his increased links to the diaspora,connections he had cultivated before leaving the PDS.143 He benefitted from international leverage as external pressure for democracy increased.144 All these strengthened the ability of his Alliance Pour la République party to compete effectively and rally the opposition around him. He defeated Wade in the run-off145 of the 2012 elections with a 65.8 percent vote share.

Although Karim also benefitted from state experience, international exposure, and financial resources, it was not sufficient to consolidate his position as his father’s legitimate political successor. His institutional position was not sufficiently powerful to prevent his opponents from confronting him within the party and defeating his father and him through elections.146 The PDS was subsequently defeated in the 2012 legislative elections (from 131 seats in 2007 to 12 seats in 2012). Once in office, the newly elected Sall immediately brought embezzlement charges against Karim Wade. The latter’s imprisonment in April 2013 was followed by a trial in 2014–2015, after which he was found guilty and sentenced to 6 years in prison and fined US$ 290 million (138 billion CFA francs).

Despite the presidential pardon Sall granted him in June 2016, followed by his immediate release and exile to Qatar, Karim could not run in 2019. Due to his sentence, which resulted in the loss of his civil rights, he remained ineligible due to a modification of the electoral code adopted in July 2018, barring him and neutralizing him from being a candidate.147 Nonetheless, in 2015, he was chosen as the PDS’s nominee (while in prison), and in 2019, he was promoted to deputy secretary general, which resulted in more defections within the party.148 In 2022, Karim made public his opposition to President Sall’s amnesty bill, which he considered a ‘cheap judicial whitewash’, and demanded the reopening of his trial instead. Again in the recent 2024 presidential race, Karim was barred from running for the PDS due to his dual French–Senegalese nationality. Besides, he could not assert his role among charismatic opposition leaders (Khalifa Sall and Ousmane Sonko) in a context where neither the outgoing President Sall (who reached his two terms limits) nor Sonko would run. Having been elected MP (2017–2022), Abdoulaye Wade tried to reconnect with his once-favourite ‘son’ Macky Sall in 2019. He decided to make the PDS leave the opposition coalition in the 2022 local elections and then made the PDS support the Patriotes africains du Sénégal pour le travail, l’éthique et la fraternité (PASTEF) party’s candidate Bassirou Diomaye Faye on the eve of the 2024 presidential election.

Conclusion

Senegal is a case of a well-planned hereditary succession that nonetheless failed. A hereditary succession unfolds through three key sequential processes (the grooming of the heir apparent, support within the ruling party, and electoral validation), which account for the failure or success of the attempt. In Senegal, the attempt failed. The Wades failed to achieve the last two stages because of the interaction of three crucial mechanisms: The Wades’ growing unpopularity, the prolonged and ultimately uncertain retirement of an ageing leader, and elite defection, which led to party splits and opposition coalescence. Abdoulaye Wade could not obtain a consensus within the party over his father-to-son succession plan. Growing unpopularity closed off the electoral option to validate the son’s access to power and forced the father to engage into institutional manipulation to enable the succession while putting forth his own candidacy for a third mandate. However, building on popular resentment towards the succession plan and the regime’s abuses and failures, the ruling party’s dissident elites defected and joined the opposition in the run-off, which led to the ruler’s electoral defeat. Despite the uneven playing field between the ruler and the opposition in an electoral democracy such as Senegal149 and an ‘inherited incumbency advantage’,150 these three crucial intertwined mechanisms prevented the transfer of power from the father to his son. Since his father was ousted from power in 2012, Karim’s political fate shows that this has turned into an ‘inherited incumbency disadvantage’.

This study of a failed family succession like that of Senegal opens fruitful avenues of research to understand better what drives variation in the success or failure of a family succession. First, as a ‘self-preservation’151 instrument in uncertain times, especially when the ruler departs (death), hereditary succession overcomes instability and durability issues ruling party elites face, as seen in the successful cases of the DRC, Togo, Gabon, or Chad. However, further research on attempted family succession cases could examine the impact of the ruler’s departure mode on party elite bargaining dynamics, whether the ruler departs suddenly or not (death or resignation) or peacefully or not (coup or revolt). Ruling party elites might thwart the family succession plan and cause it to fail, especially in cases where the party predates the ruler,152 such as in Angola with Dos Santos and the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola or in Zimbabwe with Mugabe and the Zimbabwe African National Union(-Patriotic Front). Second, further studies might explore the relevance of international leverage and linkage in regime survival through the lens of family succession mechanisms, exploring, for instance, the impact of a country’s resource wealth on the outcome of such a succession when designed as a strategy to survive in power.153 In Senegal, a resource-poor country at the time, the regime has been more vulnerable to international pressure due to its lack of economic leverage compared to Gabon, where the incumbent enjoyed powerful external leverage to impose a family succession. Third, the Senegal case shows how crucial popular resentment was in succession failure. This calls for more detailed studies on how popular acceptance—or refusal—affects the outcome of a family succession or its survival. It will help to account for the variation between cases where public resentment led to the failure of the succession following violent outbursts, such as in Egypt (2011), Burkina Faso (2014), or Zimbabwe (2017), and cases where such popular ire could not prevent it from occurring, such as in Togo (2005) or Gabon (2009). Further research should also tackle how public opinion might impact the survival of a dynastic regime, as seen in the 2023 coup in Gabon, where the military took advantage of widespread popular disaffection with the dynastic regime to legitimize their coup.

This contribution opens up discussions on the role of public opinion and internal regime dynamics in shaping elites’ and voters’ behaviour in uncertain times of political transitions, where kinship may constitute a resource actors employ in the electoral arena. Eventually, it will unveil core mechanisms at stake in the succession process, which pending succession cases such as in Equatorial Guinea, Uganda, or Cameroon may soon experience.

2.

The case of Gabon in 2023 has been excluded from this study because succession in the case of current ruler Brice Oligui does not constitute a clear case of family succession. Although Oligui is a distant cousin of deposed president Ali Bongo, his rule does not ensure regime continuity—the core issue of this article—and is a case of familial disloyalty as the former ousted the latter via a coup.

3.

In non-monarchical regimes in sub-Saharan Africa. Data collected by the author. See presentation of the new FamRULafrica dataset below.

4.

Robert H. Jackson and Carl G. Rosberg, Personal rule in Black Africa (University of California Press, Oakland, CA, 1982).

5.

For further research on negative cases, see Darren Hawkins, ‘Democratization theory and non-transitions: Insights from Cuba’, Comparative Politics 33, 4 (2001), pp. 441–461; James Mahoney and Gary Goertz, ‘The possibility principle: Choosing negative cases in comparative research’, American Political Science Review 98, 4 (2004), pp. 653–669.

6.

Co-optation can manifest in various forms, ranging from the distribution of patronage spoils to appointments within the party and government cabinet. Scholars have demonstrated the critical role co-optation plays for incumbents across all types of electoral regimes in maintaining power. See Jennifer Gandhi and Adam Przeworski, ‘Cooperation, cooptation, and rebellion under dictatorships’, Economics & Politics 18, 1 (2006), pp. 1–26; Leonardo R. Arriola, Jed Devaro and Anne Meng, ‘Democratic subversion: Elite cooptation and opposition fragmentation’, American Political Science Review 115, 4 (2021), pp. 1358–1372; Ana Lúcia Sá and Edalina Rodrigues Sanches, ‘The politics of autocratic survival in Equatorial Guinea: Co-optation, restrictive institutional rules, repression, and international projection’, African Affairs 120, 478 (2021), pp. 78–102.

7.

Marie Brossier, ‘Political dynasties in comparative perspective’ (book manuscript in preparation).

8.

Léopold Sedar Senghor (president, 1960–1980), Abdou Diouf (1981–2000), Abdoulaye Wade (2000–2012), Macky Sall (2012–2024), and Bassirou Diomaye Faye (2024–).

9.

Linda Beck, Brokering democracy in Africa: The rise of clientelist democracy (Palgrave MacMillan, New York, NY, 2008).

10.

An incremental political liberalization from above led by the PS, see Robert Fatton, The making of a liberal democracy: Senegal’s passive revolution, 1975–1985 (Lynne Rienner, Boulder, CO, 1987). Senegal’s regime transitioned from a one-party state (under President Senghor’s PS from 1960 to 1978) to restricted multipartyism between 1974 and 1981 to full multipartyism from 1981.

11.

Senegal was characterized as a ‘competitive authoritarianism’ from 1990 to 2008 (covering President Wade’s first term and the beginning of his second: 2000–2007 and 2007–2008) in Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way, Competitive authoritarianism: Hybrid regimes after the Cold War (Cambridge University Press, New York, NY, 2010), pp. 265, 273–276. See also Catherine L. Kelly, ‘Party proliferation and trajectories of opposition: Comparative analysis from Senegal’, Comparative Politics 50, 2 (2018), p. 211. In contrast, Riedl marks the conclusion of the competitive authoritarian period in 2000 with the end of the PS rule in Rachel B. Riedl, ‘Authoritarian successor parties in sub-Saharan Africa: Into the wilderness and back again?’, in James Loxton and Scott Mainwaring (eds), Life after dictatorship: Authoritarian successor parties worldwide (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2018), pp. 193–197.

12.

Senegal’s V-Dem regime classification changes in 1988 from ‘Electoral Autocracy’ to ‘Electoral Democracy’ following the ‘social unrest following the 1988 elections’ as studied by Linda J. Beck in ‘Senegal’s “patrimonial democrats”: Incremental reform and the obstacles to the consolidation of democracy’, Canadian Journal of African Studies 31, 1 (1997), pp. 17–18. See also V-Dem dataset and codebook: <https://v-dem.net/data/the-v-dem-dataset/>.

13.

Alioune Badara Diop, Le Sénégal, une démocratie du phénix? (Karthala, Paris, 2009).

14.

Mamadou Diouf, ‘Abdoulaye Wade et le régime libéral à l’examen. Réalisations, mirages et abus d’une alternance démocratique’, in Momar C. Diop (ed.), Le Sénégal sous Abdoulaye Wade (Karthala, Paris, 2013), pp. 13–20.

15.

Tarik Dahou and Vincent Foucher, ‘Le Sénégal, entre changement politique et révolution passive: « Sopi » or not « sopi »?’, Politique africaine 96, 3 (2004), pp. 5–21; Marina Ottaway, Democracy challenged: The rise of semi-authoritarianism (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington, DC, 2003).

16.

Kelly, ‘Party proliferation and trajectories of opposition’.

17.

Showing a low level of institutionalization as Riedl stated in ‘Authoritarian successor parties’, pp. 196–197. See also Tarik Dahou and Vincent Foucher, ‘Le Sénégal, entre changement politique et révolution passive’.

18.

Jason Seawright and John Gerring, ‘Case selection techniques in case study research: A menu of qualitative and quantitative options’, Political Research Quarterly 61, 2 (2008), p. 301.

19.

Levitsky and Way, Competitive authoritarianism, p. 29. See also John H. Herz, ‘The problem of successorship in dictatorial regimes; A study in comparative law and institutions’, Journal of Politics 14, 1 (1952), pp. 19–40.

20.

See, for instance, Jason Brownlee, ‘The heir apparency of Gamal Mubarak’, The Arab Studies Journal 15/16, 2/1 (2007/2008), pp. 36–56; Blessing-Miles Tendi, ‘State intelligence and the politics of Zimbabwe’s presidential succession’, African Affairs 115, 459 (2016), pp. 203–224; Blair Rutherford, ‘(Dis-)Graceful leadership: On familial logics and politics in Zimbabwe’, Cahiers d’études africaines 2, 234 (2019), pp. 625–654; Anne Pitcher and Edalina Rodrigues Sanches, ‘The paradox of Isabel dos Santos. State capitalism, dynastic politics, and gender hostility in a resource-rich, authoritarian country’, Cahiers d’études africaines 234, 2 (2019), pp. 597–624; Sá and Sanches, ‘The politics of autocratic survival in Equatorial Guinea’.

21.

See seminal studies such as Ernesto Dal Bó, Pedro Dal Bó and Jason Snyder, ‘Political dynasties’, The Review of Economic Studies 76, 1 (2009), pp. 115–142; Daniel M. Smith, Dynasties and democracy: The inherited incumbency advantage in Japan (Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA, 2018); Farida Jalalzai and Meg Rincker, ‘Blood is thicker than water: Family ties to political power worldwide’, Historical Social Research/Historische Sozialforschung, 43, 4 (2018), pp. 54–72.

22.

Up until recently, see Anne Meng, ‘Winning the game of thrones: Leadership succession in modern autocracies’, Journal of Conflict Resolution 65, 5 (2021), pp. 950–981.

23.

Lanciné Sylla and Arthur Goldhammer, ‘Succession of the charismatic leader: The Gordian knot of African politics’, Daedalus 111, 2 (1982), pp. 11–28.

24.

Robert H. Jackson and Carl C. Rosberg, ‘Personal rule: Theory and practice in Africa’, Comparative Politics 16, 4 (1984), pp. 435–436.

25.

For a literature overview, see Nic Cheeseman, ‘Understanding African politics: Bringing the state back in’, in Nic Cheeseman (ed.), Institutions and democracy in Africa: How the rules of the game shape political developments (Cambridge University Press, New York, NY, 2018), pp. 1–38.

26.

Leonardo R. Arriola, ‘Patronage and political stability in Africa’, Comparative Political Studies 42, 10 (2009), pp. 1339–1362.

27.

Michael G. Schatzberg, Political legitimacy in Middle Africa: Father, family, food (Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN, 2001), p. 1. See also Marie Brossier (ed.), ‘Le politique en Afrique: une affaire de famille?’, Cahiers d’Études Africaines 2, 234 (2019), pp. 323–713.

28.

H. Kwasi Prempeh, ‘Progress and retreat in Africa: Presidents untamed’, Journal of Democracy 19, 2 (2008), pp. 109–123.

29.

See Jaimie Bleck and Nicolas van de Walle, Electoral politics in Africa since 1990: Continuity in change (Cambridge University Press, New York, NY, 2018), pp.101–142; Ian Cooper, ‘Political parties: Presidential succession crises and internal party democracy’, in Cheeseman, Institutions and democracy in Africa, pp. 191–212.

30.

Meng, ‘Winning the game of thrones’.

31.

Gero Erdmann and Ulf Engel, ‘Neopatrimonialism reconsidered: Critical review and elaboration of an elusive concept’, Commonwealth & Comparative Politics 45, 1 (2007), pp. 95–119; Anne Pitcher, Mary H. Moran and Michael Johnston, ‘Rethinking patrimonialism and neopatrimonialism in Africa’, African Studies Review 52, 1 (2009), pp. 125–156; Dwayne Woods, ‘Patrimonialism (neo) and the Kingdom of Swaziland: Employing a case study to rescale a concept’, Commonwealth & Comparative Politics 50, 3 (2012), pp. 344–366; Barry Driscoll, ‘Big man or boogey man? The concept of the big man in political science’, Journal of Modern African Studies 58, 4 (2020), pp. 521–550; Zubairu Wai, ‘Neo-patrimonialism and the discourse of state failure in Africa’, Review of African Political Economy 39, 131 (2012), pp. 27–43.

32.

Drawing from seminal datasets such as Archigos (Henk E. Goemans, Kristian Skrede Gleditsch and Giacomo Chiozza, ‘Introducing Archigos: A dataset of political leaders’, Journal of Peace Research 46, 2 (2009), pp. 269–283) and Cursus Honorum (Alexander Baturo, ‘Cursus honorum: Personal background, careers and experience of political leaders in democracy and dictatorship—New data and analyses’, Politics and Governance 4, 2 (2016), pp. 138–157), which coded some family relations between leaders, I updated the timespans of every ruler holding power (using rulers.org) from 1950 to 2022 and refined the family relations coding between them building on literature review and extensive documentary research (biographies, obituaries, press, digital archives, reference works, historical dictionaries, etc.).

33.

While compiling Archigos’ data, Meng identified that 7 percent of all executive successions from 1946 to 2014 in sub-Saharan Africa are familial (n = 8) (‘Winning the game of thrones’, p. 967). As I collected data over a longer period and gathered more in-depth documentary sources, I identified 22 additional cases of rulers related to each other for the period covered from 1950 to 2022 by FamRULafrica, the dataset I constructed. It confirms Meng’s ratio of 7 percent even when considering more cases (n = 30).

34.

FamRULafrica lists a total of 479 rulers (1950–2022) in Africa (including North African countries and monarchies).

35.

This distinction, as applied in this article, pertains only to executive leadership succession. One might consider, though, political dynasties in a broader context, encompassing not only the executive branch but also the legislative, judiciary, and public service drawing from the idea of a ‘ruling family’ in Jeroen Duindam, Dynasties: A global history of power, 1300–1800 (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2016), p. 4. See also, for example: Kanchan Chandra (ed.), Democratic dynasties: State, party and family in contemporary Indian politics (Cambridge University Press, New Delhi, 2016) or Daniel M. Smith, Dynasties and democracy.

36.

Marie Brossier, ‘Political dynasties’.

37.

Giovanni Carbone and Alessandro Pellegata, Political leadership in Africa: Leaders and Development South of the Sahara (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2020), pp. 171–175. They do not code familial succession, though, in their African Leadership Change dataset; Jalalzai and Rincker, ‘Blood is thicker than water’, pp. 63–68.

38.

Filip Reyntjens, ‘Briefing: The Democratic Republic of Congo, from Kabila to Kabila’, African Affairs 100, 399 (2001), pp. 311–317.

39.

Jennifer C. Seely, ‘The unexpected presidential election in Togo, 2005’, Electoral Studies 25, 3 (2006), pp. 611–634; Adewale Banjo, ‘Constitutional and succession crisis in West Africa: The case of Togo’, African Journal of Legal Studies 2, 147 (2008), pp. 147–161; Anja Osei, ‘Like father, like son? Power and influence across two Gnassingbé presidencies in Togo’, Democratization 25, 8 (2018), pp. 1460–1480.

40.

Mathilde Debain, ‘Chronique d’une victoire assurée: retour sur la campagne présidentielle de 2009 au Gabon’, Politique africaine 3, 115 (2009), pp. 27–46; Douglas A. Yates, ‘The dynastic Republic of Gabon’, Cahiers d’Études africaines 234, 2 (2019), pp. 483–513.

41.

Kim Yi Dionne and Boniface Dulani, ‘Constitutional provisions and executive succession: Malawi’s 2012 transition in comparative perspective’, African Affairs 112, 446 (2013), pp. 111–137.

42.

Such as Ian Khama in Botswana, for which see Batlang Seabo and Robert Nyenhuis, ‘Botswana’s 2019 general elections: A referendum on General Ian Khama’, African Studies Review 64, 4 (2021), pp. 854–883.

43.

Seely, ‘The unexpected presidential election in Togo, 2005’.

44.

Osei, ‘Like father, like son?’; Jérôme Tubiana, ‘Le Tchad sous et après Déby: Transition, succession ou régime d’exception?’, Politique africaine 164, 4 (2021), pp. 121–140; Marie Brossier, ‘Succession in personalist regimes in Africa: The dynastic option in Togo and Gabon’, in Luca Anceschi, Alexander Baturo and Francesco Cavatorta (eds), Personalism and personalist regimes (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2024), pp. 231-251.

45.

Smith, Dynasties and democracy, p. 13.

46.

Mahoney and Goertz, ‘The possibility principle’.

47.

Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith, ‘Political succession: A model of coups, revolution, purges, and everyday politics’, Journal of Conflict Resolution 61, 4 (2017), pp. 707–743.

48.

Osei, ‘Like father’; Debain, ‘Chronique d’une victoire assurée’; Brossier, ‘Political dynasties’.

49.

Brownlee, ‘Hereditary succession’.

50.

Meng, ‘Winning the game of thrones’, p. 953.

51.

After his sacking and downgrading to the rank of general after a series of tweets to invade Kenya in October 2022, Muhoozi Kainerugaba has recently been promoted as Chief of Defence Forces, see Danai Nesta Kupemba, ‘Muhoozi Kainerugaba: Ugandan president promotes his son to military chief’, 22 March 2024, <https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-68635411> (10 April 2024).

52.

Pierre Bourdieu, ‘Le mort saisit le vif’, Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales 32–33, 1 (1980), pp. 3–14.

54.

I locate them in the ‘gray zone’ defined by Goertz and Mahoney, to ‘refer to this nonempty intersection point of the positive and negative sets where the outcome is partially present, the classically half-empty/half-full cases’ (Goertz and Mahoney, ‘The possibility principle’, p. 654).

55.

See Blair Rutherford, ‘(Dis-)Graceful leadership’.

56.

Brownlee, ‘The heir apparency’.

57.

Justin Pearce, Didier Péclard and Ricardo Soares de Oliveira, ‘Angola’s elections and the politics of presidential succession’, African Affairs 117, 466 (2018), p. 149.

58.

Goertz and Mahoney, ‘The possibility principle’.

59.

Seawright and Gerring, ‘Case selection techniques’, p. 301.

60.

Marie Brossier, ‘Au nom du père, du fils et du Sénégal ou comment l’héritage ne fait toujours pas l’héritier en politique’, Cahiers d’études africaines 2, 234 (2019), pp. 655–681.

61.

Donal Cruise O’Brien, ‘Senegal’, in John Dunn (ed.), West African states: Failure and promise. A study in comparative politics (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1978), p. 187.

62.

Christian Coulon, ‘La tradition démocratique au Sénégal: histoire d’un mythe’, in Christophe Jaffrelot (ed.), Démocraties d’ailleurs. Démocraties et démocratisation hors d’Occident (Karthala, Paris, 2000), pp. 67–91; Tarik Dahou and Vincent Foucher, ‘Senegal since 2000: Rebuilding hegemony in a global age’, in Abdul Mustafa and Lindsay Whitfield (eds), Turning points in African democracy (James Currey, London, 2009), p. 28.

63.

Mamadou Diouf, ‘The French colonial policy of assimilation and the civility of the originaires of the Four Communes (Senegal): A nineteenth century globalization project’, Development and Change 29, 4 (1998), pp. 671–696.

64.

Fatton, The making of a liberal democracy.

65.

Riedl, Authoritarian origins of democratic party systems in Africa, p. 46.

66.

Linda J. Beck, ‘Senegal’s “patrimonial democrats”: Incremental reform and the obstacles to the consolidation of democracy’, p. 2.

67.

Ibid.

68.

Thomas B. Pepinsky, ‘The return of the single-country study’, Annual Review of Political Science 22 (2019), p. 188.

69.

Herz, ‘The problem of successorship in dictatorial regimes’, p. 30.

70.

Gordon Tullock, Autocracy (Kluwer Academic Publishers, Boston, MA, 1987), p. 151.

71.

Brownlee, ‘Hereditary successions’, p. 597.

72.

Levitsky and Way, Competitive authoritarianism, p. 29.

73.

See Cheeseman, Institutions and democracy.

74.

Drawing from the idea of ‘sufficiently democratic regimes’ laid out by Giovanni Carbone and Alessandro Pellegata, ‘Researching the dynamics of leaders’ replacement: The Africa Leadership Change (ALC) dataset’, European Political Science 17, 2 (2018), p. 199.

75.

Brownlee, ‘Hereditary succession’.

76.

Michael Bratton and Nicolas Van de Walle, ‘Neopatrimonial regimes and political transitions in Africa’, World politics 46, 4 (1994), p. 469.

77.

Alexander Baturo and Robert Elgie (eds), The politics of presidential term limits (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2019); Julia Grauvogel and Charlotte Heyl, ‘The study of term limits in sub-Saharan Africa: Lessons on democratisation and autocratisation’, Africa Spectrum 55, 3 (2020), pp. 215–227; Anne Meng, Constraining dictatorship: From personalized rule to institutionalized regimes (Cambridge University Press, New York, NY, 2020).

78.

Wade’s official biography: Abdoulaye Wade, Une vie pour l’Afrique (Michel Lafon, Paris, 2008); Khayrou Cissé and Mamadou Préfacier Seck, Dictionnaire biographique des députés du Sénégal (1914–2012): Analyse historico-politique (Araignée, Dakar, 2014).

79.

Abdoul Aziz Diop, Une succession en démocratie. Les Sénégalais face à l’inattendu (L’Harmattan, Pensée Africaine, Paris, 2009); Abdou Latif Coulibaly, Contes et Mécomptes de l’Anoci (L’Harmattan, Paris, 2009); Mody Niang, Le clan des Wade. Accaparement, mépris et vanité (Editions Sentinelles, Paris, 2011); Malick Ndiaye, La seconde alternance sénégalaise à l’épreuve de l’impunité, Équations Karim Wade et Hissein Habré, CREI et CAE (L’Harmattan, Paris, 2015); Mame Birame Wathie, Affaire Karim Wade/Macky Sall: la double victimisation gagnante de Maître Wade (Les impliqués éditeurs, Paris, 2016).

80.

Yonatan L. Morse, ‘Elite interviews in the Developing World: Finding anchors in weak institutional environments’, Qualitative Research 19, 3 (2019), pp. 277–291.

81.

See, among others, Jon H. Fiva and Daniel M. Smith, ‘Political dynasties and the incumbency advantage in party-centered environments’, American Political Science Review 112, 3 (2018), pp. 706–712.

82.

Momar-Coumba Diop, Mamadou Diouf and Aminata Diaw, ‘Le Baobab a été déraciné: L’alternance au Sénégal’, Politique africaine 78, 2 (2000), pp. 157–179 and Dominika Koter, ‘Urban and rural voting patterns in Senegal: The spatial aspects of incumbency, c. 1978–2012’, The Journal of Modern African Studies 51, 4 (2013), pp. 653–679.

83.

Pathé Diagne, ‘Abdoulaye Wade ou la fin du cycle senghorien’, in Momar C. Diop (ed.), Le Sénégal sous Abdoulaye Wade (Karthala, Paris, 2013), pp. 97–118.

84.

Wade, Une vie.

85.

Linda J. Beck, ‘Senegal’s enlarged presidential majority: Deepening democracy or detour?’, in Richard Joseph (ed.), State, conflict, and democracy in Africa (Lynne Rienner Publishers, Boulder, CO, 1999), pp. 205–208.

86.

Momar-Coumba Diop, Mamadou Diouf and Aminata Diaw, ‘Le Baobab a été déraciné: L’alternance au Sénégal’.

87.

Alioune Badara Diop, Le Sénégal, une démocratie du phénix?.

88.

Danielle Resnick, ‘Continuity and change in Senegalese party politics’.

89.

Marie Brossier, ‘Senegal: A success story and a patrimonial democracy’, in Leonardo. A. Villalón (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the African Sahel (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2021), pp.89–108.

90.

Linda Beck, Brokering democracy.

91.

Resnick, ‘Continuity and change’; Catherine L. Kelly, ‘Senegal: What will turnover bring?’, Journal of Democracy 23, 3 (2012), pp. 121–131.

92.

Brossier, ‘Senegal’.

93.

Ferdinand De Jong and Vincent Foucher, ‘La tragédie du roi Abdoulaye? Néomodernisme et Renaissance africaine dans le Sénégal contemporain’, Politique africaine 118, 2 (2010), pp. 187–204.

94.

Tarik Dahou and Vincent Foucher (eds), ‘Sénégal 2000-2004, l’alternance et ses contradictions’, Politique africaine 4, 96 (2004), pp. 5–118; Momar C. Diop (ed.), Le Sénégal sous Abdoulaye Wade.

95.

Momar C. Diop, ‘Introduction. État, pouvoir et société’, in Diop (ed.), Le Sénégal sous Abdoulaye Wade, pp. 32–33.

96.

Momar C. Diop, ‘Introduction. État, pouvoir et société’, p. 32.

97.

Ibid., p. 33.

98.

See Paul Gifford, ‘Religion and politics in contemporary Senegal’, African Affairs 115, 461 (2016), p. 692.

99.

Brownlee, ‘Hereditary succession’, p. 597.

100.

Interview with Toussaint Manga, head of the UJTL (Liberal Union of Youth and Workers), Dakar, June 2013. He was Abdoulaye Wade’s substitute in the National Assembly during his mandate (2017–2022).

102.

Building on Sá and Sanches, ‘The politics of autocratic survival in Equatorial Guinea’.

103.

Levitsky and Way, Competitive authoritarianism.

104.

Kelly, ‘Party proliferation and trajectories of opposition’, p. 217.

105.

Paul Gifford, ‘Religion and politics’, pp. 691–692.

106.

See Abdou Latif Coulibaly, Contes et Mécomptes de l’Anoci.

108.

At the expense of outgoing Mayor Pape Diop (2002–2009) whom Wade promised the Presidency of the Conseil de la République, which led to constitutional revisions and the creation of the Senate in 2007. See Assane Thiam, ‘“Une constitution ça se révise!”. Relativisme constitutionnel et état de droit au Sénégal’, Politique africaine 108, 4 (2007), pp. 150–151.

109.

Dominika Koter, ‘Urban and rural voting patterns in Senegal’.

110.

Séverine Awenengo d’Alberto, ‘De la rue aux urnes: La longue marche de la deuxième alternance au Sénégal’ (CERI-Sciences-Po, Paris, 2012).

111.

See Kelly, ‘Senegal’, pp. 125–127, Resnick, ‘Continuity and change’, pp. 631–632, Leila Demarest, ‘Staging a “revolution”: The 2011–12 electoral protests in Senegal’, African Studies Review 59, 3 (2016), p. 66.

112.

Koter, ‘Urban and rural voting patterns in Senegal’, p. 655.

113.

Ibid.

114.

Bleck and van de Walle, Electoral politics in Africa since 1990, pp. 152–153.

115.

Demarest, ‘Staging a “revolution”’, p. 74.

116.

Ibid.; Awenengo d’Alberto, ‘De la rue aux urnes’.

117.

Listed in the FamRULafrica dataset presented above (Brossier, 2023).

118.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2001 (Kabila succeeded by his son Joseph), Togo in 2005 (Eyadéma by his son Faure), Gabon in 2009 (Bongo by his son Ali), and Chad in 2021 (Déby by his son Mahamat).

119.

In Central African Republic in 1966 (Dacko succeeded by his cousin J.-B. Bokassa) and backward in 1979 and in Eqatorial Guinea in 1979 (Macías Nguema by his nephew T. Obiang).

120.

In Niger in 1958 (Bakary succeeded by his cousin H. Diori), Djibouti in 1999 (Gouled Aptidon succeeded by his nephew I. O. Guelleh), and Mauritius in 2017 (Jugnauth by his son Pravind).

121.

Koter, ‘Urban and rural voting patterns in Senegal’, p. 673.

122.

Such as Moustapha Niasse’s Alliance of the Forces for Progress and Djibo Kâ’s Union for Democratic Renewal.

123.

The Sopi coalition would soon split, Niasse returned to the opposition, running against Wade in the 2007 presidential election.

124.

Riedl, ‘Authoritarian successor parties’, pp. 196–197.

125.

Catherine Lena Kelly, Party proliferation and political contestation in Africa. Senegal in comparative perspective (Palgrave McMillan, Cham, 2020), chapter 5.

126.

Herz, ‘The problem of successorship in dictatorial regimes’.

127.

Interview, Toussaint Manga, Dakar, April 2014.

128.

Momar C. Diop, ‘Introduction. État, pouvoir et société’, in Diop (ed.), Le Sénégal sous Abdoulaye Wade, p. 83; Alioune B. Diop, ‘Le “prophète du Sopi” et l’électorat haalpulaar. Une histoire d’amour tardive qui finit mal’, in Diop (ed.), Le Sénégal sous Abdoulaye Wade, pp. 340–352.

130.

Interview, Ibrahima Diop, Paris, June 2013.

131.

Ibrahima Sarr, ‘Du héros au patriarche bâtisseur. Évolution et rupture dans la construction de l’image d’Abdoulaye Wade’, in Diop (ed.), Le Sénégal sous Abdoulaye Wade, p. 419.

132.

Kelly, Party proliferation and political contestation in Africa, p. 160.

133.

On PDS elite defection more generally, see Kelly, Party proliferation and political contestation in Africa, chapter 6.

134.

Interview, Toussaint Manga, Dakar, June 2013.

135.

Interview, Modou Diagne Fada, Dakar, June 2013.

136.

Interview, Ibrahima Diop, Paris, April 2014.

137.

Kelly, Party proliferation and political contestation in Africa, pp. 153–154.

138.

Beatriz Magaloni, ‘Credible power-sharing and the longevity of authoritarian rule’, Comparative Political Studies 41, 4–5 (2008), pp. 715–741.

139.

Kelly, Party proliferation and political contestation in Africa, pp. 160–161.

140.

Ibid.

141.

Ibid.

142.

Ibid., p. 180.

143.

See Étienne Smith, ‘Sénégal, la diaspora fait-elle l’élection? Le vote à distance de 1992 à 2012’, Afrique contemporaine 256, 4, (2015), pp. 51–72.

144.

Nicolas van de Walle, ‘Tipping games: When do opposition parties coalesce?’, in Andreas Schedler (ed.), Electoral authoritarianism: The dynamics of unfree competitition (Lynne Rienner, Boulder, CO, 2006), p. 92.

145.

Idrissa Seck ran under the banner of his Rewmi party before supporting Sall’s coalition in the second round.

146.

Building on Meng’s argument, ‘Winnning the game of thrones’.

147.

The amendment of article L57 of the Electoral Code in April 2018, which since then provides that a presidential candidate must first be registered on an electoral list to be eligible, aims to exclude Karim Wade since he is restrained by Article L.32 of the code, which prevents people sentenced to a prison term, from registering on the electoral lists for 5 years. See Republic of Senegal, Law n°2018-22 du 04 Juillet 2018, <http://dge.sn/sites/default/files/2019-01/CODE%20ELECTORAL%202018_0.pdf> (21 June 2022).

148.

Initially scheduled in 2017, the election was postponed to 2019 with the re-introduction of the 7-year term after the 2016 constitutional referendum.

149.

Kelly, ‘Party proliferation and trajectories of opposition’.

150.

Dal Bó, Dal Bó, and Snyder, ‘Political dynasties’.

151.

Brownlee, ‘Hereditary successions’, p. 44.

152.

Ibid.

153.

Joseph Wright, Erica Frantz and Barbara Geddes, ‘Oil and autocratic regime survival’, British Journal of Political Science 45, 2 (2015), pp. 287–306.

Author notes

*

Marie Brossier (marie.brossier@pol.ulaval.ca) is a Full Professor at the Department of Political Science and fellow at the Interdisciplinary Research Center on Africa and the Middle East (CIRAM) at Université Laval, Canada. The author is extremely grateful to Francesco Cavatorta, Jaimie Bleck, Anne Pitcher, and Amy Niang, as well as the journal’s editors and three anonymous reviewers, for their constructive and insightful feedback on this manuscript. The author would also like to thank William Poirier and Hubert Cadieux for their precious contribution to the graphical layout of empirical data as well as all respondents who made this study possible. This work was funded by an Insight Grant from the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council on ‘Political Dynasties in Sub-Saharan Africa’ (435-2017-1285, 2017–2023).

© The Author(s) 2024. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Royal African Society.