Part of this appeared in our Scoot West Africa Patreon.

Senegalese democracy in turmoil — is it the end? This is what we heard for months. The whole thing was about to collapse.

Protests had been violently suppressed, the internet repeatedly throttled, and the main opposition candidate imprisoned along with his deputy, the now President-elect Bassirou Diomaye Faye. Their political party itself had been dissolved.

The President, Macky Sall, said that the convictions and prison sentences were decisions made by an independent judiciary. Everything else was a matter of security. Sall was approaching the end of his second and final term. He said he would not try to force a third. Was he sincere? Many people were understandably skeptical.

In February, Macky Sall announced that he was postponing the election. A dispute over a disqualified candidate deserved to be resolved, he said. He rescheduled the elections for December. The Constitutional Court took up the matter. Nope, Macky, you cannot. The election must be held before April 2nd, the date when Sall was legally required to step down.

Sall acquiesced. A new date was announced. March 24th. A mere two weeks for the campaign. During Ramadan.

But the campaign went off without a hitch. And so did the election. Macky Sall’s candidate was soundly defeated in the first round by Bassirou Diomaye Faye, a 44-year-old former tax inspector, and the aforementioned deputy of the main opposition candidate who had been disqualified from running. Faye only had a week to campaign because he was in prison up until that point.

Amadou Ba, Macky’s guy, conceded. He called Faye and wished him well, offering benedictions for the new president and the people of Senegal.

The polls were monitored by observers and journalists alike. There were no incidents. There were no allegations of fraud. No demands for a recount.

Senegal’s democracy was supposedly on its deathbed, and yet Senegal just showed the rest of the world how to conduct an election. Thanks in part to an orange demagogue, we are no longer able to do this in America, the global advocate for this system of governance. For the Sahel, where the conversation has recently shifted to “democracy has failed us, we need to try something else,” the Senegal election is a wake up call, a stark reminder that this can work.

Whatever becomes of Bassirou Diomaye Faye and his tenure as President, Senegal has taken a historic step forward. Institutions were tested, but they proved strong. And the Senegalese people — relentless and resilient — never gave in.

In a few more days, on April 4th, Senegal will celebrate independence day. It will mean something different this year.