I don’t think that the use of the term “recently jammed through changes” is accurate in this context. The Constitution was changed, by him, during his first term in 2001. It’s true that the Constitutional Court judges were appointed by Wade, and that the CC disqualified Ndour. Perhaps I am in error here, but I believe that Ndour was disqualified due to the supposed illegibility of some of the signatures on his petition to run. This is unrelated, legally at least, to the reason that the CC ruled that Wade could run, which was that the new Constitution allows him two terms, even though he’s already had two–he can have another since his first term started under the prior Constitution. All of this is accurately described on the Washington Post article you have linked to.

Very interesting observation, followed by a great graph. There should be a mandatory retirement age for all people above 65, making way for younger minds to take the lead. Looking at the graph if we ask all of those above age 70 to retire we would have most of the leaders from the 1st group gone. We should advocate for retirement bennefits.

I love the way the CDG is using Senegal case to raise this issue. In fact as a Senegalese and development professional who follows with interest what CGD does, I was curious to see what the Think tanks had to say about the Senegal crisis, since you were involved in searching for solutions during the crisis in Cote d’Ivoire

Like many other young Senegalese, I have no much sympathy for Wade’s numerous governments and the way liberal party is running this country. However, I believe the problem is not his age. President Wade has used innovative ways to raise money outside the country and to increase our internal resource mobilization to fund local initiatives. To me, he has gone beyond the traditional austerity that was the rule during the socialist governments. He had great ambitions and he has successfully launched a number of good programs and initiatives. So age is not necessarily the problem in his case.

I am sure, it may contribute to some degree, but the frustration of senegalese came from the fact that he is grooming his son and he is not very sensitive to issues of equity. He protects his allies from prosecution and there is no independent justice……

The funny thing is that the alternative being offered does not match the aspirations of the people of Senegal. As I argued in an article I wrote in french 2 months ago, I think we have a big problem for the renewal of our political class and that’s in part, what explains the current involvement of civil society people who are very vocal and prominent. Change did happen in 2000 and new politicans have emerged, but they just perpetuated what existed.

So, although the alternative is not very reassuring, most people including myself will not hesitate to vote against Wade no matter what…

Jay, you are absolutely right to point out that any relationship between the gap and protests is probably reflecting relationships between age, regime type, and poverty. We didn’t mean to suggest the age gap has independent explanatory power for protests, just that the gaps are pretty striking and that there are some interesting regional trends. We haven’t yet poked the data to see what relationships there are between the age gap & regime type, and age gap & poverty (although I suspect you are right on both counts). We are more than happy to share the data, however, so just send me an email and I’ll shoot it over to you (smajerowicz@cgdev.org).

Darwin, we also don’t mean to suggest elderly leaders are necessarily bad– there’s much to be said for experience. However, when the rulers are not a few decades, but more than half a century older than their median citizen, it’s hard to believe that the rulers are not somewhat out of touch with the needs of their constituents.