The meeting between Faye and Sall at the Palace in Dakar would have seemed improbable two years earlier. The former represented the break promised by Pastef; the latter carried the authority of a system defeated at the polls. By receiving him and mobilizing the Government, Faye chose to place Senegal's diplomatic interests above the conflict that shaped his historic presidential victory.

This gesture does not automatically reconcile the two political memories. The support functions more as a state truce, limited by an external objective that could benefit the entire country. For Dakar, having a Senegalese person at the head of the UN would enhance national prestige, open channels of influence, and confirm a diplomatic tradition built since independence and respected outside of Africa.

Faye also protects his own position. A president who supports the defeated opponent can present himself as a leader above party divisions, capable of distinguishing national responsibility from internal disputes. The choice gives him moral authority, but he cannot defend Sall abroad and abandon promises of justice, transparency, and reparations for the victims in Senegal.

For Macky Sall, the support is worth more than a photograph. His candidacy was put forward by Burundi, the country holding the rotating presidency of the African Union, but Dakar's reservations fueled doubts about the domestic base of the campaign. The Senegalese mobilization transforms an initiative sponsored from abroad into a diplomatic operation with state involvement, embassies, and political continuity.

Unity, however, should not be confused with absolution. A state can support a former ruler without rewriting their mandate. Democratic maturity is measured by this capacity to defend a common interest while preserving the right to investigate abuses, correct public accounts, and listen to the citizens who paid the price for the recent Senegalese political crisis between 2021 and 2024.

Macky Sall's candidacy cannot be evaluated without considering February 2024, when he postponed the presidential election just hours before the campaign was due to begin. The Constitutional Council overturned the decision, deeming the extension unconstitutional. This episode placed Senegal on the brink of collapse, a situation only averted by institutional and popular resistance in the streets.

The crisis did not begin that month. Since 2021, clashes linked to the judicial and political treatment of the opposition have resulted in deaths, injuries, and mass arrests. Amnesty International has recorded at least 65 deaths, around a thousand injuries, and two thousand arrests up to 2024. These numbers belong to the public biography of the power exercised by Sall and not just to police files.

The long-standing uncertainty surrounding a third term also weighs heavily. Sall eventually announced in July 2023 that he would not run again, but the delay fueled suspicions that the Constitution would be tested to its limits. In a democracy, respecting the limit in the end does not eliminate the cost caused by months of presidential ambiguity and tension in public institutions.

The subsequent transition restored some of Senegal's prestige. The election took place, Faye won in the first round, and Sall handed over power within the constitutional timeframe. This outcome is particularly important in a West Africa marked by military coups.

However, the restored normality should not transform the attempted postponement into a minor issue or an administrative error without those responsible or lasting political consequences.

The political memory is joined by the financial one. The Court of Auditors confirmed in 2025 that the debt and deficit for 2023 were higher than the previously disclosed figures. Sall rejected accusations of mismanagement. For a UN candidate, the controversy demands clear answers because international legitimacy also depends on how a government is accountable to its citizens.

It would be intellectually impoverished to reduce Macky Sall to the crisis that marked his departure. For twelve years, he built relationships with African, European, Asian, and Arab governments, chaired the African Union in 2022, and participated in negotiations on debt, food security, energy, and global governance reform.

This experience constitutes the strongest point of the candidacy before the member states. During his presidency of the African Union, Sall advocated for the organization's permanent entry into the G20, which was achieved in 2023, and sought to convey positions on financing, cereals, fertilizers, and representation to the major powers. He also participated in an African mediation mission between Russia and Ukraine.

The reach was limited, but it revealed access to decision-making centers and a willingness to negotiate directly. In the UN race, Sall presents an agenda of administrative reform, coordination between agencies, and institutional modernization. In the July debate, he linked shared prosperity to reform of the international financial architecture and the mobilization of the private sector.

The proposal addresses a long-standing African demand: to pay less for debt and gain more room to invest in continental human development. This diplomatic competence deserves recognition, but it should not be confused with an automatic continental mandate. The African Union brings together 55 states with different interests, languages, regimes, and alliances.

A former president knows the summits and the corridors of power, but representing Africa also requires listening to small countries, civil societies, and populations far from capitals and embassies. The documentation submitted to the UN includes a vision statement, a curriculum vitae, and information on campaign financing to broaden public scrutiny.

The UN needs someone capable of negotiating with Washington, Beijing, Moscow, London, and Paris, but also of withstanding the pressures from these capitals. A career opens doors; the judgment of independence begins after those doors open.

The phrase adopted by Dakar when presenting her candidacy as Senegalese in service of Africa contains both ambition and risk. Senegal can speak for itself; Africa only speaks collectively through political processes that produce common positions. Between an African candidacy and a candidacy of Africa, there is a difference in legitimacy that national rhetoric alone cannot eliminate.

Continental origin matters because the distribution of international power remains unequal. Since Kofi Annan, who left office in 2006, no African has headed the UN. Before him, Boutros Boutros-Ghali served only one term. The memory of these names proves capability, but also reminds us that African presence at the top always depends on the tolerance of the major powers with veto power.

The representation associated with Macky Sall's candidacy should not serve as a shield against scrutiny. An African candidate does not deserve support simply because they were born on the continent, just as a European candidate does not automatically represent Europe.

Origin opens a historical perspective; political legacy, institutional vision, integrity, independence, and negotiating capacity determine the quality of the final choice. Africa is also not politically homogeneous.

States affected by wars, small island nations, regional powers, fragile democracies, and authoritarian regimes do not approach the UN with the same urgency. Speaking on behalf of the continent requires building compromises on peace, debt, climate, trade, technology, migration, and fundamental human rights.

A credible candidate should explain how they will be accountable to Africans after the election. Who will define the priorities? How will regional organizations, women, youth, workers, and victims of conflict be heard? Without consultation mechanisms, the expression "Voice of Africa" ​​risks reducing more than a billion people to the curriculum vitae of a single leader.

The election of the Secretary-General appears to belong to the General Assembly, where 193 states have a vote, but the real decision is made in the Security Council. The fifteen members hold consultations and secret ballots until a name emerges capable of obtaining nine votes and escaping the veto of the United States, Russia, China, the United Kingdom, and France combined.

This structure explains the contradiction of the African campaign. The continent seeks to place one of its own in the administrative leadership of the organization, but remains without a permanent seat on the body that recommends the chosen candidate and decides on sanctions, wars, and peacekeeping operations.

Africa can present candidates; the five permanent members retain the power to exclude any of them without public explanation or appeal. The informal regional rotation this time favors Latin America and the Caribbean, while four women are competing in a process that could produce the first female Secretary-General in history. Macky Sall is the only African among six candidates.

Her campaign therefore faces two legitimate claims: the Latin American regional voice and the long exclusion of women from the role since the founding of the UN. Merit alone does not resolve this dispute because the process has never been a neutral competition of resumes. Each candidacy depends on alliances, geopolitical calculations, bilateral relations, and the fears of the permanent members.

A secretary-general who is too independent may seem inconvenient; a candidate who is too close to a major power may lose the trust needed to mediate conflicts between adversaries and defend the Charter. The Council's first secret ballot transforms the campaign into a test of acceptability among the major powers.

In each informal vote, members indicate whether they encourage, discourage, or do not express an opinion on each candidate. Traditionally, the ballots of the five permanent members are a different color, allowing them to identify the existence of a potential veto without revealing the capital responsible.

The candidacy comes at a time when the African Union is renewing its demand for two permanent seats with full rights on the Security Council and five non-permanent seats. The position defined in the Ezulwini Consensus denounces a historical injustice: a large part of the Council's agenda deals with African conflicts, but the continent does not permanently participate in the decision-making process.

Appointing Macky Sall as Secretary-General could increase the visibility of this reform, but the position has clear limitations. The Secretary-General administers, advises, mediates, and uses moral authority; he does not create permanent seats nor remove the veto. The victory would be symbolically powerful, but it would not replace the legal and political battle to alter the structure that distributes power within the UN among states.

The risk lies in transforming individual achievement into institutional compensation. Having an African at the New York headquarters does not equate to giving the continent permanent power on the Council. The image may generate pride and access, but it can also serve to postpone deeper reforms, as if the presence of an African face would correct the inequality of the international architecture.

There is also a programmatic responsibility. Sall would have to show how he would use the role to bring the UN closer to forgotten wars, climate finance, debt, industrialization, and youth representation without turning the position into an extension of Senegalese diplomacy.

African credibility would depend on the distance between the continental campaign and the inevitable national loyalties of any former President. Africa must support candidates, but also set conditions. Origin needs to be accompanied by commitments on human rights, limitation of power, financial transparency, Council reform, and consultation with African states.

Without these criteria, unity becomes a discipline centered around a single personality; with them, it can transform into a continental strategy of lasting influence.

Bassirou Diomaye Faye's support strengthens Senegal, demonstrates an ability to separate the state from partisan resentment, and provides the campaign with a much-needed political base. Macky Sall thus has the right to run for UN Secretary-General and possesses sufficient experience to be taken seriously.

But the continent gains no voice when it trades scrutiny for automatic solidarity. Sall's democratic legacy, the repression between 2021 and 2024, the election postponement, and the disagreements over public finances should remain within the evaluation, alongside his African and international experience in governance.

The issue goes beyond the name. Africa needs to choose representatives capable of speaking to the powerful without bowing to them, and of speaking for the continent without silencing its plurality. An African candidacy only gains continental legitimacy when origin, memory, integrity, and responsibility go hand in hand.