Lansana Kotor- Kamara Esq.
Senegal has, in recent days, drawn intense attention across political circles and social media platforms. The trigger is the reported removal of the Prime Minister and his rapid reassignment as head of the National Assembly. The reactions have been predictable but revealing. Some frame it as political theatre. Others see elite repositioning. A few describe it as instability beneath constitutional order. Yet all of these readings miss the deeper legal and political reality; a governing system under stress after victory, reorganising authority inside itself.
The public sees movement. The political scientist sees transition. The lawyer sees structure under pressure.
This is not about Senegal alone. It is about what happens when political movements stop fighting for power and begin exercising it. That moment, historically, is where most political systems reveal their real strength or weakness.
Senegal’s current political landscape must be understood against its recent transition. The rise of Bassirou Diomaye Faye and Ousmane Sonko after prolonged confrontation with the established order under Macky Sall, carried the full psychological weight of opposition politics. It was unity built on resistance, shared grievance, and a common adversary. Political history teaches a hard truth: such unity is powerful in opposition, but fragile in governance. Once the adversary disappears, internal architecture begins to shift. The question is no longer how to win power. It becomes how to survive it.
From my combined legal and political science perspective, this is the central problem of statecraft in post-victory environments. Law asks who holds authority. Political science asks how that authority behaves when it is no longer externally constrained. My reading of this situation is informed by both disciplines. On the legal side, I have spent almost the past two decades dealing with institutional authority, constitutional structure, and the practical exercise of power within formal systems. On the political science side, my doctoral research focuses on elite behaviour, institutional fragility, and governance transitions in post-colonial African states. When both perspectives are combined, one conclusion becomes unavoidable: most political instability after elections is not electoral failure, but governance adaptation failure.
At this point, theory becomes necessary, not optional. Max Weber remains the starting point. His distinction between charismatic authority and legal-rational authority is not abstract sociology. It is a practical explanation of political transition. Charismatic authority dominates during struggle. It is personal, emotional, and movement-driven. Legal-rational authority governs the modern state. It is impersonal, procedural, and institutional. The crisis begins when actors who gained power through charisma attempt to govern through institutions without fully surrendering the emotional logic of struggle.
Weber captures this tension in a way few others have improved upon. When auctoritas personalis continues to override auctoritas legalis, the state begins to experience internal contradiction.
Samuel Huntington sharpens this further. Political order, he argues, depends on institutionalisation. Where institutions are weak relative to political mobilisation, instability is not a possibility. It is a probability. In such systems, victory does not end conflict. It relocates it inside the governing structure itself. That is exactly the pattern Senegal is now exhibiting.
Herbert Simon introduces the behavioural dimension. Political actors operate under bounded rationality. During opposition, decisions are simplified. The world is divided into allies and adversaries. Messaging is emotional. Strategy is compressed. After victory, the cognitive environment changes entirely. Governance requires complex trade-offs, institutional coordination, and long-term sequencing. Many political actors fail not because they lack intelligence, but because they fail to change cognitive operating systems after power is acquired.
Henri Tajfel and John Turner explain the psychological aftermath. Political movements maintain cohesion through an external enemy. Once that enemy weakens or disappears, internal competition becomes unavoidable. Authority, recognition, and legitimacy are reallocated within the same group. What was once solidaritas externa becomes competitio interna. This is not political dysfunction in a moral sense. It is group psychology operating under conditions of power transition.
John Nash’s game theory adds a structural layer. Opposition politics is fundamentally zero-sum. One side wins. One side loses. Governance is a repeated coordination game. Stability depends on sustained cooperation among actors with competing preferences. When political elites fail to transition from zero-sum logic to coordination logic, institutions become arenas of internal rivalry rather than systems of governance. In Nash equilibrium terms, the system fails to stabilise around cooperative expectations.
Senegal, viewed through this lens, is not chaotic. It is transitional. The visible reshuffling of roles and influence reflects a deeper process, the conversion of movement legitimacy into state legitimacy. Roman political thought would describe this shift as movement from potestas contendendi to potestas administrandi. The power to struggle is being replaced by the power to govern. That transition always produces friction. What matters is not the existence of friction. It is how that friction is contained.
Senegal’s relative strength lies in containment. Despite visible tension, institutions remain operational. Political disputes are still processed through constitutional channels. The state has not collapsed into extra-institutional confrontation. In comparative institutional analysis, this signals a system that is still resilient under stress, even if not fully stabilised.
This is where Sierra Leone enters the analysis with urgency rather than curiosity. Political culture in Sierra Leone has long been shaped by personalisation of authority. Loyalty is often directed toward individuals rather than institutions. In Weberian terms, this reflects residual patrimonialism within a formally legal-rational state. The constitution exists, but political behaviour often flows through personal networks of influence.
This creates a structural vulnerability. Elections become emotionally charged contests of identity rather than structured contests of governance. Victory is interpreted as ownership of the state. Defeat is experienced as exclusion from it. Political disagreement quickly becomes personalised. Institutional authority becomes secondary.
Almond and Verba’s civic culture theory explains the consequence. Stable systems require a balance between political participation and institutional trust. Where institutional trust is weak, political emotion fills the vacuum. Huntington would describe this as incomplete institutionalisation. Political organisations exist, but they do not fully control political behaviour. The Roman maxim salus rei publicae suprema lex becomes critical here. The welfare of the republic is the highest law. Not the welfare of parties. Not the welfare of individuals. The republic. But this principle only works where institutions are stronger than personalities.
Comparative experience reinforces the warning. Zimbabwe demonstrates how liberation legitimacy can overwhelm institutional development. Kenya shows how elite competition inside governing coalitions can repeatedly destabilise post-election periods. South Africa illustrates how even strong institutions must constantly manage tension between movement loyalty and state governance within the ANC framework. Across contexts, the pattern is consistent. Movements win elections easily. They govern with difficulty.
This brings the analysis to Sierra Leone’s immediate political future. The APC, the SLPP, and any political formation that assumes power after the 2028 Presidential Elections will not be judged only by electoral victory. They will be judged by what follows victory. The real test will not be the campaign. It will be the transition. It will be the management of internal expectations, elite competition, institutional discipline, and political restraint, once the state is in their hands.
The world will be watching, not for symbolism, but for structure. Not for promises, but for governance behaviour. Not for victory, but for what victory produces. This is where political culture becomes decisive. If Sierra Leone continues to treat politics as personalised competition, post-election transitions will remain emotionally volatile. If it begins to treat politics as institutional stewardship, transitions can become stable even under intense elite pressure. Three Latin principles capture the stakes with precision. Auctoritas non veritas facit legem. Authority, not abstract intent, gives law its force in practice.
Dura lex sed lex. The law is hard, but it remains binding even under political pressure.
Res publica non privata. The state is not private property.
Senegal is currently testing these principles in real time. Sierra Leone will soon face its own version of the same test. The question is not whether political tension will exist after 2028. It will. The real question is whether that tension will be processed through institutions or through personalities. Because, in the end, political systems are not judged by how power is won. They are judged by whether power survives the people who win it.