Mbaye-Jacques Diop

Mbaye-Jacques Diop (15 January 1936 – 11 September 2016) was a Senegalese politician. He served as a Deputy in the National Assembly of Senegal from 1983 to 2004, as Mayor of Rufisque from 1987 to 2002, and as President of the Council of the Republic for Economic and Social Affairs (CRAES) from 2004 to 2007. He was a long-time member of the Socialist Party (PS), but split from the PS to form his own party, the Party for Progress and Citizenship (PPC), in 2000, before merging that party into the Senegalese Democratic Party (PDS) two years later.

Biography Early career Diop was born in Rufisque in 1936 and joined the Youth Movement of the Senegalese Democratic Bloc in 1954 as a founding member. After the first round, Diop resigned from the PS on 2 March 2000, and joining a pro-Wade alliance, the Front for the Alternance. According to Diop, his defection "dealt a severe political, electoral and psychological blow to the PS and its candidate, Abdou Diouf", who was defeated by Wade in the second round.

The PPC merged itself into Wade's party, the PDS, on 20 May 2002; Diop also became President of the Union of Economic and Social Councils and Similar Institutions of La Francophonie in June 2007. On 1 October 2007, Wade asked Diop to resign from his position as President of the CRAES, while stressing that he did not have a dispute with Diop and did not want to start one. However, Diop was unwilling to resign, saying that he had done nothing wrong and that people would not understand if he left his post before the end of his five-year term in August 2009. On 4 October, when Diop was preparing to travel to a meeting of the Union of Economic and Social Councils and Similar Institutions of La Francophonie, Wade barred him from leaving the country. After Iba Der Thiam mediated the situation, Diop agreed to resign on 16 November, but Wade nevertheless criticized Diop at a meeting of the PDS Steering Committee, saying that he had wasted 300 million CFA francs on "whimisical missions". Wade dissolved the CRAES on 21 November 2007 and established a new Economic and Social Council in its place.

Diop said on 16 September 2009 that he did not favor moves to eliminate the two-round system for presidential elections, arguing that it would be less democratic to decide the outcome in a single round. He nevertheless expressed his firm support for President Wade's planned 2012 re-election bid.