2023-07-02 23:56:15
Opponent Ousmane Sonko, sentenced to two years in prison in a sex scandal, invites the Senegalese to come together “to confront the regime of Macky Sall”. The Senegalese president must announce in the evening whether he will be a candidate for a third presidential term in 2024.
Published on: 03/07/2023 – 01:56
Opponent Ousmane Sonko does not intend to leave the field open to Macky Sall. He called, Sunday, July 2, the Senegalese to “go out massively” the next few days. This call comes the day before an address to the nation by President Macky Sall during which he must say whether he will be a candidate for a third presidential term in 2024.
President Sall’s announcement, scheduled for 8 p.m. (local and GMT) on Monday July 3, is eagerly awaited in Senegal. The vagueness he maintained regarding his intentions in relation to the presidential election contributed to creating an explosive climate.
“We must come out to confront the regime of Macky Sall and say that it will not be up to him to choose the candidates who will have to compete for the next presidential election”, he declared during an intervention on the social networks.
Read alsoOusmane Sonko, the fierce opponent of Macky Sall who dreams of succeeding him
Ousmane Sonko was sentenced a month ago to two years in prison in a sex scandal, which currently makes him ineligible. This sentence led to the most serious unrest in Senegal in early June, killing 16 people according to the authorities, 24 according to Amnesty International and 30 according to the opposition.
Ousmane Sonko has constantly shouted at the plot of power to exclude him from the presidential election of February 2024, which the power refutes. He has been blocked by the security forces at his home in Dakar, “kidnapped” according to him, since May 28.
Sonko calls for a “national outburst” once morest Sall’s candidacy
Macky Sall was elected in 2012, re-elected in 2019. He had the Constitution revised in 2016. It stipulates that “no one may serve more than two consecutive terms”. His supporters present him as their candidate in 2024, arguing that the revision has reset the counters to zero.
According to the opponent, if the president does not show up, it will be to better eliminate him politically and relaunch the judicial machine and “this is not acceptable”. In case of arrest, “I call on all the Senegalese people to stand up as one man and come out massively and this time to put an end to this criminal regime”.
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If the president shows up, “I believe it’s incumbent on all the Senegalese people to stand up, to face him,” he said. “If we have to fight a fight, it must be definitive. I call for a national leap forward. The days and weeks to come will be crucial.”
He also called on the Senegalese to mobilize to demand the release of political prisoners and to put an end to his “administrative detention” as soon as possible.
A biased “national dialogue”, according to Sonko
For the opponent, the consultation at the initiative of President Sall, which ended ten days ago, is nothing but a “deal” between the different political forces which participated for the eliminated from the presidential race.
This “national dialogue” put two opponents, Karim Wade and Khalifa Sall, on the track, whose political trajectory had been brutally interrupted by legal troubles and who had been deprived of the 2019 presidential election. The case of Ousmane Sonko has not not been addressed by consultation.
When closing the proceedings, President Sall had previously argued that only political, and not constitutional, factors would prevent him from running, and affirmed that his choice would be “free and sovereign”.
Saturday, in front of local elected officials who had made a petition to support him, he called on his political family to unite and to place “the general interest” and “the interest of the coalition” before any other consideration.
“My fight and my greatest pride are really to lead you to victory and to pursue our economic policy for the benefit of our populations”, he declared, stressing that the roadmap to make Senegal an emerging country in 2035 was already “tagged”.
With AFP
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