2023-07-08 14:30:21
The Senegalese head of state announced last Monday in an address to the Nation that he would not stand for this ballot scheduled for February 25, 2024, ending months of suspense.
“The only reason I might have stood for re-election is if the country had faced a serious threat to its stability. But this threat has not arrived,” said Macky Sall, elected in 2012 for seven years and re-elected in 2019 for five years, in an interview with the French newspaper “Le Monde” published on Friday.
The Senegalese leader, whose remarks were relayed by local media, adds that he was “under no pressure” to announce his decision not to run for a third term.
“I didn’t feel any pressure. As early as 2018, I had written in a book, Le Sénégal au cœur (Le Cherche Midi, 2019), that I was seeking my last mandate. But since my victory, five years ago, some hastened to launch false campaigns around a so-called third term. I also received many supporters from elected officials who begged me to take the plunge. Sunday, July 2, 512 elected officials gave me a petition along these lines. That some are agitated on this subject does not bother me, it is democracy. But it got the rumor mill going,” he explained.
“I mightn’t say earlier that I wouldn’t run once more. Otherwise, the country would have stopped working. the political tensions of recent months have nothing to do with the question of the third term. The crux of the matter is a legal case,” revealed Macky Sall, referring to the violence that occurred in early June following the sentencing of opponent Ousmane Sonko to two years in prison in a sex scandal, a sentence that makes the leader of “Pastef” ineligible as it stands.
The Senegalese head of state believes that the perpetrators of this violence have “accomplices who tried to destabilize Senegal”. He cited France where the party “La France insoumise (LFI, opposition) supported this violence. It is an inadmissible interference”.
Macky Sall “found it inelegant that Paris commission (in March) an adviser (from the Elysée) to meet my opponent (Ousmane Sonko)”.
“My dear compatriots, my long and carefully considered decision is not to be a candidate for the next election of February 25, 2024,” Macky Sall said Monday evening in an address to the nation, ending months of suspense.
“I have a code of honor and a sense of historical responsibility which commands me to preserve my dignity and my word,” he said to justify his choice.
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