Sonko speaks of “judicial banditry” and frames the decision in his “disobedience campaign”
8 May. (EUROPE PRESS) –
The Senegalese opposition leader Ousmane Sonko has announced that he will stop cooperating with the Justice in the cases open against him, which he calls unfair and politicized, within the framework of what he has described as part of a “disobedience campaign” against the authorities of the african country.
“It is no longer justice, it is judicial banditry, and for this reason I have made the decision, within the framework of my campaign of civil disobedience, to no longer collaborate with Justice,” he said in a video published on his account on the social network Facebook.
“If the State cannot guarantee a minimum of security, which should be normal, I will no longer appear before this Justice to respond to any case,” he stressed, before saying that it is a “firm” decision whose consequences “he assumes” .
Thus, Sonko, who is also mayor of the city of Ziguinchor (south), has spoken of a “political liquidation” campaign and has accused the president, Macky Sall, of “instrumentalizing” the judicial apparatus to try to prevent him from being a candidate. to the 2024 presidential elections.
“There is no other solution than resistance. We have a patriotic obligation, an obligation of national salvation to resist Macky Sall’s repressive machinery,” said Sonko, who has insisted that “he has never” refused to appear before the courts.
In this sense, he has condemned the incidents registered in March when the Police tried to arrest him to transfer him by force to a court and has reiterated that it was “almost an attempt to liquidate him physically”. “It seems that with Sonko everything is allowed”, he has settled.
The opponent is facing two cases that could separate him from the presidential elections, including one for alleged rape and death threats, while in March he was convicted of defamation, a sentence that he has appealed.
Sonko was arrested in 2021 after around twenty opposition parliamentarians filed an appeal with the Constitutional Court against the withdrawal of their parliamentary immunity.
The arrest of the opponent, who came in third place in the 2019 presidential elections, unleashed a wave of protests that resulted in several deaths. Finally, he was released, although the proceedings against him are still ongoing.
The opposition has denounced on several occasions that the president plans to run for a third term. The Senegalese constitution limits the total number of terms to two and an attempt to extend his stay in power could lead to instability.
For his part, the Senegalese president recently rejected allegations about the possibility of violating the two-term limit should he run for re-election, stressing that “in the legal field, the debate has been closed for a long time.” However, he specified that he has not yet decided if he will run for the polls again.
