In a speech to the nation this Monday night, local time, Sall put an end to the rumors of recent weeks that speculated that the president would seek re-election for the third time in the 2024 elections. This hypothesis was endorsed by the opposition, by command of Ousame Sonko, who cataloged it, if given, as “unconstitutional”.
First modification:
The Senegalese president put an end to weeks of rumors on Monday night when he announced, through a message addressed to the nation, that he will not run to revalidate his position for the third time in the 2024 presidential elections.
“My decision, which has been considered for a long time, is not to be a candidate (…) even though the Constitution gives me the right to do so,” declared the Senegalese head of state.
Macky Sall first became President in 2012 and was re-elected in 2019. He subsequently suggested that the 2016 Magna Carta made him legally eligible for a third term, which ultimately will not take place.
Hours before his speech, which put an end to widespread rumors on the part of the opposition and part of civil society, opposition leader Ousmane Sonko, sentenced to two years in prison for an adultery scandal, asked the Senegalese people to unite “to stand up to the Macky Sall regime”.
“We have to go out and stand up to the Macky Sall regime and tell him that it will not be up to him to choose the candidates who will face each other in the next presidential election,” he said in a speech on social media on Sunday.
The sentence against Sonko triggered the most serious riots in recent years in Senegal at the beginning of June, with a balance of 16 deaths according to the authorities, 24 according to Amnesty International and 30 according to the opposition.
The opposition leader has repeatedly stated that the Government conspires to prevent him from participating in the presidential elections of February 2024, but the Executive denies it. He has been held by the security forces at his home in Dakar, “kidnapped” according to him, since May 28. An arrest for practical purposes would end any attempt to run for election.
A biased “national dialogue”, according to Sonko
For Sonko, the dialogue initiated by President Sall, which ended ten days ago, is nothing more than an “agreement” between the different political forces that participated to eliminate him from the presidential race.
This “national dialogue” put two opponents back on the track, Karim Wade and Khalifa Sall, whose political career had been brutally interrupted by judicial problems and who had been excluded from the 2019 presidential elections. The case of Ousmane Sonko did not was debated.
At the conclusion of the debates, Sall had previously argued that only political factors, not constitutional ones, would prevent him from running, and stated that his election would be “free and sovereign”.
On Saturday, speaking to local elected officials who had solicited his support, he called on his political family to come together and put “the general interest” and “the interest of the coalition” before all other considerations.
“My struggle and my greatest pride are really leading you to victory and continuing our economic policy for the benefit of our people,” he declared, stressing that the road map to make Senegal an emerging country by 2035 had already been “drawn up.”
*With AFP, partially adapted from its original in French
