More than a hundred political and civil society organizations launched a coalition on Sunday April 16 in Dakar to block a possible third term for President Macky Sall, ten months before the presidential election, noted an AFP journalist. The "Movement of the living forces of Senegal F24", in reference to the presidential election scheduled for February 2024, was launched in the presence of several opposition leaders, including Ousmane Sonko.
The coalition is made up of parties, civil society organizations and independent personalities. It targets "the respect by President Macky Sall [elected in 2012 and re-elected in 2019] of the Constitution and the word given and his renunciation of presenting his candidacy for an illegal and illegitimate third term", according to his declaration published on Sunday.
President Sall, after several statements in which he affirmed that he would not run again in 2024, remains silent today on his intentions with regard to this election, while his opponents believe that he is finishing his two legal terms. The Senegalese leader kept open the question of his candidacy, arguing that only political, not constitutional, factors would prevent him from running, in an interview published in mid-March by the French magazine L'Express.
Many arrests
"Legally, the debate has long been settled" in his favor, he said in the interview. "Now should I run for a third term or not?" (…) I have not yet provided my answer. When the time comes, I will make my position known." More than one hundred and twenty entities signed the charter of the F24 Movement on Sunday, according to its initiators.
The coalition is also calling for the release of "political detainees" arrested during protests linked to the defamation lawsuit brought against Ousmane Sonko by Tourism Minister Mame Mbaye Niang, also in charge of the presidential party.
Hundreds of people have been arrested in recent weeks during these demonstrations, according to the party of Mr. Sonko, whom Minister Niang accused of having said that he had been singled out by a report from a control institution for his management of a youth employment fund.
Instrumentalize justice?
Mr. Sonko is to be tried on appeal on Monday, after being sentenced on March 30 to two months in prison suspended and 200 million CFA francs (300,000 euros) in damages. The opponent, however, retains his eligibility for the 2024 presidential election, according to his lawyers. The prosecution and the civil party appealed against this judgment.
Mr. Sonko and his supporters accuse the government of using justice to prevent him from running for president in 2024. The presidential party, for its part, accuses Mr. Sonko of wanting to paralyze the country and of using the streets to escape justice.
In March 2021, the questioning of Mr. Sonko in another case, of alleged rape, and his arrest on the way to court had contributed to triggering the most serious riots in years in Senegal, an island of stability in a western region. - Troubled African. They had caused at least a dozen deaths. The trial has not yet taken place.
