President Macky Sall or opponent Ousmane Sonko, we do not know who had the most fears in recent hours in Dakar. When the trial of the second was to open on Thursday, March 16 in the morning, the two camps were on edge. Everyone is preparing to start a decisive face-to-face for the presidential election scheduled in less than a year, on February 25, 2024.
Until late Wednesday evening, the explosions of de-encirclement grenades and tear gas fire resounded in Cité Keur Gorgui, the district of Dakar where Ousmane Sonko lives. Clashes between demonstrators and security forces took place in several suburbs of the capital such as Keur Massar and in the provinces, including the holy city of Touba. Benno Bokk Yakaar's presidential majority coalition accused the opposition of being "irresponsible" and seeking to "destabilize institutions".
The police were determined to prevent any gathering of supporters of Ousmane Sonko, who has made street mobilization his main weapon. From the start of the day on Wednesday, it was around the opponent's home that tensions crystallized, while heavily equipped police officers deployed in the morning, preventing anyone from entering or leaving.
No question for the police to allow a new show of force. The day before, Ousmane Sonko had still managed to bring together tens of thousands of activists who, despite the wait, had welcomed him like an "idol" when he went on the stage of a "giga meeting" of the opposition to Parcelles-Assainies, one of the most populated districts of the Senegalese capital. In front of a crowd largely made up of young urbanites, who constitute his electoral base, he had warned the magistrates "instrumentalized by Macky Sall", inviting them to "respect the law of the people" and not to participate in a strategy that he calls it an attempt at "political liquidation".
Sonko, a martyr in the eyes of his supporters
Thursday, the presidential candidate of 2024 is playing his political future. He is expected before the Dakar Criminal Court in a defamation lawsuit brought by Mame Mbaye Niang, the Minister of Tourism, whom he accused of embezzlement.
The hearing opened for the first time a month ago before being postponed. Already, Dakar had been the scene of strong mobilization and intense tension. The opponent had been taken home by police who had broken the window of his car, a scene broadcast live on social networks.
Another case weighs on Ousmane Sonko, also mayor of Ziguinchor, the big city of Casamance. He is accused of "rape and death threats" by Adji Sarr, the employee of the Sweet Beauty massage parlor he used to frequent for his back pain. If he is sentenced to more than three months of imprisonment or more than six months suspended in one of these cases, the electoral code provides for ineligibility. Ousmane Sonko will then be definitively excluded from the presidential race.
Far from having handicapped him, these multiple court cases have made the main opponent of the camp of the head of state a martyr in the eyes of his supporters. "It's a conspiracy, a strictly political affair, instrumentalized by the power of Macky Sall for the exclusive purpose of dismissing a candidate who, by far, seems to be one of the best placed to win the next presidential election," said Mr. Sonko himself.
His argument is the disqualification in the past of former opponents of President Macky Sall. Karim Wade, the son of former President Abdoulaye Wade, was disqualified after being sentenced in 2015 to six years in prison for illicit enrichment. Khalifa Sall (no relation to the president) was sentenced to five years in prison in 2018 for embezzlement when he was mayor of Dakar and his incarceration ended his dreams of running for president in 2019.
Direct word and sovereignist ideology
"Ousmane Sonko should not be Macky Sall's third victim," Mr. Sonko insisted at the March 14 meeting. I am a candidate and my 'brother' Khalifa Sall, whom Macky Sall prevented from being a candidate in 2019, will also be a candidate because we will no longer allow Macky Sall to choose the candidates for the presidential election," he said. he warned. He wants to impose "the candidacy of all opposition leaders".
Virtually unknown to the general public seven years ago, this former tax inspector has had the trajectory of a political comet since his removal from the public service in 2016. The presidential decree then blamed the ex-brilliant student who graduated major of the Senegalese National School of Administration for breaching "the obligation of professional discretion" by creating the first trade union within its institution.
This signing of Macky Sall has proven to be a political career accelerator. First elected deputy, the president of the Patriots of Senegal for work, ethics and fraternity (Pastef) comes third in the presidential election of 2019. He continues his ascent by taking the town hall of Ziguinchor during the municipal elections of January 2022 Even if he does not hold any official leadership position within the Yewwi Askan Wi coalition, he then imposes himself as the leader of the opposition.
With his direct words and his sovereignist ideology, Ousmane Sonko stands out and seduces in a political landscape that is struggling to renew itself. He asserts his Pan-Africanism and his patriotism. He advocates a gradual exit from the CFA franc and turns his back on Westerners, France in the lead, arousing the concern of some chancelleries. "This opposition only hopes to find its salvation in invective, insults, headlong rush and manipulation", denounced the presidential coalition in recent days.
Macky Sall suspected of wanting to run for a third term
A break in style and substance that destabilizes at the top of the Senegalese state but also within an opposition accustomed to greater classicism.
Among Macky Sall's detractors, all now appear united against a president suspected of wanting to run for a third term. An initiative "unconstitutional" according to the opposition, but legal in the eyes of the majority, which underlines that the constitutional revision of 2016 allows its leader to represent himself.
Could Macky Sall be tempted to follow the path set by the Ivorian President, Alassane Ouattara, in 2020? For the moment, the head of state refuses to reveal his intentions, fueling the fantasies, the tensions and the diatribes of his best enemy, who promises him "a deadly fight".
