Senegalese opponent Ousmane Sonko, declared candidate for the 2024 presidential election and threatened with ineligibility, launched a new risky challenge to power on Wednesday May 24 by announcing his imminent return to Dakar at the head of a popular convoy to across the country.
“I’ll meet you in Dakar, either [President] Macky Sall backs down or we’ll face him to end it,” Mr. Sonko told hundreds of excited supporters who came to his house in Ziguinchor (south), the announcement of a speech on his part the day after his trial for rape, held in his absence. “The final fight, where will it be?” It will happen in Dakar,” he proclaimed. “If you are 2,000, let 1,500 join Dakar to continue the fight,” he said.
Mr. Sonko has stated his intention to return by road and turn these approximately 500 kilometers into a “caravan of freedom”. Then he paraded wearing the Senegalese flag in the midst of his supporters singing and chanting his name. He later clarified on social media that he intended to get going on Thursday and called on the Senegalese to converge on Dakar.
It is a new act of defiance against the authorities on the part of the president of the Pastef-Les Patriotes party, third in the presidential election in 2019, a divisive personality but popular among those under 20 who represent half of the population. .
Politico-judicial standoff
On Tuesday, Mr. Sonko was conspicuously absent from his rape trial, saying he feared for his safety and questioned the impartiality of justice. He has always refuted the accusations and shouted at the conspiracy of power to remove him from the presidential election. The issue goes beyond morals. Mr. Sonko risks his eligibility, already compromised by a six-month suspended sentence for defamation against a minister. The “caravan of freedom” promises to be a random exercise, tangent to the date of the verdict which must be pronounced on June 1.
Several days before his trial, Mr. Sonko took refuge in Ziguinchor, a city of which he is the mayor. His supporters have mounted a close and menacing guard around his home to ward off a possible arrest attempt. The authorities and the justice system have chosen not to seek to arrest him. The mobilization of his supporters, during his appointments with the justice system in particular, has regularly given rise to incidents and disturbances, including fatal ones.
In March 2021, the arrest of Mr. Sonko during his journey in procession to the court where he was summoned, when the case of alleged rapes had just broken out, contributed to triggering several days of riots which caused at least a dozen deaths. The tension is expected to be high again around June 1st. Withdrawing to Ziguinchor allowed “to buy time” and “to remobilize the troops everywhere”, assured Mr. Sonko on Wednesday.
The politico-judicial standoff delivered by the opponent has been in the news since 2021. The soap opera reached a new peak on Tuesday with a trial conducted at a run, an opportunity for an unpacking breaking with the modesty of rigor in Senegal and shared in real time with the general public by the journalists present thanks to the Internet.
Adji Sarr under police protection
Prosecutor Abdou Karim Diop requested that Mr. Sonko be sentenced to ten years in prison for rape, or at least five years in prison for “youth corruption”, as well as one year in prison for the death threats against him. allegedly uttered against the plaintiff.
Mr. Sonko is the subject of the complaint by Adji Sarr, 23, a former employee of the Sweet Beauté massage parlour. The young woman, who became an unwilling celebrity and placed under police protection, maintained at trial that Mr. Sonko had abused her – “five times” – between 2020 and early 2021 and had threatened her with death if she was talking.
Mr. Sonko described her on Wednesday evening as a “manipulated young girl, who was promised a diplomatic passport and exile abroad, [in addition to] large sums of money”, a “poor young lady who does not is not so innocent since she could have recanted a long time ago”. “Sooner or later she will pay full price for her package,” he said. Adji Sarr has always persisted in demanding justice. The government denies any instrumentalization of justice and alleges a private matter.
