After more than ten hours of heated debate in the National Assembly, the political horizon of Karim Wade and Khalifa Sall has finally cleared: the two Senegalese opponents, excluded from the political field for several years, will be able to stand for election. presidential election of February 25, 2024. The reform adopted on Saturday evening August 5 by 124 votes for, one against and zero abstentions stipulates that “no one may refuse registration on the electoral rolls to persons who, under electoral incapacity at the following a conviction, benefit from rehabilitation or are the subject of an amnesty or pardon. »
This modification of article L28 of the electoral code was one of the main achievements of the national dialogue initiated at the end of May by President Macky Sall. The discussions also led to an agreement on a reduction in the number of sponsorships necessary for candidates – a threshold set at 0.6% of the electoral roll against 0.8% previously – and the abolition of the Court of Repression of Enrichment illicit, replaced by a financial prosecutor’s office.
Turmoil in the opposition
After months of a tense face-to-face between Macky Sall and Ousmane Sonko which ended in the renunciation of one to run for a third term and the imprisonment of the other, the presidential election s announcement more undecided than ever. Not only is the question of Ousmane Sonko’s ineligibility unresolved, but the return to the ring of two heavyweights from the political scene risks creating a stir in the ranks of the opposition.
The first, Karim Wade, son of former President Abdoulaye Wade and figure of the Senegalese Democratic Party, was sentenced to six years in prison for illicit enrichment in 2015, before being pardoned and going into exile in Qatar. He is still there. The second, Khalifa Sall, former mayor of Dakar at the head of Taxawu Senegal, had been excluded from the 2019 presidential election after being sentenced to five years in prison for embezzlement of public funds in 2018. He had also benefited from ‘a grace.
Saliou Sarr, national coordinator of Taxawu Senegal, welcomed on Saturday August 5 that Khalifa Sall, who has already announced his desire to participate in the next presidential election, “finds the fullness of his civil and political rights”. From now on, “all he has to do is meet the Senegalese with his program which is already ready”, added the political leader.
The situation is a little different for Karim Wade, insisted on the part of Nafissatou Diallo, spokesperson for the Senegalese Democratic Party. The former president’s son “has been a voter and eligible since August 2020, since the automatic five-year ban on being eligible and eligible to vote following a conviction has expired,” she said. Nevertheless, the opponent is still not, to date, re-registered on the electoral register.
A vote shunned by the Pastef
In the Assembly, the deputies from the Taxawu Senegal party, like those from the PDS, voted for the modification of the text of the law. But the opposition coalition Yewwi Askan Wi partly split. The parliamentarians of the Senegalese Patriots for Work, Ethics and Fraternity (Pastef) – the party of Ousmane Sonko, dissolved by the Senegalese authorities in the wake of the indictment of the opponent – did not follow their colleagues from Taxawu Senegal and left the Assembly at the time of the vote.
Previously, several Pastef deputies had taken advantage of the platform at the National Assembly to emphasize that there was still a long way to go before the next presidential election was truly inclusive. In other words, so that their leader, Ousmane Sonko, can compete.
Placed in detention, the latter is charged in particular with calling for insurrection. In two other court proceedings, he was sentenced on appeal to a six-month suspended prison sentence for defamation in May, then to two years in absentia for “youth corruption” in the rape case that brought him to court. opposes the masseuse Adji Sarr. In a handwritten letter addressed to the clerk on August 3, the opponent notified from prison his “non-acquiescence in the judgment”, which would allow him to “annihilate” the decision and start the trial from scratch according to him. But the prosecutor believes that his current detention is not linked to the case between him and Adji Sarr.