Senegalese opponent Ousmane Sonko, who has been denouncing his detention since the end of July and who resumed his hunger strike eight days ago, is in a “very weak” state in an intensive care unit of a Dakar hospital, his lawyer, Ciré Clédor Ly, told AFP on Wednesday October 25. “He fell into a coma on October 23. He regained consciousness the same day, but is in a very weak condition. Care continues,” said the lawyer, who said he was able to speak with his client on Tuesday: “The situation is alarming. The doctors give him treatment that he is unable to refuse. I launch a solemn appeal to the Head of State because he has the means to put an end to this situation. »
Candidate for the presidential election in February 2024, Mr. Sonko, 49, who came third in the 2019 presidential election, accuses President Macky Sall, who denies it, of wanting to exclude him from the ballot through legal procedures. Mr. Sall, elected in 2012 for seven years and re-elected in 2019 for five years, announced in early July that he would not run again.
After a conviction for defamation against a minister, Mr. Sonko was found guilty of “corruption of youth” on June 1 and sentenced to two years in prison. Absent at the trial, he was convicted in absentia and then removed from the lists. A judge in Ziguinchor (south) canceled this removal last week, but the opponent’s candidacy is still far from guaranteed. The General Directorate of Elections, which depends on the Ministry of the Interior, refuses to issue the forms to be used to collect the sponsorships necessary for a candidacy, arguing that the judge’s decision “is not final”.
Mr. Sonko was imprisoned at the end of July on other charges, including calling for insurrection, criminal conspiracy in connection with a terrorist enterprise and endangering state security. He had started a hunger strike which, according to his relatives, he had ended on September 2 to respond to calls emanating in particular from very influential religious leaders in Senegal, after being admitted to the intensive care unit in a hospital. The Senegalese authorities had cast doubt on this hunger strike.