The blow fell on Monday, July 31, in the afternoon, a few hours after the detention, in Sébikotane prison, of the Senegalese opponent Ousmane Sonko: his political party, the Patriots of Senegal for the work, ethics and fraternity (Pastef), was dissolved by the authorities. Shortly after the announcement, mostly young protesters took to the streets of the capital, burning tires and blocking roads. Clashes broke out with the police. In Ziguinchor, a city in the south of the country and stronghold of Ousmane Sonko, two people succumbed to their injuries, according to the interior ministry.
Fearing that the protests will escalate, the government has extended a ban on motorcycles in the Dakar region and temporarily suspended internet access on mobile phones and during certain time slots due to the “broadcasting of hate messages and subversives” on social media. Amnesty International called into question this “attack on freedom of information”, and called on the authorities to “restore the Internet”, in a message on Twitter (renamed X).
To justify the dissolution of the Pastef, the Minister of the Interior, Antoine Félix Abdoulaye Diome, argued that those in charge of the formation had “frequently called [their] supporters to insurrectionary movements” which resulted in “many losses in human life , numerous injuries as well as acts of ransacking and looting of public and private property”. A reference to the unrest that occurred in Senegal in March 2021 and June 2023 which left more than forty people dead, following the arrest and then the sentencing of Ousmane Sonko on June 1 to two years in prison in a case where he was accused of rape.
Supporters of the mayor of Ziguinchor denounce a plot to take their champion out of the political arena before the presidential election of February 2024. Sentenced for defamation in May then for youth corruption in June, Ousmane Sonko was arrested on Friday July 28 , in a third case. Brought before an investigating judge on Monday, he was charged and placed under a warrant of committal; a procedure in which he is prosecuted on eight counts, including calling for insurrection, criminal association, attack on state security, conspiracy against state authority and… cell phone theft.
“I have just been unjustly placed under a warrant of committal. If the Senegalese people, for whom I have always fought, abdicate and decide to leave me in the hands of the Macky Sall regime, I will submit, as always, to the divine will,” reacted Ousmane Sonko on social networks. According to his lawyers, the opponent continued his hunger strike on Monday, which he began on Sunday.
Remedies to break the dissolution are explored
He is not the only Pastef executive targeted by justice. Bassirou Diomaye Faye, secretary general and number two of the formation, is still in prison for a publication on social networks in April in which he criticized the behavior of certain magistrates, while Birame Souleye Diop and El Malick Ndiaye, two important officials of the structure, are both under judicial control respectively for insulting the head of state and spreading false news. According to Pastef, 700 supporters have been arrested in the country since June 1.
“This dissolution is not a surprise, but the new episode of a macabre series of demolition of Senegalese democracy”, denounces Ousseynou Ly, member of the communication unit of Pastef, ensuring that all possible remedies before the institutions national and international authorities to overturn this decision of the authorities have already been explored. “Pastef has never gone to an election alone, it has always evolved in a coalition, as recently in Yewwi Askan Wi; so we don’t need a political party legally recognized by the state to go to an election,” he said optimistically.
For Pape Mahawa Diouf, spokesperson for the presidential coalition Benno Bokk Yaakaar, the dissolution of Pastef does not target the opposition as a whole, but the methods of “a violent political organization which has had many initiatives aimed at destabilizing the Republic and peace in Senegal”. In this regard, its dismantling is “a national security imperative”, all the more necessary to “preserve the Senegalese democratic model” since West Africa has been marked in recent years by several coups d’etat, in Mali, Burkina Faso, Guinea and, more recently, Niger.
Seydi Gassama, executive director of Amnesty International in Senegal, recalls that the last political party to be dissolved in the country was the African Independence Party in 1960. “Since then, even under the Abdou Diouf era [president from 1981 to 2000], no party had known this fate, even that of Abdoulaye Wade when he was an opponent”, he underlines. The decision targeting Pastef is therefore, according to the human rights defender, “an attack on freedom of association and on civil and political rights”. Although he has said he will not run for a third term in 2024, “[Senegalese President] Macky Sall wants to make sure his party stays in power and is not replaced by Ousmane Sonko. “, believes Mr. Gassama.
