Opponent Ousmane Sonko called on the Senegalese to stand up “as one man” against power as a capital verdict against him in a rape case approached which subjugated opinion in view of the presidential election and sowed new violence in Dakar.
“I call on all Senegalese to come out massively,” said Mr. Sonko on the night of Monday to Tuesday on social networks. He said he was “kidnapped” at home by the security forces after being arrested on Sunday and brought back to the capital.
“Let everyone rise as one because strength must remain with the people,” he added.
Declared presidential candidate of 2024 but threatened with ineligibility, Mr. Sonko, President Macky Sall’s most restive opponent, urged a “national resistance movement” in the face of the latter’s attempts to establish a dictatorial regime according to him .
Since Sunday, a massive police deployment has blocked the streets giving access to his house. Groups of young people and the security forces clashed with stones and tear gas on Monday in neighboring neighborhoods and around one of the main axes crossing the metropolis.
Young people attacked the houses of the president’s collaborators and members of the presidential camp, set fire to vehicles and buses, destroyed urban equipment and ransacked a Total station in the suburbs of Dakar, a regular target in similar circumstances, reported the media.
Interior Minister Antoine Diome also reported on Tuesday of reprisals against the property of opposition members. The headquarters of Mr. Sonko’s party, Pastef, was also attacked, media said without reporting any significant damage.
M Diome condemned the violence in both directions and the use of “private justice”. He assured the radio that “all means” would be used to prevent the disturbances and that most of the leaders of the events of the previous day had been arrested.
He attributed the responsibility to Mr. Sonko and justified the measures taken around his home: “When someone gets up to repeatedly call for violence (…) it is the duty, even the obligation to the State to take all its measures” to maintain order.
It’s yet another fit of fever around Mr. Sonko, and the tension threatens to increase further by Thursday.
A criminal chamber in Dakar should say that day, unless postponed, whether or not it declares Mr. Sonko guilty or not of rape committed between 2020 and 2021 on a masseuse from a beauty salon in the capital, and of death threats.
The prosecutor demanded against the opponent who came third in the 2019 presidential election and president of the Pastef party ten years in prison for rape, or at least five years in prison for “corruption of youth”.
The stakes are as much criminal as political. Mr. Sonko, 48, risks losing his eligibility, already compromised by a recent six-month suspended prison sentence for defamation against a minister.
He kept protesting his innocence and shouting at the plot hatched by the president, who denies it.
Since the complaint by Adji Sarr, an employee of the Sweet Beauté salon, in February 2021, Mr. Sonko has been engaged in what some call a Mortal Kombat, named after a video game, for his judicial and political survival and against Mr. Hall.
Around 20 civilians were killed in unrest largely linked to his situation. Power and Mr. Sonko’s camp blame each other.
Mr. Sonko accuses the authorities of wanting to eliminate him politically and to repress protest. The presidential camp accuses Mr. Sonko of using the street for a private matter, and of inciting the insurrection.
Mr. Sonko decided not to appear at his trial, saying he feared for his safety and questioned the impartiality of an instrumentalized justice according to him. A conviction in absentia could mean the forfeiture of his electoral rights.
Cut off in Ziguinchor (south), a city of which he is mayor, he had decided to return to Dakar on Friday and make his return a demonstration of his popularity. The procession drew crowds of young people. But it also gave rise to new confrontations with the gendarmes.
The authorities, citing the death of a man and the disturbance of public order, finally had him arrested on Sunday and taken home by the gendarmes.
05/30/2023 20:31:27 – Dakar (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
