In a Senegal under strong political tension, clashes between the police and supporters of the opponent Ousmane Sonko led to the death of a person in Bignona, one of his strongholds, about thirty kilometers from Ziguinchor , in the south of the country, in Casamance. “A kid was killed on Monday by the police,” said Yankhoba Diémé, president of the departmental council of Bignona, a local institution. He explained that “clashes erupted with the police when young people spontaneously came out to demonstrate in the streets against the government”. It is yet another tragic episode in the hardening political confrontation between the state and the camp of President Macky Sall on the one hand, and the supporters of Ousmane Sonko, leader of the Senegalese opposition and leader of the Party of African Patriots of Senegal for Work, Ethics and Fraternity (Pastef), on the other side.
Since March 16 in a private clinic in Dakar where he receives treatment, after claiming to have felt bad because of the tear gas sent by the police during his forced transfer to the Dakar court where he was is held his defamation trial against the Minister of Tourism Mame Birame Niang, Ousmane Sonko has again denounced an assassination attempt on his person. “We shipped the product that was sprayed on me to France to find out what it is,” he said from his hospital bed, before indicating that he would leave the clinic on Tuesday to continue his recovering at home. “Since the Defense and Security Forces dropped me at my house [in Dakar], I have been subject to terrible dizziness. I suffer from pain in the lower abdomen and I have difficulty breathing, ”wrote the opponent Thursday evening on his Facebook page. The Senegalese president “Macky Sall is openly engaged in yet another assassination attempt on my person”, he added. Charges taken up by his party, which speaks of “poisoning”. The authorities did not react. On Monday, Macky Sall, in an interview with the French magazine L’Express, had kept open the question of his candidacy for a third presidential term in 2024. One more illustration that the remote duel continues.
To get there, you should know that since March 16, the day the trial of Ousmane Sonko began, clashes have pitted groups of young people against the security forces in several cities across the country. While the hearing was postponed to March 30, they arrested more than 400 people across the country during protests against power, assured El Malick Ndiaye, head of communication for the Pastef party. Contacted by AFP, the police and the gendarmerie did not react.
At the heart of this situation, the complaint of Minister Mame Birame Niang who is suing Ousmane Sonko for defamation, insults and forgery. He accuses him of having declared that he had been singled out by a report from a control institution for his management of a fund for the employment of young people in agriculture. But what is at stake goes far beyond the minister’s reputation. It should indeed be known that the texts in force provide for removal from the electoral lists, and therefore ineligibility, in certain cases of conviction. This means that Ousmane Sonko therefore risks being declared ineligible for the 2024 presidential election, which he and his supporters denounce as an instrumentalization of justice by power to eliminate him politically.
In March 2021, the impeachment of Ousmane Sonko in another case of alleged rape and his arrest on the way to court had contributed to triggering the most serious riots for years in Senegal, a country known for its stability in a region troubled. They had caused at least a dozen deaths. The trial has not yet taken place.
