Are the bets cast on the participation in the February 2024 presidential election of Ousmane Sonko, leader of the African Patriots of Senegal party for work, ethics and fraternity (Pastef) and positioned as the main rival of President Macky Sall on the Senegalese political scene? Accused of rape, the mayor of Ziguinchor was sentenced by a criminal court in Dakar to two years in prison. Reason chosen: “corruption of youth”. On the other hand, the criminal chamber, ruling in the absence of Ousmane Sonko, acquitted him of the charges of rape and death threats. She also sentenced Mr. Sonko’s co-defendant, Mrs. Ndèye Khady Ndiaye, owner of the beauty salon where the politician was accused of having abused an employee on several occasions, to two years in prison.
“Youth corruption” is the debauchery or abetment of the debauchery of a youth under the age of 21. The complainant, Adji Sarr, was under 21 at the time of the events she denounces. The decision seems in view of the Electoral Code to maintain the threat to his eligibility and his ability to compete in the presidential election next year. The immediate implications of this decision and a possible arrest of Mr. Sonko are uncertain. The court did not rule on a possible arrest. “The decision to arrest him or not depends on the public prosecutor,” said one of Mr. Sonko’s lawyers, Mr. Djiby Diagne. But “Ousmane Sonko’s candidacy is mortgaged,” he said. At the time of the court decision, Mr. Sonko, president of the Pastef-Les Patriotes party and third in the 2019 presidential election, was presumed to be at his home in Dakar, blocked since Sunday by a large police force, “kidnapped” according to his words.
The security forces repelled, including by force, any attempt to approach him by his lawyers or his supporters. They kept the journalists at a considerable distance from his house and fired tear gas canisters without warning at a group of journalists, including one from AFP, to drive them away. The verdict, the culmination of a soap opera that has held Senegal in suspense for more than two years, raises fears of new violence. Mr. Sonko has constantly protested his innocence and shouted at a plot hatched by the president, who denies it. He faced up to twenty years in prison for rape. The stakes are as much criminal as political. The eligibility of Mr. Sonko, 48, is already jeopardized by a recent six-month suspended prison sentence for defaming a minister.
Since February 2021, when the alleged rape case hit the headlines, Mr. Sonko has been engaged in a frenzied standoff with power for his judicial and political survival. About 20 civilians have been killed since 2021 in unrest largely linked to his situation. The power and the camp of Mr. Sonko reject the fault.
Mr. Sonko was arrested on Sunday and forcibly taken home. He called on the Senegalese on Tuesday to demonstrate “massively”. Young people attacked the houses of members of the presidential camp and ransacked them. Reprisals were carried out against the property of members of the opposition and of Mr. Sonko’s party. The damage remained far from what it had been in 2021 shortly after the scandal broke, when Mr. Sonko was arrested on the way to court where he was going in procession to the summons of the judge.
Mr. Sonko’s sovereignist and pan-Africanist discourse, his diatribes against “the state mafia”, multinationals and the economic and political influence exercised according to him by the former colonial power France have earned him strong support among the under 20s. years, who represent half of the population and are hungry for work and opportunities. The presidential camp accuses Mr. Sonko of using the street for a private matter, and of feeding an insurrectionary project. Apart from the fate of Mr. Sonko, another divisive factor is the vagueness maintained by Mr. Sall on whether or not he will run for a third term.
Senegal, a rare center of stability in a troubled region without being a stranger to political tumult, has therefore experienced new clashes between supporters of Mr. Sonko and security forces around his trial and then his return from the south of the country to Dakar. Friday.