A Senegalese opponent was in police custody Thursday, July 6, after publicly questioning the withdrawal of President Macky Sall, who announced Monday that he would not seek a third term in 2024, his lawyer told AFP. . Birame Souleye Diop, president of the parliamentary group of the opposition coalition Yewwi Askan Wi (YAW) and executive of the African Patriots of Senegal for work, ethics and fraternity (Pastef), the party of Ousmane Sonko, has was arrested on Wednesday after warning of a possible reversal of the head of state.
“I warn the next candidates of the APR [the presidential party]. Avoid eating at his house, avoid drinking his water, he is capable of poisoning you and saying: “as we have no more candidates, I’ll be back”. And to do it à la Ouattara. Take care, ”he said Tuesday at a press conference, before apologizing. The Ivorian President, Alassane Ouattara, had chosen Amadou Gon Coulibaly to succeed him, but the latter’s death from heart problems when he was 61 years old had prompted Mr. Ouattara to run for president in 2020 when he had announced that he did not want to run for a third term.
Mr. Diop is being prosecuted for “defamation committed by a member of the National Assembly against a foreign head of state likely to undermine the diplomatic relations of the State” and “discredit on an institution of the Republic”, indicated his lawyer, Moussa Sarr. “He is still in police custody at the Urban Security of the central police station in Dakar,” he said.
“Politico-judicial machine”
The main opposition coalition, of which Pastef is a part, “deplores the treatment reserved for this affair” in a press release published Thursday evening. She affirms that “despite [the] public apologies” of the respondent to President Sall, “the politico-judicial machine was activated”, “in defiance of [the] quality of deputy” of Mr. Diop, covered by immunity. The coalition believes it has “a high awareness of the fraternal, friendly and historic relations between Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire, which cannot be compromised by comments made in a context of political and social tension”.
Macky Sall’s decision not to run has eased a very heavy political climate in Senegal. The two-year prison sentence of Ousmane Sonko, the president’s fiercest opponent, has caused the most serious unrest in Senegal for years, killing sixteen officially, around thirty according to the opposition. Mr. Sonko cries out for the plot of power to exclude him from the presidential election of February 2024 and his party estimates that more than 300 the number of “political detainees”. The government denies both charges.