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Several districts of Dakar were the scene of guerrilla warfare between young Senegalese and the police on Thursday – the opponent Ousmane Sonko appeared during a trial on which his candidacy for the presidential election of 2024 could depend. postponed to March 30.
This hearing promised to be a risky meeting. The lawsuit brought against the opponent Ousmane Sonko by the Minister of Tourism Mame Mbaye Niang, a leader of the presidential party, was marred, Thursday, March 16, by clashes and incidents between young people and security forces in several districts of Dakar.
The nervousness turned to aggressiveness after the court announced that the case would be adjourned to March 30. At the exit of the room, members of the entourage of the two parties came to blows, forcing the security service to intervene and to use irritant gas.
The minister 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 the General State Inspectorate (IGE) for his management of a fund for the employment of young people.
“I was bullied”
Groups of young people threw stones at the gendarmes and the police in the streets adjacent to the court. An impressive security device had transformed the complex into an entrenched camp. The security forces repeatedly repelled the attackers with tear gas in deafening explosions.
Ousmane Sonko’s journey to court, under heavy police escort through a city on high alert, was itself marred with unrest. The security forces ended up extracting Ousmane Sonko by force from his vehicle to take him to the courthouse. Those accompanying him say he and others were manhandled during the transfer and sprayed with tear gas.
Once at the helm, Ousmane Sonko explained that he wanted to choose his route. “The police and the gendarmerie impose a route on me. I was brutalized. The regime only counts on the security forces”.
Ousmane Sonko was examined by a doctor in court. after several hours, the hearing, under high tension, had still not addressed the merits of the case. The trial was eventually adjourned to March 30.
>> See also: Senegal: what is blamed on Ousmane Sonko, leader of the opposition, and what does he risk?
Tensions ahead of the presidential election
This new bout of fever is the latest episode in a psychodrama that has held the political world in suspense for two years and which has already, in the past, caused considerable trouble.
In March 2021, the questioning of Ousmane Sonko in a case of alleged rape and his arrest on the way to court had contributed to triggering the most serious riots for years in this country known as a rare island of stability in the region. .
As the 2024 presidential election approaches, tensions are once again increasing.
The case of alleged rape – not tried for the moment – and that of defamation, pose the threat of a possible ineligibility on the candidacy of Ousmane Sonko.
He and his supporters cry out for the plot hatched by the authorities to eliminate him politically. Sonko had called on his supporters to come massively to support him at trial.
The personality of Ousmane Sonko, 48, divides the Senegalese. He holds a sovereignist, pan-Africanist and social discourse, slaying the elites and corruption. His detractors denounce, them, a populist not hesitating to blow on the social embers and to exploit the street to escape justice.
The doubt that President Macky Sall maintains about whether or not he intends to run for a third term also contributes to pitting the opposing camps against each other.
With AFP