2023-12-22 19:05:14
Imprisoned Senegalese opponent Ousmane Sonko will present his candidacy for the February 2024 presidential election before the Constitutional Council, his lawyers said on Friday, accusing the State of wanting to “exclude” him from the vote.
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Two months before the presidential election in Senegal, uncertainty still hovers over Ousmane Sonko’s participation. The lawyers of the imprisoned Senegalese opponent affirmed on Friday December 22 that he will submit his candidacy for the February 2024 election before the Constitutional Council of Senegal, affirming “to trust in justice” in the face of a State seeking, according to them, to “remove” from the presidential election.
“Ousmane Sonko will submit his candidacy to the Constitutional Council, which is empowered to judge his candidacy,” said one of his lawyers, Saïd Larifou, during a press conference in Paris. “We are certain that the candidacy will be submitted and validated. The Constitutional Council is a jurisdictional and non-political body,” he continued.
“We are continuing our work as lawyers, until the final stage, at the level of the Constitutional Council procedure, so that Ousmane Sonko is recognized as valid for candidacy,” confirmed Ousseynou Fall, of the Senegal bar, also present in Paris .
“We trust in our justice, in certain magistrates, that they will render justice,” he further commented, praising “a new wind blowing within the judiciary”, where “integrous, virtuous” judges , want to “rend justice in the name of the Senegalese people”.
Legal battle
Ousmane Sonko, engaged for more than two years in a standoff with the State which has given rise to several episodes of deadly unrest, has until December 26 to submit his candidacy and collect his sponsorship.
Found guilty on 1is June of “debauchery of a minor” and sentenced to two years in prison, he refused to appear at trial and was sentenced in absentia.
The 49-year-old opponent, imprisoned since the end of July on other charges, including “call to insurrection”, “criminal association linked to a terrorist enterprise” and “endangering state security “, denounces these cases and the others in which he was implicated as plots aimed at removing him from the presidential election.
In mid-December, a judge relaunched his candidacy by ordering his re-registration on the electoral lists, confirming a decision rendered in October by the court of Ziguinchor (South) which had been overturned by the Supreme Court in mid-November.
On Tuesday, a representative of the opponent, however, claimed that he had been prevented from collecting sponsorship forms from the General Directorate of Elections, documents necessary for his candidacy.
There is “a deliberate refusal to apply court decisions […] never seen before in a state that calls itself ‘right-wing'”, commented Mr. Fall. Mr. Larifou for his part denounced “harassment” by the Senegalese state against Ousmane Sonko aimed at “removing him from the February elections”.
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