In Senegal, the tension remains high around the summons by the Justice, of the opponent Ousmane Sonko called to appear today March 30, 2023, after two dismissals of a lawsuit for defamation brought by a member of the government, and which was to open on February 16. For good reason: the mobilization of his supporters who, despite the ban, still met on March 29 and 30 in the street, for demonstrations which had already given rise to clashes, on March 16, the date of first referral. A situation which does not leave indifferent the Senegalese Justice which is under strong pressure and which has even denounced the existence of a group ” aiming at insurrection “. And the Attorney General to be clearer in speaking of investigations which revealed the existence of an organization calling itself ” commando “, which would have for targets ” public figures from the judiciary, the state apparatus, religious and the press “and whose goal is to lead” subversive activities ranging from the making of explosive devices, smoke bombs, molotov cocktails. And the purpose of it all is to take brilliant actions to install fear and chaos ».
For the opposition mobilized behind its leader, the stakes of these trials go far beyond the simple right
That is what is said, even if Ousmane Sonko finds these words ” ridicules “while claiming to have been the object, on March 16, of a ” assassination attempt by the police, on his way to the courthouse. The least that can be said is that this new summons of the leader of the opposition to justice is in the process of further rotting the socio-political atmosphere in country of Teranga. An atmosphere made already deleterious by the Adji Sarr affair, named after this employee of a massage parlour, who brought the opponent to justice, for a dark affair of “rape and death threats which is also waiting to be elucidated. This is to say if the tiles are piling up on the head of the president of PASTEF. But his supporters see in the legal troubles of their champion, as many means diverted from power in order to make ineligible the one who already sees himself as the almost designated successor of Macky Sall, at the presidential palace. Suffice to say that for the opposition mobilized behind its leader, the stakes of these trials go far beyond simple law. Because, a possible conviction of the opponent, which would sound the death knell for his presidential ambitions, could upset the plans of the opposition which is betting on him to carry out the alternation against a Macky Sall whose prolonged silence on the intentions of third mandate given to him, begins to be suspect. This means if judging Ousmane Sonko today could plunge Senegal into chaos. And yet, we will have to hear the opponent, if we do not want to enshrine impunity in Senegal, at least for a certain category of citizens. Which would be an unfortunate precedent. This is why, even if the former mayor of Ziguinchor cannot be criticized for giving a political connotation to his legal troubles with regard to the precedents Karim Wade and Khalifa Sall, Ousmane Sonko should avoid giving the impression of seeking to stir up trouble in order to evade justice.
President Macky Sall must be able to free his people, by clarifying once and for all his intentions
It would be a bad signal, especially coming from such a high personality who aspires to lead his country one day, for all those Senegalese who want to believe in the rule of law. In any case, by establishing a causal link between his summons to court and a possible candidacy of Macky Sall for a third term, the intention to show the instrumentalization of Justice seems not only obvious, but also Ousmane Sonko does not really leave any other choice to its supporters than that of resistance to what appears to be a disastrous project. This puts Senegal on the steep slope of the tension of the socio-political climate, with the consequences that we know, in terms of destructive violence against a background of police repression. And the more the electoral deadlines approach, the more the tension will rise. However, Senegal does not need that. This is why the protagonists must know how to keep reason for the preservation of social peace. For his part, President Macky Sall must be able to free his people, by clarifying his intentions once and for all. If they go in the direction of renouncing the third mandate which he is supposed to have the intention of, this will undoubtedly have the advantage of contributing to the relaxation of the socio-political atmosphere, in addition to removing a sizeable argument from Ousmane Sonko and his many supporters, in their recurrent bravado of the judicial authority of their country. It is Senegal as a whole that would win. Otherwise, if he succumbs to the temptation of a third term, the Senegalese Head of State will have to assume full responsibility for it before history, with all the consequences, like some of his peers who, in the case in point, had mixed fortunes before him.
The country “