2023-11-01 00:29:30
Senegal’s electoral commission asked Tuesday to reinstate opponent Ousmane Sonko on the electoral lists and to issue him essential documents for his candidacy for the 2024 presidential election. A request which was rejected by a department of the Ministry of the Interior .
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On Tuesday, October 31, a department of the Senegalese Ministry of the Interior rejected the request of the autonomous national electoral commission (Cena) to reinstate the opponent Ousmane Sonko on the electoral lists and to issue him with essential documents for his candidacy for the 2024 presidential election.
The General Directorate of Elections (DGE) explains that it has “no competence to carry out any action on the electoral register”, without specifying who has the power.
In its letter to the DGE, the Cena wrote that Ousmane Sonko must “enjoy his status as a voter registered on the electoral lists with all the rights (which are) attached to it”.
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Ousmane Sonko was removed from the electoral rolls, which currently prevents him from competing in the presidential election. The government essentially argued that Ousmane Sonko was convicted in absentia in a morals case in June to justify his removal. Ousmane Sonko, imprisoned since the end of July on other charges, denounces these affairs as plots aimed at excluding him from the presidential election.
A refusal contested before the ECOWAS court of justice
A judge in Ziguinchor (south) ordered on October 12 that Ousmane Sonko, central figure with the State in a turbulent and violent political-judicial saga which has kept Senegal in suspense for two and a half years, be reinstated on the lists .
However, the Ministry of the Interior has so far refused to issue him with the official forms which would allow him to collect his sponsorships, a necessary step in submitting an application.
The Cena “invites the General Directorate of Elections to take the necessary measures to make the sponsorship form available to the representative of Mr. Ousmane Sonko as soon as possible,” she said in her letter.
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In its response made public, the DGE said that, if it did not give the forms to the representatives of Ousmane Sonko, it is because he did not appear on the lists, a position confirmed on October 6 by the Supreme Court, she emphasizes.
The Cena controls and supervises the electoral process, from registration on the lists to the provisional proclamation of the results. The elections are organized by the Ministry of the Interior. A Cena spokesperson, however, admitted to AFP that the commission might not constrain the Interior.
In addition, Ousmane Sonko’s lawyers contested on Tuesday the refusal to issue him sponsorship forms before the court of justice of the Economic Community of African States (ECOWAS). The regional court has given itself until November 6 to resolve disputes related to this case.
With AFP
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