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Following Senegal’s Supreme Court ruling on opposition leader Ousmane Sonko’s ineligibility for the presidential elections on November 17, his Pastef party announced another candidate to contest in the upcoming presidential election.
The opposition Pastef party on Sunday designated Bassirou Diomaye Faye, secretary-general of the party and right-hand man of Ousmane Sonko, as its candidate for the February poll.
On Friday, Sonko was told by both the Supreme Court in Senegal and the ECOWAS court in Nigeria, that he could not be registered again on the electoral lists.
Sonko, who has been caught up in a series of legal cases, was convicted in absentia on 1 June of morally corrupting a young person and sentenced to two years in prison. He denounced the trial as a plot to exclude him from the election. He embarked on a hunger strike to protest what he considered politically motivated trials.
In late July, he was arrested on other charges including fomenting insurrection, criminally associating with a terrorist body, and endangering state security.
The party’s decision to sponsor Faye was to defy what many members have described as President Macky Sall’s intention to stop any strong opposition to the ruling party. “To sponsor Diomaye Faye is to sponsor Sonko,” Pastef’s spokespeople told supporters, just three weeks ahead of the sponsorship deadline.
Like Sonko, Bassirou Diomaye Faye is a tax inspector, he is in his forties, and he is also behind bars.
Diomaye Faye has been in detention since April after he was arrested for publishing a post criticising the behaviour of magistrates in the defamation case between Sonko and the Minister of Tourism, Mame Mbaye Niang.
Prosecuted for contempt of court, defamation and acts likely to compromise public peace, his trial has not started.
Some commentators have said that Faye remains eligible as long as he has not been convicted of any crime. However, it is not clear what the party’s next options are if he is found guilty and convicted.
The party called its supporters to remain mobilised for the 111 coming days before the polls, scheduled on 25 February 2024.
Pastef currently has more than 20 seats in Senegal’s National Assembly, while 13 are necessary to validate a candidacy for the presidential election.
Although Pastef insists that not all legal options have been attempted to clear Sonko’s name, they are encouraging the opposition to work with Diomaye Faye in the meantime.
In mid-October, a judge from Sonko’s stronghold of Ziguinchor, the city in the region of Casamance where he has been mayor since January 2022, ordered that he be reinstated on electoral lists for the February vote.
But the government refused to reinstate him, following the Supreme Court ruling on Friday, which came just hours after a West African regional court rejected his claim that the state had treated him unfairly.
