On Friday, November 17, 2023, the Supreme Court of Senegal declared that the case would be retried, overturning a decision that had placed opposition leader Ousmane Sonko, who was imprisoned, back in the running for the presidency in February 2024.
The Supreme Court president, Ali Ciré Ba, declared that the court had nullified and voided the Ziguinchor court’s October 12 ruling and had returned the case to the Dakar tribunal hors-classe for a new trial.
Sonko can now run as a candidate in the February 2024 presidential election, where he will be one of the front-runners, thanks to a court decision last month in Ziguinchor, the town where he has served as mayor since 2022. The decision reversed the opposition politician’s removal from the electoral rolls.
On this ruling, the State filed an appeal.
“This decision does not suit us. The case will be retried, but the sponsorship process will soon be over,” Babacar Ndiaye, one of Mr. Sonko’s lawyers, said.
Acquiring sponsorships is a crucial step in the presidential campaign that needs to happen prior to the December 11–26 deadline for filing candidacies.
The Ministry of the Interior, however, has so far declined to provide Mr. Sonko with the formal documentation necessary for him to obtain sponsorships, claiming the Ziguinchor judge’s ruling was not binding.
The Supreme Court did not provide a timeline for the Dakar court to issue a fresh decision in this case. It declared that the Ziguinchor judge’s decision was erroneous.
The candidate, who has long accused President Macky Sall of hatching a plot to remove him politically and using the judiciary as a tool, suffered yet another setback earlier in the morning when the Court of Justice of the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) in Abuja declared that the State of Senegal had not infringed his rights.
Attorneys for Mr. Sonko had filed the case to contest his exclusion from Senegal’s voter list due to his conviction in a vice case.
“The Ecowas Court of Justice has given Macky Sall (the Senegalese president) carte blanche to destroy his opponent,” said Juan Branco, one of Mr Sonko’s lawyers. “By judging as it did, dictators could now act as the State of Senegal has done, and take advantage of the Court’s jurisprudence,” said Ciré Clédor Ly, another of Sonko’s lawyers.
According to an AFP journalist, the Supreme Court in Dakar, which looked like an established camp under heavy police protection, opened for business on Friday morning.
The Supreme Court’s public prosecutor, Ousmane Diagne, had asked that “the appeal by the judicial agent of the State be rejected”, assuring that the Ziguinchor court had jurisdiction to examine Mr. Sonko’s request for reinstatement on the lists.
For the past 2.5 years, Senegal has been on edge due to Mr. Sonko’s tug-of-war with the government over several politico-judicial cases, which has resulted in the deadliest unrest the nation has seen in years.
The under-20s, who make up half of the population, have taken a strong liking to him because of his rhetoric that is both sovereign and pan-Africanist, as well as his criticism of multinational corporations, the “state mafia,” and the political and economic sway that the former French colonial power is allegedly exerting. His critics consider him to be an explosive provocateur.
He issued a call for resistance on Thursday night, (November 16, 2023) claiming that Friday’s “destiny of the nation” and the sovereignty of the Senegalese people were in jeopardy.
“We must stand up for fair, free, and independent justice, for the right to live in a country without fear of being arrested and imprisoned without justification”, he declared on his social networks.
Dakar was quiet in the late afternoon on Friday. Both motorcycle traffic and retail fuel sales had been outlawed by the authorities.
Mr. Sonko, 49, was given a two-year prison sentence after being found guilty on June 1 of debauching a minor. He was sentenced in absentia because he declined to attend the trial, which he described as an attempt to prevent him from running for office.
He was also charged with inciting an insurrection, criminal association with a terrorist organization, and undermining state security, which led to his imprisonment at the end of July.
He declared a fresh hunger strike in the middle of October.
He declared a fresh hunger strike in the middle of October.
Ref: AFP
