Senegal is still under the shock of the dissolution on July 31 of the Pastef party, an opposition party led by Ousmane Sonko, main opponent of President Macky Sall and candidate for the presidential election of February 2024 – currently in prison. A party dissolved for having called for insurrectionary movements, according to the Ministry of the Interior.
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With our correspondent in Dakar, Thea Olivier
While Macky Sall had publicly renounced to run for a third term and the police barriers had been lifted around the home of Ousmane Sonko, the indicators were for political appeasement… It is therefore with surprise that Déthié Fall, of the Parti Republican for Progress, learns of the dissolution of Pastef, its ally in the same coalition, Yewwi Askan Wi.
For Aminata Touré, former Prime Minister who is now part of the opposition, this dissolution is the sign of a democratic decline: “ We are falling back into tension, six months before the elections, and I consider that these measures must be reversed, that the Pastef must be restored and Ousmane Sonko will also have to be released. »
Seydi Gassama, executive director of Amnesty International in Senegal, also believes that this dissolution is a step back: “ The only case of political party dissolution that the country has experienced was at the very beginning of independence, in 1960, with the dissolution of the African Independence Party, dissolved by Léopold Sédar Senghor. »
But for Pape Mahawa Diouf, spokesman for the presidential coalition Benno Bokk Yakaar, the dismantling of Pastef was necessary: “ The Pastef is a party which, with its leader, has taken violence and insults, threats, destruction of public and private property as a new style. »
The political office of Pastef has already announced that it will attack by legal means this decree of dissolution which it considers to be of ” flagrant illegality “.