Ousmane Sonko’s chances of running in the 2024 presidential elections shrank further this week as the opposition leader was slammed with fresh legal charges.
(Bloomberg) — Ousmane Sonko’s chances of running in the 2024 presidential elections shrank further this week as the opposition leader was slammed with fresh legal charges.
Once considered the biggest threat to President Macky Sall’s ruling coalition in next year’s polls, Sonko on Monday was accused of plotting an insurrection, criminal conspiracy and spreading fake news.
Sonko’s mounting legal problems is making it increasingly unlikely that he will contest the elections, according to Tochi Eni-Kalu, an Africa analyst at Eurasia Group.
“It may be easier for a cow to pass through the eye of a needle,” Eni-Kalu said in a text message.
Sonko’s Pastef-Les Patriotes party was also dissolved. The former tax inspector, who already faces two years imprisonment for morally corrupting a youth, will remain in custody while authorities investigate his role in fueling deadly riots last month, his lawyer Djiby Diagne said.
“This is a politically orchestrated process against someone who could potentially be the next president,” Diagne said by phone.
A government spokesman didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Two people died in clashes in the southern city of Ziguinchor on Monday, the interior minister said in a statement.
Read More: Senegal’s Sonko Appeals Sentence to Avoid Vote Disqualification
Pastef in a statement said Sonko, 48, could still contest elections as an independent candidate and that it planned legal action to restore the party.
Internet access on mobile networks remained blocked on Tuesday. Some shops and gas stations didn’t open.
TotalEnergies stations will be closed for three days from Aug. 1 because of the “social and political situation,” the company said in a statement. Recent protests have targeted French-owned businesses including Auchan supermarkets and local branches of Societe Generale SA.
(Updates with analyst comment in third paragraph, latest violence in eighth.)
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