Kenya Insights

Tag: Ousmane Sonko

  • Sonko Re-Elected Head of Party

    Sonko Re-Elected Head of Party

    Ousted Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko won unanimous re-election on Saturday as the head of Senegal’s ruling party, solidifying his political standing amidst a deepening national crisis.

    Sonko, a powerful mentor-turned-rival to President Bassirou Diomaye Faye, easily secured the leadership vote from 583 party delegates at a congress of their Pan-African Pastef party in Diamniadio, outside the capital city of Dakar.

    Faye originally won the presidency after authorities barred the widely popular Sonko from standing in Senegal’s 2024 election. Sonko then anointed Faye to run in his place and subsequently served as his prime minister.

    However, months of mounting tension between the two leaders culminated on May 22, when Faye sacked Sonko from the premiership.

    Just four days later, Sonko promptly responded to his dismissal by winning the election to his current post as speaker of the National Assembly.

    This ongoing rift has triggered severe political upheaval for the West African country and brought intense uncertainty to Pastef, which remains the largest party in parliament.

    In an effort to calm the mounting political friction, President Faye delivered a speech on Thursday, urging against further dividing the nation, stating that no quarrel, however bitter, is worth tearing apart their shared country.

  • Senegal Seeks To Be Enjoined In Case Filed By South Africa Against Israel At The Hague

    Senegal Seeks To Be Enjoined In Case Filed By South Africa Against Israel At The Hague

    Senegal’s Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko called Sunday for solidarity with the people of Palestine, denouncing what he described as an ongoing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

    Addressing a political gathering that drew hundreds of youth in the capital Dakar, Sonko accused the world’s major powers of complicity in the eight-month tragedy of death and destruction in Gaza.

    In a direct appeal to Senegal’s President Bassirou Diomaye Faye, he mentioned the need for Senegal to back South Africa’s case against Israel at The Hague-based International Court of Justice (ICJ), which accuses Israel of violating its obligations under the Genocide Convention in its war on the Gaza Strip.

    “I will begin my address by asking for a minute of prayer for the martyred people of Palestine…a people today subjected to genocide with the complicity of all the powers of this world,” he said.

    “Those who define themselves as the great democracies, those who defend human rights, are today the greatest accomplices in the genocide perpetrated against the Palestinian people.”

    Last December, South Africa filed its case against Israel, accusing it of committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

    More than a dozen countries have since joined or declared their intention to join South Africa’s genocide case against Israel.

    Israel has continued its brutal offensive on Gaza since an Oct. 7 attack by the Palestinian group Hamas, despite a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire.

    More than 37,000 Palestinians have since been killed in Gaza, most of them women and children, and nearly 84,500 others injured, according to local health authorities.

    Eight months into the Israeli war, vast tracts of Gaza lay in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine.

    Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, whose latest ruling ordered Tel Aviv to immediately halt its operation in the southern city of Rafah, where over a million Palestinians had sought refuge from the war before it was invaded on May 6.

  • Senegal’s Popular Opposition Figure Ousmane Sonko Is Named Prime Minister In New Government

    Senegal’s Popular Opposition Figure Ousmane Sonko Is Named Prime Minister In New Government

    Senegal’s popular opposition figure Ousmane Sonko was named as the prime minister in the new government on Tuesday, hours after his key ally was sworn in as president.

    Sonko, 49, has inspired Senegalese youth frustrated with widespread unemployment and corruption among the ruling elite. A former tax inspector, like the president, he has promised to deliver greater transparency and sovereignty for Senegal.

    As in other former French colonies in West Africa, sentiment is turning against France, often seen use its ties to enrich itself at the expense of Africans.

    The new president, Bassirou Diomaye, Faye was little known until Sonko named him to run in his place, and was catapulted to victory in the election held last month.

    Sonko was barred from running due to a prior conviction. Supporters maintain that his legal troubles were aimed at keeping him out of the presidential race.

  • From Being Locked Up To Being The President: How Did Bassirou Diomaye Faye A Husband To Two Make It

    From Being Locked Up To Being The President: How Did Bassirou Diomaye Faye A Husband To Two Make It

    Just a few months ago, the man set to be Senegal’s next president, Bassirou Diomaye Faye, was sitting in a prison cell, a relatively unknown figure outside his opposition party Pastef.

    Everything changed for him when the party’s firebrand leader, Ousmane Sonko, who was also detained, was charged with insurrection in July and barred from running in elections to succeed President Macky Sall.

    That cleared the way for Faye to emerge from the shadow of his former boss and eventually from prison, take over the race and on Monday – the day of his 44th birthday – emerge as victor after his opponent conceded defeat.

    It was an unlikely climb to the top for an unlikely national figurehead. Faye was a tax inspector before he became Sonko’s trusted lieutenant and Pastef’s secretary general.

    Where Sonko is charismatic, with a verve that has attracted thousands of country’s jobless youths to his anti-establishment movement, Faye cuts an austere figure.

    Sonko’s endorsement of his former deputy in the run-up to Sunday’s delayed election was crucial, but a little short on rabble-rousing emotion.

    “My choice of Diomaye is not a choice from the heart, but from reason. I chose him because he meets the criteria that I have defined. He is competent and has attended the most prestigious school in Senegal,” Sonko said in a video message.

    President-elect Diomaye Faye and his spouse(s), Marie Khone Faye and Absa Faye

    ‘HE IS MORE HONEST THAN ME‘

    “No one can say he is not honest. I would even say that he is more honest than me. I entrust the project into his hands,” Sonko said.

    According to Faye’s biography on his campaign website, he was often the top of his class growing up. He graduated from high school on Senegal’s southern coast in 2000, then studied law and got a master’s degree from Dakar’s Cheikh Anta Diop University.

    In 2004, the devout Muslim passed the competitive entrance exam to Senegal’s National School of Administration which trains the former French colony’s top civil servants, where he specialised as a tax inspector.

    He was arrested in April 2023, a few months before Sonko was also held, and charged with contempt of court and defaming magistrates, charges Faye had denied. Crucially, unlike Sonko, he was not barred from running in elections.

    Convinced that Sonko’s detention and the banning of Pastef were part of a ploy by Sall’s government to eliminate strong rivals from the election – all accusations rejected by the government – several party members including Faye put their names forward.

    Faye eventually made the cut while still in prison, despite a late challenge from ruling coalition candidate Amadou Ba to have his candidacy rejected by the Constitutional Council.

    A coalition of more than 100 parties, and some political heavyweights including former prime minister Aminata Toure, joined Faye’s campaign under the banner “Doimaye mooy Sonko”, which in the local wolof language means “Diomaye is Sonko.”

    Thanks to a general amnesty law passed shortly before the vote to ease political tensions, Sonko and Faye left their prison cells in Dakar earlier this month, accompanied by thousands of supporters who danced and chanted through the night.

    Both hit the campaign trail, crisscrossing the country and drawing thousands to their rallies and caravans.

    Sidy Lamine Badji, a 36-year-old part-time driver who voted for Faye on Sunday, rejected criticism that the candidate who lost a municipal election in his home town in 2022 was inexperienced in government affairs.

    “This is false. He has dignity. I believe in his promise and that he will not betray us,” Badji said, his voice choking.

    Faye has declined to say what role Sonko might play in any future government, and has insisted he will be his own man.

    “Why do we want to focus on just one person in a government when I have a coalition that includes more than 120 people?” he said, brushing off concerns held by some voters that if he won, the country would end up with two men who believe they are president.

    “In a presidential election, only one person is elected in the end, and it’s he who is the president of the republic,” Faye said.-Reuters.