Senegal’s opposition leader Sonko unqualified for presidential polls

Senegal’s justice minister on Monday 7 August 2023 said the President’s fiercest political opponent Ousmane Sonko remains ineligible for next year’s presidential election and is not entitled to a retrial after a recent conviction made him ineligible.

Ismaila Madior Fall said a two-year prison sentence handed down in absentia against the firebrand politician in June still stands, despite his being arrested on separate charges last month.

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WHAT DOES THE PENAL CODE STATE?

According to Senegal’s penal code, if defendants who are tried in absentia are arrested within a limited period, any conviction is automatically annulled unless they expressly agree to the sentence within ten days.

Sonko was blocked in his home by security forces at the time of the sentencing but was not jailed following the handing down of the prison term.
On July 28, he was arrested on a fresh set of allegations and has been in detention since.

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His lawyers have said that his arrest on the new allegations cancelled out his conviction in the high-profile moral corruption case because he had been tried in absentia.

“He was arrested, detained and prosecuted for different reasons… It has nothing to do (with the previous case) — we must disconnect the two”, the minister said at a press conference Monday.

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AT LEAST 16 DIED AFTER THE ARREST OF SONKO

“The fact that he was in absentia does not go away because the judgment… was not executed”, he said. Sonko’s conviction on June 1 in the moral corruption case sparked fatal clashes that left at least 16 dead.

The sentence makes him ineligible to contest next year’s presidential election. On Monday, the minister suggested that he remained ineligible.

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One of Sonko’s lawyers has said he wrote to the court from prison last week to say that he did not accept his sentence — a necessary condition, according to the lawyers, for the judgment to be quashed and a new trial to take place.

Sonko, a thorn in the side of President Macky Sall, went on a hunger strike on July 30 and was hospitalised on Sunday. A former civil servant, he rose to prominence in the 2019 presidential election, coming third.

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He has portrayed Sall as a would-be dictator, while the President’s supporters say Sonko has sown instability.