Staff Writer
Senegalese opposition leader Ousmane Sonko, a candidate for president in 2024, no longer has a security detail positioned around his Dakar residence.
Security personnel had been preventing Mr. Sonko from leaving his house in the capital, where he had been “sequestered” since May 28.
According to his attorneys and legal professionals, Mr. Sonko is unable to run for office as a result of his June 1st conviction in a vice case, which resulted in a term of two years in prison.
Early in June, following his sentencing, Senegal saw its worst period of turmoil in years, with 16 people reportedly killed by the government and 30 by the opposition.
The Pastef leader warned “indescribable chaos” in a later interview if he were disqualified from running for office.
Antoine Diome, the interior minister, had used Mr. Sonko’s appeals for “resistance” as justification for the “restrictions” he had been subjected to.
We see deaths; are we going to allow him to travel throughout Senegal holding rallies while leaving the dead in his wake? “Someone gets up and says he’s going to do a caravan (a procession), that he’s going to perform rallies without (prior) declaration. We cannot, he declared.
On May 8th, during an appeal for slander, the rival, who had been chosen as the party’s candidate, was also sentenced to a six-month suspended prison term; this decision was widely regarded as disqualifying him from running for president.
However, he has not yet exhausted all of his Supreme Court appeals.
