2023-11-01 02:12:58
During a demonstration in support of Ousmane Sonko, October 27, 2023, in Dakar. CARMEN ABD ALI / AFP
On Tuesday, October 31, a department of the Senegalese Ministry of the Interior rejected the request of the electoral commission to reinstate the opponent Ousmane Sonko on the electoral lists and to issue him essential documents for his candidacy in the 2024 presidential election.
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In a response to a letter from the Autonomous National Electoral Commission (CENA), the General Directorate of Elections (DGE) affirms that it “has no competence to carry out any action on the electoral register”. The DGE does not specify who has this competence. In its letter to the DGE, the CENA wrote that Mr. Sonko should “enjoy your status as a voter registered on the electoral lists with all the rights [qui y sont] attached ».
Mr. Sonko was removed from the electoral lists, which currently prevents him from competing in the presidential election. The government essentially used the conviction of Mr. Sonko in absentia in a morals case in June to justify his removal. Mr. Sonko, imprisoned since the end of July on other charges, denounces these affairs as plots aimed at excluding him from the presidential election.
Challenge before the ECOWAS court of justice
A judge in Ziguinchor ordered on October 12 that Mr. Sonko, at the heart of a turbulent and violent political-judicial saga which has kept Senegal in suspense for two and a half years, be reinstated on the lists. The Ministry of the Interior, however, has until now refused to issue him with the official forms which would allow him to collect his sponsorships, a necessary step in submitting an application.
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Dinner “invites the General Directorate of Elections to take the necessary measures to make the sponsorship form available to the representative of Mr. Ousmane Sonko as soon as possible”, she said in her letter. In its response made public, the DGE states that, if it did not give the forms to Mr. Sonko’s representatives, it is because he did not appear on the lists, a position confirmed on October 6 by the Supreme Court, she emphasizes.
Read also: Senegal: Is Ousmane Sonko really out of the running for the February 2024 presidential election?
The CENA controls and supervises the electoral process, from registration on the lists to the provisional proclamation of the results. The elections are organized by the Ministry of the Interior. A spokesperson for the CENA, however, admitted to Agence France-Presse (AFP) that the commission could not constrain the Ministry of the Interior.
Mr. Sonko’s lawyers also challenged on Tuesday the refusal to issue him sponsorship forms before the court of justice of the Economic Community of African States (ECOWAS). The regional court has decided to give itself until November 6 to resolve disputes related to this case.
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