MEPs from the Senegalese opposition boycotted Monday April 14, 2025 a question session of the government, denouncing the functioning of the National Assembly since the installation in December 2024 of the new parliamentary majority resulting from the power camp (Pastef).
These parliamentarians, mainly from the Takku Wallu Senegal coalition, faithful to former President Macky Sall (2012-2024), but also non-inscribed, criticize the new majority his attitude according to them “contemptuous and non-compliance with the internal regulations”. After winning the presidential election of March 2024, the sovereignist Pastef party largely dominated the legislative elections of November 17, 2024, obtaining a large majority in the Assembly, with 130 seats out of 165. In his responses to the deputies, the bubbling Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko, political leader of Pastef, returned to the boycott of the opposition deputies, oppose ”in the country.
“The acts that we take for good governance, the options that we have taken strategically to reappropriate our economic sovereignty, is there in opposition” in relation to this, “he questioned, under the applause of the activists of his party who came to attend the session.
“To a certain opposition, I say that hatred cannot be a political engine, especially the hatred directed against a single person who has done nothing to you,” he added, assuring being “politically indestructible”. He said he hoped that the opposition will appear during the next session, stressing that “parliamentary guerrillas exists all over the world”.
During a press conference on April 09, opposition deputies had announced the boycott of the question session to the government to denounce the functioning of the parliament since the installation of the new majority. Among other reasons, they have invoked the non-compliance with the order of passage of deputies by the president of the assembly resulting from the majority, El Malick Ndiaye, the presence of Pastef activists who disrupt, according to them, the course of the sessions. “This boycott, as we did as a warning,” said the president of the parliamentary group Takku Wallu, Aïssata Tall Sall (ex minister under Macky Sall).
“We associate with this simulacrum of exercise of questions to the government, we refuse to do so, and all the normal work of the deputy, we will continue to do so,” she added. Mr. Sonko also warned the media actors against the “distribution of false news” which is noted, according to him, on certain television sets or on social networks. “I announce to all Senegalese that now criminal policy on the dissemination of false news, it will be zero tolerance and that everyone assumes,” he said.
“We guarantee everyone freedom of expression to everyone but we do not guarantee what will follow after,” he added, saying that “all Senegalese have the right to the same dignity, and it is the responsibility of the State to ensure that”.
© Afriquinfos & Agency France-Presse
