The budget orientation debate was cancelled in extremis last Saturday (editor’s note: June 29) by the Bureau of the National Assembly while the teams from the Ministry of Finance were already on site to accompany the minister who had to face, as he does every year, before the end of June, questions from deputies. But a few hours earlier, a statement by the Prime Minister had set the powder keg alight by defying the institution
Ousmane Sonko sparked an outcry by stating that he did not intend to make his General Policy Statement (DPG) until the rules of the National Assembly were amended on the grounds that the current text does not include the function of Prime Minister.In a constant concern to respect the separation of powers and the principle of legality, I will only make my general policy statement to this assembly once the parliamentary majority has been amended by including in the internal regulations all the provisions relating to the Prime Minister. “, he asserted in a form of challenge launched in the first Chamber of Parliament.
The Bureau of the assembly decided to go for a clash: “the respect for the institutions that we want does not accept a declaration of general policy outside the National Assembly. This is why the office has sovereignly decided to postpone the budgetary orientation debate today,” underlines a press release from the National Assembly.
Behind the cancellation of this budgetary debate, analysts see a further escalation of the unease which has gradually set in between the government and the National Assembly, which is heavily dominated by supporters of former President Macky Sall, the Benno Bokk Yakaar coalition.
If the situation does not change by July 15 (if the internal regulations of the National Assembly are not amended), the Prime Minister says he will skip the National Assembly for his general policy statement that he was supposed to make within 3 months of his appointment, and plans to present it before “an assembly made up of the sovereign Senegalese people, partners of Senegal and a jury composed of academics, intellectuals and apolitical citizen actors. This will be an opportunity for a free, open and, undoubtedly, much higher quality debate..”Oppositions and political analysts in Dakar advise Ousmane Sonko to reread the Constitution before “trying the devil.” Macky Sall’s supporters are now threatening him with a motion of censure.
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