(SenePlus) – From dissidence to the presidency, via clandestinity, Pastef is preparing to write a new chapter in its young history. Ten years after its creation in a modest room at the Cheikh-Anta-Diop University in Dakar, Ousmane Sonko’s party is taking the risky bet of facing the legislative elections on November 17 alone.
According to Jeune Afrique (JA), the announcement was made during a meeting which had the air of a funeral oration for the “President Diomaye” coalition. Faced with the allies gathered at the King Fahd hotel in Dakar on September 21, the Prime Minister decided: “Only the Pastef list was going to participate in the elections”, relates Charles Ciss, who denounces an “anti-democratic and discourteous process”.
A strategic shift assumed by party executives. “After an election, we no longer have allies. All those who accompanied us return to their own camp or merge into the party,” one of them explains to JA. A position which marks the movement’s desire for emancipation: “It is time to return to our fundamentals. We have a young party, which needs a stable majority.”
Pastef’s career stands out in the Senegalese political landscape. Created in 2014 by a group of tax inspectors around Ousmane Sonko, the party was built without splitting with existing groups. Among the architects of this meteoric rise, Bassirou Diomaye Faye, who became President of the Republic, played a crucial role in the development of the “Project”, the program which won over the Senegalese in March 2024.
The recent history of the party is marked by a dark period. On July 31, 2023, a dissolution by presidential decree, a first in the recent history of Senegal, forced the movement underground. “That period was very complicated, we had to hold our meetings almost clandestinely,” recalls Madièye Mbodj, vice-president and special advisor to the head of state, interviewed by Jeune Afrique.
The official rebirth took place on March 27, 2024, a few days after the presidential victory, by a repeal decree signed by Macky Sall “for the sake of appeasement”. Today with nearly 10,000 members, the party has temporarily frozen new memberships pending a congress planned for 2025, according to the Pan-African magazine.
Pastef’s legislative ambition is surprising in its audacity. In a system where 105 seats out of 165 are filled by majority vote, the party which only obtained one seat in 2017, then 26 in 2022, is now aiming for an absolute majority of 83 deputies. Ousmane Sonko, designated head of the list, is leading this decisive battle.
The party is now omnipresent even in the details of everyday life. Its motto “jub, jubbal, jubbanti”, advocating ethics and righteousness, adorns tax stamps, while the faces of the president and the prime minister appear on school notebooks.
This meteoric rise is not without raising questions about the management of power. As Jeune Afrique recalls, in September, a controversy broke out following comments by the Minister of Health, Ibrahima Sy, evoking a preference for recruiting party activists. If Pastef has officially distanced himself from this position, a presidential advisor adds nuance to JA: “These are things to do, not things to say. […] Can we blame him for favoring an experienced executive of his party in these conditions?”
For Madièye Mbodj, the legislative elections of November 17 represent “the fight of the system against the anti-system”. A vote which will say whether the party, born in opposition and brought to power by a wave of change, can now govern alone while remaining faithful to its founding principles.
