Dakar, June 29 (APS) – The controversy surrounding the General Policy Declaration (DPG) of Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko continues to keep the Senegalese dailies in suspense, which reached the Senegalese Press Agency this Saturday.
The national daily Le Soleil speaks in this regard of “yes, but Ousmane Sonko”. The latter, whose words are reported by the same newspaper, states: “my DPG is ready, but I will only hold it before this Assembly once the parliamentary majority has amended itself”.
The deputy of the Yewwi askan wi parliamentary group, Guy Marius Sagna had sent an open letter to the Prime Minister asking him not to come to the National Assembly.
In response to this correspondence, the head of government expressed his “impatience in holding this exercise of presenting the main axes of public policies and government action”.
However, he noted that “article 55 of the constitution obliges the Prime Minister to make his DPG before parliament without specifying the deadlines and the procedure which falls under the internal regulations of the National Assembly.
However, he argues, “the provisions of the internal regulations which set the deadlines and procedure for the DPG as well as the references to the Prime Minister have been repealed from the organic law on the internal regulations of the National Assembly since 2019”, following the removal of the Prime Minister before his reinstatement.
“Sonko wants to reinvent the wheel”
In the event of a failure before July 15, the Prime Minister warns that he will carry out this task before an assembly “made up of the sovereign Senegalese people, partners of Senegal and a jury made up of academics, intellectuals and of apolitical citizen actors”.
“It would also be an opportunity for a free, open debate and, undoubtedly, of much higher quality,” he said.
Vox Populi has opened its columns to political and civil society figures to comment on this debate which has been growing in recent days.
“Prioritizing direct democracy is a red herring or an illusion”, seems to retort former Prime Minister Abdoul Mbaye to Ousmane Sonko who threatens to make his general policy declaration before an assembly made up of academics, intellectuals and apolitical citizen actors
“We do not need a new political crisis which would have consequences on the progress of the country”, insists Elimane Haby Kane of the NGO Legs Africa.
MP Mamadou Lamine Diallo also threatens to take legal action, “if by July 15, 2024, the National Assembly does not correct the internal regulations”.
“That Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko does not want to follow Amadou Ba’s pressure, I completely understand,” Mamadou Lamine Diallo stressed, quoted by the newspaper Vox populi. The parliamentarian of the “Tekki” movement said he had drawn the attention of the President of the National Assembly on November 11, 2022, to “the fraudulent nature of the internal regulations of the National Assembly which had just been distributed to the deputies.”
The newspaper l’OBS preferred to mention on its front page “Signs of crisis”, in the event of a DPG made outside the hemicycle.
The same newspaper collected the opinion of the academic Iba Barry Kamara who speaks of a process “unconstitutional and illegal from all points of view”.
The publication also informs that “Benno agitates a reform to prevent the president from dissolving the Assembly”.
“Sonko wants to reinvent the wheel,” notes Walfquotidien, which also writes that “the Prime Minister is snubbing the Assembly.”
At the same time recalls Walfquotidien, the deputies of the BBY parliamentary group decided to respond “to contempt with contempt, distrust with distrust, by announcing the filing of a motion of censure against the government in the event of a dissolution procedure of the National Assembly”.
SudQuotidien, for its part, referred to what it called “Sonko’s ultimatum,” reporting that the Prime Minister told the National Assembly that it had until July 15 to “amend itself by reinstating in its internal regulations all the provisions relating to the Prime Minister.”
SMD
