Macky Sall went to great lengths to achieve the result of remaining in bed in his Riad in Marrakech. All activists and sympathizers dreamed of seeing the builder of flyovers, the builder of highways and the father of the Regional Express Train (TER) and the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT). But threats from the current regime forced him to stay in his Moroccan oasis, to campaign far from Senegal and to be elected as a deputy following the vote on November 17. But Macky will not be able to sit in the Assembly and will not be able to carry the voice of those who elected him within the hemicycle.
Macky Sall failed all his supporters and those who believed in him. When his candidacy for the legislative elections was announced, all the activists of the Alliance for the Republic (APR) had regained hope and began to participate in the rallies initiated by those close to Macky including Thérèse Faye Diouf, Abdou Mbow, Seydou Gueye and Abdoulaye Daouda Diallo. Macky Sall had even renounced the position of special envoy of the Paris Pact for People and the Planet (4P) to which he had been appointed in November 2023 by the French president, to devote himself to the electoral campaign in Senegal where he is head of the opposition coalition list.
Everything was ready for the president of the APR, Macky Sall, to set foot on the tarmac of the Blaise Diagne International Airport in Diass (AIBD) to challenge Ousmane Sonko, the leader of Pastef who, for his part, was making numerous declarations going – going to war against the former leaders of the country who left a “state in ruins”. Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko, head of the proportional list of the party of African Patriots of Senegal for Work, Ethics and Fraternity (PASTEF), threatened the former president and former ministers for their alleged involvement in several scandals ignoring the principle of the presumption of innocence.
Have the Prime Minister’s outings compromised the return to Senegalese land of former President Macky Sall? What the Senegalese feared actually happened. The former president who had given up the prestigious position of the 4Ps to come and campaign in Senegal, found himself on a social network campaigning. He spoke via telephone and addressed his activists via video. Macky Sall had become a virtual image rather than a great warrior who should come to challenge the new authorities. In the end, Macky Sall’s return did not take place and his coalition will pay dearly. Less than 20 seats obtained at the end of the legislative elections.
According to several political observers, Ousmane Sonko’s evocation of the High Court of Justice to judge the former president, his former prime minister and his former finance ministers, guilty, according to the PM, of falsification and manipulation of figures, and former ministers involved in financial scandals, weighed heavily on Macky Sall’s decision to set foot in Senegal again. And in his absence, the head of the list of the Takku Wallu coalition (APR/PDS Alliance) will have to give up his place on the proportional list to the next candidate and not to the substitute.
Ninth on the national list of the Takku Wallu inter-coalition (APR-PDS), Abdou Mbow will have to sit if the head of the list Macky Sall resigns. Credited with 531,466 votes (14.67% of the vote), Takku Wallu inherited 8 seats by proportional representation. Which automatically puts Abdou Mbow (9th position on the list) out. The ”journalist” and former vice-president of the National Assembly and President of the parliamentary group Benno Bokk Yakkar during the 14th legislature, will breathe a sigh of relief and smile because Macky Sall will issue a letter of resignation since his residence of Marrakech. It was predictable!
Mame Penda Sow for xibaaru.sn
