Top opposition leader Ousmane Sonko vowed Friday to help his team win Senegal’s March 24 presidential election even though he is barred from the ballot, jumping into the campaign in his first public address since being freed from prison a day earlier.
His key ally, Bassirou Diomaye Faye, who was also freed from prison late Thursday, has been named the opposition’s presidential candidate. Their release follows Sall’s decree to exonerate political prisoners, including hundreds arrested in the violent protests last year. The protests have once again rocked Senegal’s image as a pillar of stability in West Africa. Since gaining independence from France in 1960, it has held regular elections and never experienced a coup, unlike many other nations in the Sahel region.
Presidential spokesman Yoro Dia said a court decision barring Sonko from the election could not be appealed. This “is clearly a political, democratic and electoral turning point that could bring a new generation to power,” Alioune Tine, the founder of the Senegalese think tank Afrikajom Center, told The Associated Press.
In a separate decision Friday, the Supreme Court rejected an appeal from Karim Wade, an opposition leader and son of former Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade, against the decision to rule him off the ballot because he holds dual citizenship. Wade said he has renounced his French citizenship.
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