TV5 World – Senegalese President Macky Sall has kept open the question of his candidacy for a third term in 2024 but argued that only political, not constitutional, factors would prevent him from running, regardless of what his opponents say.
The opposition claims that the Constitution prohibits Macky Sall, elected in 2012 and re-elected in 2019, from running for the head of state again in 2024. She has also made resistance to a third term her main motto. order, in a climate of growing tensions.
The Constitution, after the 2016 revision, provides that the duration of the presidential mandate is five years, and no longer seven, and that “no one can serve more than two consecutive terms”.
However, Mr. Sall argues in an interview with the French magazine L’Express and posted online on Monday that when the Constitutional Council was consulted before the revision, the latter considered that his first mandate was “out of reach” of reform.
“Legally, the debate has been settled for a long time,” he said.
“Now, should I run for a third term or not? It’s a political debate, I admit, ”he adds.
“I haven’t given my answer yet. I have an agenda, a job to do. When the time comes, I will make my position known, first to my supporters, then to the Senegalese population,” he said.
The uncertainty maintained by Mr. Sall is combined with that over the political fate of his most prominent opponent, Ousmane Sonko, to fuel tensions.
Two court cases threaten Ousmane Sonko with the threat of ineligibility. Mr. Sonko shouts at the plot hatched by the authorities to eliminate him from the race.
In 2021, his summons to the judge and his arrest in a case of alleged rape had helped trigger the most serious riots in years in this country known as a rare island of stability in a troubled region. There had been at least a dozen deaths.
Last week, a defamation trial against Mr. Sonko sparked clashes between his supporters and the security forces.
Mr. Sall accuses Mr. Sonko of “instrumentalising” the street.
“An individual cannot block the capital, Dakar, on the sole pretext that he is summoned to court. If Senegal weren’t a genuine democracy, believe me, its fate would have been settled long ago,” he says.
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AFP
Source: TV5 World
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