‘We want Sonko’: Senegal opposition boosted after leaders freed before vote

Celebrations broke out among Senegal’s opposition supporters after two of their top leaders were freed from jail 10 days before the country’s delayed presidential election.

Firebrand politician Ousmane Sonko and his close aide Bassirou Diomaye Faye were released late on Thursday in a move that could boost the opposition’s chance to win in the March 24 election and replace outgoing President Macky Sall.

Sonko, the charismatic anti-establishment politician who has won over crowds of youngsters by promising to fight corruption, had been behind bars since July, serving a two-year sentence for corrupting the youth. He was barred from running for the presidential race due to a separate case involving defamation charges.

His supporters maintain Sonko’s legal woes were an outcome of efforts to keep him away from competing in the elections. Excluded from the presidential race, Sonko urged his supporters to vote for Faye, a lesser-known politician and deputy of his now-dissolved PASTEF party. “Ousmane is Diomaye,” was the message his supporters spread from prison. Faye was also in jail but on administrative detention — a state of arrest that does not bar him from contesting in the election.

“Sonko represents hope for the entire nation,” said Cheick Diara, a young Senegalese man cheering in the streets of Dakar on his release. “Look what is happening around the youth, they want change – we want Sonko in power,” he said.

Faye’s mission is now to bank on Sonko’s popularity to win the country’s top job. Dressed in a sky-blue tunic and a white cap, he was welcomed as a hero by a crowd gathered in front of Cap-Manuel prison in the capital Dakar as the news of his release started circulating.

“The way from prison to the presidential palace is now paved,” said Alioune Tine, founder of think tank AfrikaJom Center and former Amnesty International Regional Director for West and Central Africa. “President Sall thought he could neutralise their popularity by putting them in prison, but he understood that it wasn’t working – he was forced to release them,” said Tine, noting that their release will re-energise the opposition front.

Faye’s programme includes the establishment of a new national currency and the renegotiation of the country’s mining and energy contracts between the government and private conglomerates. Central to his campaign is also a review of the relations with former colonial power France whose economic interests in the country are perceived by some in the opposition as a form of neo-colonialism.

He has also promised to tackle youth unemployment: Three out of 10 Senegalese aged 18 to 35 are jobless. The crisis is further exacerbated by the speed at which the population is growing – it doubles every 25 years, according to Afro Barometer data.

“This is a radical youth for a radical change who wants to see a new way of doing politics,” said Hawa Bo, associate director of the Open Society Foundation. “They want to break with clientelism, endemic corruption and lack of accountability,” she added.