He stopped eating two days after his arrest. The Senegalese opponent Ousmane Sonko, detained since the end of July on various charges including call to insurrection, "suspended" Saturday his hunger strike started for more than a month but his participation in the presidential election of 2024 remains compromised by a conviction in a case of morality.
Ousmane Sonko, whose balance of power with power and justice has kept Senegal in suspense for more than two years, announced that he had begun his hunger strike on 30 July, two days after his arrest followed by his indictment and detention on 1 August in Sébikotane, near Dakar, where he was then transferred to a hospital on 6 August.
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Presidential candidate of February 2024, Ousmane Sonko, 49, third in the presidential election of 2019, accuses President Macky Sall, who denies it, of wanting to exclude him from the election by judicial proceedings. Elected in 2012 for seven years and re-elected in 2019 for five years, Macky Sall announced in early July that he would not stand for re-election.
"He was never in a suicidal tendency"
Several calls, including from influential religious leaders in Senegal, a predominantly Muslim country, where they often mediate politically, have been made in recent days for the opponent Sonko to end his hunger strike.
Ciré Clédor Ly, one of his lawyers, cited "two reasons" explaining his client's decision. "He could not remain insensitive to the call of millions of people who are relieved by this suspension." In addition, "he was never in a suicidal tendency, he should not exhaust his vital organs. It was therefore appropriate that he suspend" his hunger strike, Ly said.
Ousmane Sonko's lawyers had issued several warnings about the deterioration, according to them, of his state of health. In a statement sent Friday evening, they said that the life of their client, "admitted to intensive care" since August 17, was "in danger" and invited the State "to urgently take all necessary measures to avoid a tragedy". The Senegalese authorities had questioned this hunger strike.
"Final" conviction
Ousmane Sonko was convicted on 1 June of debauchery of a minor and sentenced to two years in prison. Having refused to appear at the trial, which he denounced as a plot to remove him from the presidential election, he was convicted in absentia. He has since been jailed in late July on other charges, including calling for insurrection, criminal conspiracy in connection with a terrorist enterprise and endangering state security. The authorities blame him for a series of episodes of protest to which his standoff with the government and his troubles with the law have given rise since 2021 - the most serious in June - and which have left several dead.
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In an online interview published Wednesday by the magazine Jeune Afrique, Justice Minister Ismaïla Madior Fall said that the conviction of the opponent in the case of morality was "final", which makes him ineligible for the presidential election of 2024.
Ousmane Sonko was also sentenced on appeal to a six-month suspended prison sentence in May for defamation of a minister, a case in which he has not exhausted his appeals. Several hundred of its activists and supporters are in prison, according to his party.