Ousmane Sonko: “There is no institutional crisis in Senegal…”

Ousmane Sonko was unanimously reelected as the president of Pastef-Les Patriotes on Saturday, June 6, 2026, during the first national congress of the party held at the Abdou Diouf International Conference Center (CICAD) in Diamniadio, a suburb of Dakar, before being officially nominated as a candidate for the 2029 presidential election at a meeting in Dakar Arena the following day.

As the sole candidate, the President of the National Assembly received 583 votes out of 583 cast, making it unanimous, with a participation rate exceeding 98%, according to results announced by Ngouda Mboup, president of the Higher Authority of Regulation and Ethics of the party (HAREP). The term is set at six years. Founded in 2014, this was the party’s very first ordinary congress, twelve years after its creation.

The congress, held under the theme “The Decisive Momentum!”, was attended by around 1,200 delegates from Senegal and the diaspora, as well as foreign representatives, including delegates from Palestine, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela, and the Rwandan Patriotic Front, according to Xalima.

A nomination meeting marking a break with the executive

The next day, Sunday, June 7, the nomination meeting at Dakar Arena gathered several thousand supporters in this venue in Diamniadio, which has a capacity of over 15,000 seats. Sonko delivered a forceful speech addressed to the President of the Republic Bassirou Diomaye Faye, from whom he was relieved of his position as Prime Minister on May 22, 2026. “This country has suffered enough from plots and schemes,” he declared from the stage, according to Dakaractu, urging each institution to “play its role without being manipulated.” He denied the existence of an institutional crisis: “There is no institutional crisis in Senegal. It is the people who chose to entrust the presidency to one person and the National Assembly to another.”

Regarding the local elections, Sonko closed the door on any possibility of postponement, relying on his role as President of the National Assembly: “Pastef will never agree to postpone the local elections. To do so, it has to go through the Assembly and vote on an enabling law.” This emphasizes the institutional leverage the party now has in the Assembly.

Concluding his speech with the phrase “The PROS is back among you, and Senegal will tremble!”, according to Jeune Afrique, Sonko also sent a message of loyalty to the base: “I will never betray the militants of Pastef.”

Internal fractures and the question of the “dissidents”

The congress takes place amid deep tensions within the party since Sonko’s dismissal. Several government members who chose to remain in the cabinet of Ahmadou Al Aminou Lo, appointed Prime Minister on May 22 by Diomaye Faye, had been targeted before the congress. However, no official disciplinary decision was taken against them during the congress, according to Burkina24. The week before, notable figures had left the party or the government: Minister Moussa Bala Fofana resigned from Pastef, Sidy Alpha Ndiaye departed from the presidency, and the director of the regional hospital of Sédhiou, Aboubacar Traoré, submitted his resignation.

Sonko’s assessment of this period is clear: “PASTEF is more than ever the largest political force in the country. If we are at 54% today, we will be at 75% tomorrow,” he stated before the congress delegates, according to Seneweb.

The day before the congress, on June 5, Sonko presided over a ceremony merging several political formations with Pastef, including those led by Habib Sy, Malick Gakou, and Dame Mbodj.

Unprecedented institutional reconfiguration in Senegal

The political situation in Senegal is now marked by an unprecedented institutional configuration since independence: Sonko presides over the National Assembly, a position he has held since May 26, 2026, while simultaneously leading the ruling party, of which he has just been officially nominated as a presidential candidate against President Faye, his ally from 2024. In February 2026, Sonko denounced in his inaugural speech from the Assembly what he called the “hyper-presidentialism” of the regime, accusing the presidency of having ignored Pastef during the appointment of Prime Minister Lo.

The upcoming electoral benchmark is the presidential election of 2029. The local elections, the timeline of which is in question in the debate between Sonko and Diomaye, represent the first intermediate test.