Senegal: “Don’t provoke us,” Ousmane Sonko raises his voice against Al Aminou Lo.

Ousmane Sonko held a press conference on Tuesday, June 2, 2026, during which he issued several warnings to the new Prime Minister Ahmadou Al Aminou Lo, accusing President Bassirou Diomaye Faye of conducting a strategy to destabilize Pastef, and referred to the institutional situation resulting from the formation of the Lo government without his party as “cohabitation.” “We know everything. We have chosen to keep certain facts quiet, but don’t provoke us,” Sonko told the Prime Minister.

Sonko initially targeted Lo’s public record. “I advise him to stick to the numbers. He claims to be a technocrat, so he should limit himself to technocracy,” he said. He then questioned Lo’s personal role in the crisis between Pastef and the presidency. “We know the role he played in these problems existing between Pastef and the president. Until now, we have refrained from revealing all the details. He should calm down,” he warned. Regarding the publication of the government list on Monday evening, he added: “I heard him yesterday, during the government announcement, giving lessons. He should start by applying them to himself.”

These warnings were accompanied by a general stance of non-institutional rupture. Sonko excluded any strategy of systematic obstruction: “We will not censor.” He expressed his readiness to “accompany” the government while maintaining his stance: “We are, whether he likes it or not, in a situation of cohabitation. He does not have a single deputy in the National Assembly. He does not have all the powers. He needs to step down from his pedestal and let’s talk.”

Sonko accuses Faye of wanting to destroy Pastef

On the relationship with the president, Sonko crossed a line. “He is engaged in strategies to destabilize Pastef,” he declared, according to information from Senenews. He also warned that any use of state apparatus against his party would be dealt with in the judicial arena: “If they use the power of the state against us, we will respond legally.”

Sonko revealed that he had alerted Faye during a private meeting about fundamental disagreements, particularly signaling disagreements about the direction for the country. According to his version – which he is the only one to have made public – Faye then responded by saying that he did not have to report to him and claimed the president’s absolute right to lead without accountability. Sonko presented this conversation as the actual breaking point between the two men.

A congress in four days

These statements from Sonko – the harshest since his dismissal on May 22 – come four days before the first congress of Pastef, scheduled for June 6 in Dakar. This congress will elect the party president and set the direction for the next six years. Pastef also published what several Senegalese media outlets, including Senenews Premium, describe as a “list of traitors” targeting party members who remained in the Lo government despite the boycott – including Yankhoba Diémé, already excluded by his local section in Bignona.

The Lo government can only be censured with the votes of Pastef, which holds 130 of the 165 seats in the National Assembly. Faye cannot dissolve the Assembly until November 2026. The institutional mechanics give Sonko the means to maintain the pressure he is announcing without having to formally implement it. His warning to Lo – “we have chosen to keep certain facts quiet” – suggests that he possesses information about the Prime Minister’s past that he has not yet made public, and which he could use if confrontation escalates.