At a meeting of the Council of Ministers this morning, President Sall will present his proposed amnesty law covering the period from March 2021 to June 2023. However, he will also include a review of the trial of Karim Wade, who was sentenced to 6 years for unlawful enrichment before being pardoned in 2016. For the Pds, which has always called for this, it must be a blessing in disguise.

For Macky Sall, the vote on the amnesty law is a personal commitment, as he repeated at the opening of the national dialogue on Monday. In the Council of Ministers this morning, the draft of his bill will include an additional chapter, beyond the facts that cover the period March 2021-June 2023: the review of the trial of Karim Meïssa Wade. President Sall is looking for an additional ally to help him get this bill through the National Assembly, where the political forces are fragmented.

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This is clearly a way of attracting the interest of the Liberty, democracy and change parliamentary group, which would get no political benefit from it without the version on Wade-fils. This addition will enable President Sall to pass the law with the support of the Liberals, who have 24 MPs. Even if Mamadou Lamine Diallo’s support remains open to question. In any case, the elected members of Benno alone will not be able to pass this controversial proposal in the eyes of public opinion, the opposition and no doubt in his own camp. With the 80 MPs from Bby, minus the two MPs from Fekke maci bolé and Rewmi, plus some 24 from the Pds, it should be adopted by the National Assembly.

Today, President Sall wants to strengthen this holy alliance with his former political comrades. Even if he is on his way out. The latest news on the postponement of the presidential election shows the closeness between the two camps, which have been close since the last parliament was installed. Thanks to the Liberal forces, most of the government’s projects were approved. However, the government’s mechanical majority was completely eroded when Yaw entered the hemicycle in force during the last legislative elections. And there were fears of blockages. With this new act, Macky is meeting a demand from the Pds, which has always campaigned for a review of the Wade-son trial.  Of course, this point was addressed at the previous political dialogue, which resolved the issue of the eligibility of Khalifa Sall and Karim Meïssa Wade, by amending articles L28 and L29 of the Electoral Code. Thanks to the determination of the representatives of the Senegalese Democratic Party and civil society at the dialogue, the Political Committee of the National Dialogue had taken the decision to review the trial of Abdoulaye Wade’s former super minister, who at the time held 5 strategic ministerial portfolios. The question will be to know when this review will come into effect, given that President Sall is leaving. Time will tell…

The former Minister of State, Minister of Air Transport, Energy and Infrastructure was sentenced on 23 March 2015 to 6 years in prison by the Court for the Repression of Illicit Enrichment (Crei) and fined FCFA 138 billion. At the start of Macky Sall’s first term in office, the « hunt for ill-gotten gains » was a promise of « sober and virtuous » governance. The government mobilised millions in the search for proof of the illicit enrichment of Karim Wade and his « accomplices », the most famous of whom is Bibo Bourgi, and rogatory commissions were sent as far away as the British Virgin Islands and Monaco to prove that Karim Wade had stashed billions in tax havens. Aminata Touré, Alioune Ndao and Antoine Félix Diome were the trio responsible for overseeing the case, which was abandoned during their term of office.

Last July, the Crei, a contested ad hoc court created in 1981 under Abdou Diouf and resurrected by Macky Sall in 2012, was replaced by a Financial Judicial Pool (Pjf), which includes a public prosecutor’s office with « special competence » in financial crime and made up of specialist judges.

By Bocar SAKHO / bsakho@lequotidien.sn

  • Translation by Ndey T. SOSSEH