In our March 8, 2025 column on the « Pastéfian post-truth, » we said: « Pastef has a serious problem with the truth, which doesn’t matter to this party. What matters is what it wants people to believe. We are in the era of post-truth. The era of post-truth, where objective facts have less influence on public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal beliefs, has taken a worrying hold in Senegal since the advent of Pastef. This state of society is manifested by the proliferation of fake news, media manipulation, and misleading discourse that shapes public perception and influences political decisions. With Pastef, the bigger the lie, the more a large part of public opinion believes it, aided in this by journalists and columnists. It is an indifference to the truth. It doesn’t matter whether what is said is true or false; the important thing is that it is said and that enough people want to believe it. We are in an era where political speech allows you to say anything and everything, where it is no longer permissible to be bound by reality, by truth. »

This was confirmed again this week, with the Council’s decision to strike down the soul (first article) of the so-called Amadou Bâ bill, interpreting the March 2024 amnesty law. Instead of an interpretation, Pastef’s mechanical majority actually attempted to amend the amnesty law. This made the so-called interpretative law as dangerous as the amnesty law itself. The renowned analyst and columnist Abdou Nguer had already warned that this law, passed in the « diaay doolé » (law of the strongest) and « maa tey » (I-don’t-care attitude), violated the Constitution.

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With pedagogy, the « Wise Men » explained that Pastef attempted a « substantial modification » of the law; which is unconstitutional. « With the decision, you are politically right because you hold the majority in the Chamber, but you are legally wrong because you violated the Constitution. » A scathing and unequivocal comment from Professor Mounirou Sy, who added: « The People now have someone who watches over their rights, namely the constitutional judge. When the People lose democracy in the National Assembly, they can wait for it at the Constitutional Council, which is now their partner. »

To cry victory is to want to paint the sky with urine.
But by deliberately skipping 30 Considerations to cling to 31, Ousmane Sonko and Pastef are still trying to sell sand to Bedouins, because the initial 2024 law was not intended to cover acts classified as crimes or torture. « I would have been careful not to comment on the decision rendered by the Constitutional Council on the so-called « interpretive » law, if the remnants of the Senegalese opposition had not rushed, in a desperate attempt at political recovery, to conclude that it was a legal setback for the Pastef/The Patriots parliamentary group. It is quite different, because this decision supports the approach and objectives pursued by the proposed interpretative law, namely: (1) Exclude from the scope of the initial law the facts that can be described as acts of assassination, murder, the crime of torture, acts of barbarism, inhuman, cruel or degrading treatment; (2) Maintain the other grounds for prosecution of facts relating to political demonstrations,” boasted Ousmane Sonko, who added: « The Constitutional Council simply considered that the postulate on which the Pastef parliamentary group’s approach was based, according to which the first article of the initial law included acts that could be classified as acts of assassination, murder, the crime of torture, acts of barbarity, inhuman, cruel or degrading treatment, was superfluous because, in its original version, the law already automatically excluded this category of offenses, in accordance with our country’s international commitments of constitutional value (31). » However, Minister Aïssata Tall Sall had clearly indicated this when the law was passed in 2024.

Allow me a slight, almost poetic flash of insight. The association of the words « residue » and « Senegalese opposition » are percolating in my mind. I think of the all-powerful mathematical method of solving complex integrals using the residue method. I tell myself that simply by relying on residues, we can unravel and resolve complex situations. The evidence assailed me: the residue is ultimately the simplest part of a complex problem that has been broken down into tiny, simple pieces in order to find a quick solution. They are simple, but combined, they are incredibly effective. There is no salvation outside of residues. Would residues, with the added benefit of a method, lead us to The Solution? At the end of this digression, let us now return to our subject.

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As one might say, seeing Pastef claim victory is like trying to paint the sky with urine while lying on your back with your mouth open (diaakhaan di saw). In reality, MP Amadou Bâ’s interpretative law was roundly rejected by the Constitutional Council, which clearly stated that this law was superfluous because the 2024 law already excluded serious crimes. In other words, Pastef attempted to clarify what was as striking as the sun at its zenith: a pointless manoeuvre, symptomatic of blatant legal amateurism. Even more worrying, after a year of grace, spending so much time trying to clarify such an intelligible legal point calls into question the latter’s ability to perceive the state of the economy. Will we have to wait another two years before the evidence strikes them down? In short, Pastef wanted to pass off this legal setback, or rather, this blindness, as a political victory by wanting to twist the neck of the truth. Even Juan Branco speaks of « rejection of the interpretative law. »

This attempt to disguise an institutional snub as a strategic success is more theatre than legal. Let’s put it simply: you go to play a match, you mobilize your supporters (Pastef MPs, influencers, journalists, supporters, etc.) with an incredible fuss. You lose the match and you make them believe that you mobilized them just to lose. What’s serious is that these same supporters applaud their leader’s defeatist speech.

Yet, it is clear and very logical as 2 plus two makes 4, and you really have to be a Pastéfian militant not to understand it. You cannot introduce a bill, amend it twice, have it passed by a mechanical majority, defend it before the Constitutional Council by the President of the National Assembly and the State Judicial Agent (Consideration 18 of the decision), then have it disavowed by the « Wise Men » and end up gloating. Amadou Bâ’s proposal had no reason to exist. All this noise, all this precious time wasted, only to end up back where it started.

Pastef has never been a model of democracy

Moreover, commenting on this decision, Ousmane Sonko shamelessly brandishes a dismissal order obtained… since January 23 and only published 3 months later, on the basis of an amnesty law that he himself allegedly contested. How can he own a dismissal granted to him by a law he says he did not want? Here he is, congratulating himself on having been cleared. When the vanquished claims victory, what should the victor do? If these charges never took place (amnesty obliges), should the investigating judge then make a judicial decision? With such a complex problem, the residual method must be incorporated. Given that a dismissal is a verdict! The amnesty law prohibits any magistrate from ruling on facts related to it! Who would fear not to be protected by this famous law?

Sonko may try to « erase » the bloodshed with speeches that have harangued the crowds, with repeated calls for insurrection. Justice, true justice, will always catch up with those who have sown chaos in this country, and « Wade, a thousand and one lives, » the new book by Madiambal Diagne, comes to refresh our memory on the role of the former President in what is commonly called « the Maitre Babacar Sèye affair. » Ironically, this murder is nevertheless covered by an amnesty law.

So, if there must be a hunt, it must not target those who denounced you or those who maintained public order, but rather those who transformed the streets of Senegal into a war zone. And at the top of this pyramid of violence and destruction of public and private property, struts the one who wanted, by any means, to gain power… even at the cost of peace and national cohesion.

Sonko and Pastef have certainly « suffered » state violence, but on several occasions, they have called for confrontation through statements and speeches. On February 7, 2021, Ousmane Sonko, in his first public statement on the Adji Sarr affair, declared: « The fight promises to be deadly, and the word is not too strong. » On May 24, 2023, he will say: « The more victims there are, the more pressure will increase on the regime. » His responsibility for having exposed his supporters through incendiary remarks on an assumed strategy of chaos is self-evident. The young people killed and injured between 2021 and 2024 can be considered victims of the Macky regime, but isn’t Sonko the main instigator? They are victims of state violence, but they are also victims of a risky, morbid, and expertly planned political strategy.

It is clear that the « residues of the Senegalese opposition » were those who, despite threats, intimidation, and violence, stood firm against the authoritarian and populist drift of this new power. They are those who refuse to give in to political terror and media intimidation. Pastef has never been a model of democracy: internal censorship, personality cult, calls for disobedience, attempts to undermine all republican institutions, even dreaming of a coup d’état against the laws of the Republic. We recall the press release of June 1, 2023 in which Pastef openly called on « the forces of law and order and the army to side with the people oppressed by Macky Sall. » Not without calling on « the people (to stop) all activity and (to take to the streets) to confront the dictatorial and bloody excesses of the Macky Sall regime until his departure as head of state. » These remnants of opponents have shown themselves to be more intelligent, more methodical, more educated and more thoughtful than him. They didn’t swear, they didn’t call for « mortal kombat, » nor to drag the current President of the Republic « like Samuel Doe. » Isn’t this residual method ultimately that powerful mathematical mechanism that deconstructs complexity to provide simple solutions?

By Bachir FOFANA 

  • Translation by Ndey T. SOSSEH