Senegal Opposition Puts Up New, Jailed Candidate for 2024 Polls

Senegalese opposition Pastef party has appointed Bassirou Diomaye Faye, secretary-general of the party and right-hand man of Ousmane Sonko, as its candidate for the February 25, 2024 presidential poll. This comes as Senegal's Supreme Court ruled that opposition leader Ousmane Sonko is ineligible as he remains imprisoned. Diomaye Faye will run against President Macky Sall.

Like Sonko, Diomaye Faye is a tax inspector, he is in his forties, and he is also behind bars. Faye has been in detention since April 2023, after he was arrested for publishing a post criticising the behavior of magistrates in the defamation case between Sonko and the Minister of Tourism, Mame Mbaye Niang.

Sonko, who has been caught up in a series of legal cases, was convicted in absentia on June 1, 2023 of morally corrupting a young person and sentenced to two years in prison. He denounced the trial as a plot to exclude him from the election.

This article originally appeared on AllAfrica

Image by Bassirou diomaye Faye / Facebook