Senegal PM Calls For Vengeance After Election Campaign Clashes

Senegalese Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko on Tuesday called for vengeance following what he described as attacks against supporters of his Pastef party by the opposition during the campaign for parliamentary elections

Dakar, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 12th Nov, 2024) Senegalese Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko on Tuesday called for vengeance following what he described as attacks against supporters of his Pastef party by the opposition during the campaign for parliamentary elections.

Sonko, who has been head of the government since it took office in April, spoke of clashes in the capital Dakar, the northern city of Saint-Louis and the central town of Koungheul.

He blamed the attacks on supporters of Dakar mayor Barthelemy Dias, who heads a rival coalition and was convicted of homicide in 2011 during a period of political violence.

"Let every aggression suffered by Pastef on their part since the start of the campaign, let every patriot they have attacked and injured be proportionally avenged," Sonko wrote in a Facebook post.

"We will exercise our legitimate right to retaliate."

"Barthelemy Dias and his coalition should no longer campaign in this country," he said.

Senegal is due to elect a new parliament on Sunday after President Bassirou Diomaye Faye dissolved the opposition-dominated chamber in September.

The ruling Pastef party aims to secure a legislative majority to implement its promises of social justice, economic transformation and efforts to fight against corruption.

In a video published by a local tv station showing a rally on Monday, Sonko said he had "called the interior and justice ministers as a candidate" at the start of the campaign.

"Three attacks, zero arrests. It's the bankruptcy of the state," Sonko said.

He was speaking after the incidents in Saint-Louis, where he accused opposition supporters of having "violently attacked and injured" Pastef backers with "knives, sabres and tear gas grenades".

"I once again call on the state of Senegal. A state must not be weak. I have called on the president of the republic several times," Sonko said.

"If the state does not resolve this problem, we will do it ourselves and we have the means to do so."

The governor of Saint-Louis said in a statement on Tuesday that "incidents had resulted in stab wounds and robberies".

Police have opened an inquiry and made 81 arrests, he added.

Pastef party supporters held a meeting in Dakar later in the day under the watchful eye of security forces, who blocked access to an exit leading to the area near Dias's home, an AFP journalist saw.