During his recent tour of the Baol region, Ousmane Sonko, the prominent leader of Pastef, significantly sharpened his critique of President Bassirou Diomaye Faye. Speaking this Sunday in Touba, where he inaugurated the new Pastef-Touba headquarters and delivered a conference on current political issues, Sonko directly challenged the Constitutional Council’s decision to invalidate the proposed constitutional revision law, openly disputing its underlying rationale.

Initially, Sonko had urged respect for the high court’s ruling, asserting its binding nature for all. However, in Touba, the President of the National Assembly adopted a markedly different tone. He directly assailed the presidential practice of repeatedly referring matters to the Constitutional Council, stating, “Every week, he will seize the constitutional council.” This remark underscored his perception of the Head of State’s systematic reliance on the “Sages” of the Council to circumvent parliamentary actions.

Ousmane Sonko further elaborated his argument by questioning the very logic behind the Council’s decision. He declared, “The constitutional council cannot say that deputies must vote laws that please the President of the Republic.” This statement represented a direct challenge to the reasoning employed by the seven judges, who had based their invalidation on procedural grounds. Specifically, they cited the absence of compensatory resources for new public expenditures created by the text and a failure to adhere to the “vote bloqué” voting procedure. Sonko concluded his address with a solemn warning: “What is happening in this country is serious.”

These pronouncements from the National Assembly President signal a notable shift in his communication strategy, which had initially adopted a posture of institutional reconciliation following the July 9 decision. His remarks emerge as Pastef’s tour through the Baol region, initially presented as an outreach effort to strengthen local ties, now appears to be transforming into a political counter-offensive. This move comes amidst the Presidency’s own efforts to reconfigure the political landscape, marked by President Faye’s recent meetings with hundreds of mayors and the announced impending creation of his own political party.