DAKAR — Senegal’s President Bassirou Diomaye Faye is moving forward with plans to establish his own political party, according to a statement from a coalition that supports him — the clearest sign yet of a lasting break between Faye and the prime minister he recently removed from office.
The pro-Faye coalition announced late Friday that the president has directed senior adviser Aminata Toure to put together a task force responsible for building the new party.
Up until now, Faye had been a member of the ruling Pastef party, which is led by Ousmane Sonko. Faye removed Sonko from the prime minister’s post in May, bringing to a head months of growing friction between the two men.
Sonko has since taken on the role of speaker of the National Assembly, where he has been pushing for changes to the constitution. Among those proposed changes is a provision that would prohibit a sitting president from also leading a political party.
Lawmakers approved those constitutional changes last week, but Faye has decided the matter should go to a public referendum. No date for that vote has been announced.
All of this political turmoil is playing out while Senegal faces a significant financial crisis tied to the discovery that the previous government had misreported the country’s debt levels.
Both Faye and Sonko are now looking ahead to local elections set for 2027, which are expected to reveal how much grassroots support each leader commands throughout the country.
