Sonko à l'Assemblée : Anta Babacar Ngom parle d'une «tentative de braquage institutionnel»
“Ousmane Sonko’s return to the National Assembly does not withstand a rigorous reading of the texts. The Constitution, the National Assembly’s rules of procedure, and the Electoral Code all preclude such a possibility.” This is the conviction of MP Anta Babacar Ngom, president of the Alternative for Citizen Renewal/And Liggèey Sunu Senegaal (ARC).
She cites Article 54 of the Constitution, which specifies that membership in the government is incompatible with a parliamentary mandate. She also notes that Article 109 of the former internal regulations reiterates this rule, stating that "the mandate of a member of parliament is incompatible with membership in the government."
Article 7 of the same regulation governs the resignation of the deputy and the installation of the substitute.
Finally, the parliamentarian notes, the Electoral Code, in its system of incompatibilities, requires a member of parliament placed in an incompatible situation to end this incompatibility within 8 days, under penalty of automatic resignation.
For Anta Babacar, "in any case, the law applicable in December 2024 did not provide for either suspension of the parliamentary mandate or automatic right to reinstatement".
She believes that applying the provisions of the 2025 reform, a later regime, to justify its return would amount to creating retroactivity contrary to legal certainty.
Furthermore, she pointed out, Ousmane Sonko was already Prime Minister in December 2024 when he was elected to parliament. Therefore, it was not a case of a member of parliament being appointed minister, but rather of a member of the government being elected to parliament.
For the president of the ARC, this situation created an immediate incompatibility and forced him to choose: "Resign from the premiership to be installed as a member of parliament or remain Prime Minister." He chose to remain Prime Minister. He was therefore never actually installed as a member of parliament for the 15th legislature.
Therefore, the MP points out, no parliamentary mandate could be suspended, since suspension presupposes a mandate previously exercised.
Even more serious, she observes, this affair is part of a worrying institutional drift. She notes that recently, the PASTEF regime seems to be establishing a dangerous practice: parliamentary power grabs, expedited procedures, rushed summonses, and meetings held under questionable conditions, including on non-working days, concerning provisions that are legally sensitive and politically fraught. Anta Babacar wonders, "What national emergency justifies such haste?"
For her, "institutions should not be instruments of political expediency. They are not toys to be manipulated according to the interests of the moment."
She added: "Senegalese people must remain vigilant and mobilize in the face of this dangerous trend." Because, the MP continued, when a government begins to bend the rules to solve its own political problems, it weakens the rule of law, damages democracy, and exposes the country to serious institutional gridlock.
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