Senegal’s courts had just laid their first crimes against humanity charges over the 2021 to 2024 violence. Two days later, President Bassirou Diomaye Faye stood in New York and urged the world to back the Macky Sall UN bid for the next UN secretary-general post.
The families of those killed between 2021 and 2024 have objected to state backing for the Macky Sall UN bid since July. They objected again after the New York speech.
Amnesty International counts at least 65 deaths in the protests that shook Senegal in Sall’s final years in power. Boubacar Seye, who heads a collective of victims’ families, said in a July interview with RFI: “You cannot shed blood and then lead the United Nations.”
Burundi nominated Sall in March. Dakar held back from publicly backing the Macky Sall UN bid until 20 July, three days after Sall met Faye in the capital.
The contrast with 2024 is what stings. Faye took office in April 2024 promising a break with the Sall years. He also vowed to repeal the amnesty law that Sall’s government had pushed through shortly before the election, so the full facts could come out.
In April 2025, parliament voted 126 to 20 to strip killings and torture from the amnesty. The Constitutional Council struck that revision down. But it also ruled that crimes such as torture and killings are not time-barred and can still be tried.
Criminal charges deepen controversy around Macky Sall UN bid
Judges moved last week. AFP reported, citing lawyers for the accused, that at least four people were charged on 22 and 23 September with crimes against humanity or complicity in them. It is a first for the 2021 to 2024 violence, and the charges let judges get around the amnesty.
The case grew from a complaint by Pape Abdoulaye Touré, who says he was abducted and tortured in June 2023. The accused are presumed innocent.
Seye called the charges a relief but stressed that a charge is not a conviction. A joint statement from three victims’ groups wants the inquiry to climb the chain of command. It should reach political and administrative decision-makers, they say, if the evidence points there. It also warns that diplomatic backing for the Macky Sall UN bid must never become a safe conduct that slows the courts.
Faye’s defence of the Macky Sall UN bid rests on Africa’s place at the table and on debt. Speaking to France 24 and RFI on 24 September, he asked, in French: “Who better today to defend a better place for Africa than President Macky Sall?” He added that Sall, having endured the torments of debt himself, was well placed to push for reform of the global financial system.
He also pressed the case at the General Assembly, saying Sall can speak to everyone, listen and build bridges between member states. Sall thanked him on social media the next day.
The argument has drawn scrutiny at home. Faye’s own government says Sall’s administration misreported the public finances. Senegal’s Court of Auditors put the 2023 budget deficit at 12.3 per cent of GDP, against the 4.9 per cent reported at the time. Sall denies the allegations of mismanagement.
There is a domestic calculation too. Political scientist Papa Fara Diallo, of Gaston Berger University, told RFI that Faye wants a new coalition after sacking Ousmane Sonko as prime minister. Some members of Pastef, which still holds a large majority in parliament, have called Faye’s endorsement of Sall’s candidacy treason, Diallo said.
On the numbers, the Macky Sall UN bid looks like a long shot. Leaked tallies from the Security Council’s fourth informal poll on 29 September give Sall five “encourage” votes against nine “discourage. Costa Rica’s Rebeca Grynspan leads with ten. The council does not publish these results, as Security Council Report notes, and António Guterres leaves office at the end of December.
The families say they do not dispute Sall’s right to stand. Their objection is about priorities. They want an exhaustive inquiry, responsibility established at every level, real access to justice and full reparation. Those demands, they say, are still unmet.
The presidency has not publicly answered the families, as far as published reports show.
The fate of the Macky Sall UN bid is likely to be settled in New York within weeks. The families’ case could take far longer in Dakar. Seye boiled his ask down to one line on Thursday: “We want the Republic not to forget its dead.”
