Faye fires Sonko, names technocrat as PM – but his former ally may be about to seize control of parliament
Senegal’s parliament convened on Tuesday morning to vote on reinstating sacked Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko as a lawmaker and electing a new Speaker of the National Assembly, deepening a Senegal political crisis that has rattled one of West Africa’s once-stable democracies.
The session, confirmed by an official legislative document published late on Sunday, follows a rapid chain of events that began on Friday when President Bassirou Diomaye Faye dismissed Sonko and dissolved the entire cabinet, ending an alliance that had brought both men to power just over a year earlier.
Faye’s dismissal of Sonko risks worsening uncertainty in a country already grappling with a debt crisis and ongoing talks with the International Monetary Fund.
How the alliance collapsed
What began as a personal fallout has rapidly evolved into a Senegal political crisis with major implications for governance and investor confidence.
The two men rose together under the slogan “Diomaye is Sonko.” Sonko, barred from the March 2024 presidential election due to a defamation conviction, urged supporters to back his lieutenant, Faye, who won with over 54 per cent of the vote in the first round.
Faye owed his presidency in large part to Sonko, who would almost certainly have taken the top job had he not been barred from standing.
Despite Sonko’s popular appeal, Faye held all the real power as president. But in recent months, relations had soured between the two men. Sonko had become vocal in his criticism of his former protégé, accusing him of a “failure of leadership” for not backing him against his critics.
The Senegal political crisis has three distinct fault lines. The most urgent is economic.
In February 2025, Senegal’s Court of Auditors published a long-awaited audit confirming that the previous government had systematically understated key debt and deficit figures, with the findings detailing alleged data manipulation and corruption from 2019 to 2023.
The IMF has estimated public debt in Senegal at 132 per cent of GDP at end-2024, compared to an estimate of around 80 per cent just two years earlier, with the IMF Mission Chief stating he had “never seen a hidden debt of this magnitude” in Africa.
The IMF suspended its $1.8 billion credit facility to Senegal following the audit findings.
Finance Minister Cheikh Diba told parliament on Friday that the government expects to resume talks with the IMF in the second week of June, and hopes to reach agreement on key points by June 30.
Sonko’s response to the debt impasse sharpened the divide. He noted his opposition to a potential debt restructure, calling it “a disgrace for Senegal,” and announced a new economic recovery plan pledging to finance 90 per cent of it through domestic resources and avoid additional debt. Faye, facing a near-bankrupt state, was far more willing to negotiate with the IMF.
Economists warn the Senegal political crisis could delay urgently needed reforms at a time when Dakar is struggling to stabilise public finances.
The Speaker’s exit
Speaker El Malick Ndiaye announced his resignation on Sunday, describing his decision in a Facebook post as “a personal choice guided above all by my understanding of institutions, public responsibility, and the best interests of the nation.”
The resignation was widely read as a tactical manoeuvre rather than a principled departure from public life.
PASTEF, Sonko’s party, holds a strong majority in parliament with 130 deputies out of 165, and his becoming head of parliament would position him to challenge the authority of Faye from within the legislature.
The Senegal political crisis is now taking on a constitutional dimension. Opposition leader Aissata Tall Sall denounced what she called an “institutional coup” prepared under “pressure that the majority wants to impose,” and urged Faye to refer the matter to the Constitutional Council to avoid what she termed “an illegal diktat of the majority.
Some critics say reinstating Sonko as a lawmaker would be illegal, as he has never formally resigned his parliamentary mandate.
A new PM, same old problem
President Faye on Monday named former central banker Ahmadou Al Aminou Lo as prime minister, with a presidential decree stating that Lo knows “the inner workings of the economy and finance.”
Lo previously served as Minister of State overseeing the “Senegal 2050” national transformation agenda and is largely perceived as a technocrat with no overt partisan profile.
His first public statement was brief. “Senegal is a safe and viable country,” Lo said.
The appointment only partly addresses the Senegal political crisis because parliament must approve the nomination within three months, and Sonko’s party controls parliament.
The president cannot dissolve parliament until at least two years after the last election, meaning any move to end the mandates of lawmakers before November this year would be considered invalid.
If Sonko is installed as Speaker, he would have both the parliamentary majority and the institutional authority to block cabinet appointments and introduce motions of censure against any government Faye tries to assemble, locking the two men into a standoff at the worst possible moment for Senegal’s economic credibility.
The IMF suspension of disbursements triggered the World Bank and the African Development Bank to follow suit, with net transfers to Senegal turning negative for the first time in years, while Eurobond prices fell sharply and markets began pricing in distress by October 2025.
Regional observers say the Senegal political crisis is being watched closely across West Africa because Senegal has long been regarded as one of the region’s most stable democracies.
The Senegal political crisis, at its core, is a confrontation between two men who cannot govern together yet cannot easily govern apart. One holds the executive; the other is moving to lock down the legislature. As the standoff deepens, global creditors are watching closely.
