Babacar Gaye accuses PASTEF of using budget as bargaining chip in Senegal
Former minister Babacar Gaye says budget talks are being used to negotiate the return of Ousmane Sonko and PASTEF to government.
Babacar Gaye, a former minister of state and leader of the Mankoo Mucc party, has written in the Dakaractu outlet that Senegal's national budget appears to be becoming a bargaining chip in talks over the return of Ousmane Sonko and his PASTEF party to government. He argues that if this reading is confirmed, the country would face not a simple political crisis but a hostage-taking of its institutions, with PASTEF using its parliamentary majority as a form of blackmail.
Gaye says the budget governs the lives of millions of Senegalese for 12 months, the running of public services and the state's financial credibility with the IMF and investors. He also criticises the entry into the talks of religious-influence networks and conflict brokers acting as mediators, and says that any paid promotion of a reconciliation narrative in the press would amount to manipulation of information. He calls for constitutional mechanisms and, if needed, voters to settle the institutional disagreement.
Gaye's article is an opinion column rather than a report of a confirmed agreement, and the piece itself does not establish that any deal has been struck. Its claims about payments to commentators remain unproven, as the column presents them only as suspicions.
Why it mattersMillions of Senegalese depend on a 12-month budget whose passage is now tied to talks over PASTEF's return to government, according to the column.