Jailed Senegalese opposition leader Ousmane Sonko has ended his hunger strike after more than a month. “Ousmane Sonko has just suspended his hunger strike,” said El Hadji Malick Ndiaye, spokesman for Sonko’s African Patriots of Senegal for Work, Ethics and Fraternity (PASTEF) party, today.
Several influential Muslim leaders had previously urged the opposition leader to return to eating. His lawyers and his party recently warned that Sonko’s life was in danger. Sonko began his hunger strike on July 30. On August 6, he was admitted to a hospital in Senegal’s capital, Dakar.
No candidacy is possible after conviction
In June, Sonko, who intends to run in next year’s presidential elections, was sentenced in absentia to two years in prison by a court for “seducing youth”. Sonko criticized the trial as a conspiracy to exclude him from the presidential elections.
At the end of July, he was detained in connection with violent protests in 2021, among other things, for inciting riots, criminal association in connection with a terrorist enterprise and endangering state security.
Senegalese Justice Minister Ismaila Madior Fall said in an interview this week that Sonko’s conviction in June was “final” and that the opposition leader could not run in the 2024 presidential elections. Before his conviction, Sonko was considered a promising candidate for the presidential elections on February 25, 2024.