When President Bassirou Diomaye Faye dissolved the government of Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko in May, it was supposed to be a decisive moment that ended months of institutional deadlock and gave the president a free hand to pursue his reform agenda. Instead, the dismissal triggered a political earthquake that has reshaped the landscape of Senegalese politics and raised serious questions about the stability of the country’s democratic institutions. The latest — and perhaps most consequential — development came when Sonko himself was elected Speaker of the National Assembly by his peers, dealing a direct challenge to the president who had sacked him.
The sequence of events has left Senegalese political commentators struggling to find historical parallels. A president removes his prime minister and then finds that same prime minister elected to the second-highest constitutional office by parliamentarians who were, until weeks earlier, part of the governing coalition. The paradox has deepened a political crisis that analysts say threatens to paralyse key state functions ahead of a potential International Monetary Fund programme review.
From Dismissal to Counter-Attack
The chain of events began when President Faye, facing deadlock on his economic recovery programme, dismissed Sonko and dissolved the government. The move came after months of open feuding between the two men, who had once been close allies in the opposition coalition that swept Faye to power in the 2024 presidential election. Their falling out centred on fundamental differences over economic policy — Sonko opposed the austerity measures demanded by the IMF, while Faye’s treasury team insisted they were non-negotiable if Senegal was to avoid a debt crisis.
Dissolving the government was, on the surface, a presidential prerogative. But the political fallout was immediately damaging. Faye’s popularity, which had been sustained by an anti-establishment narrative, took a hit as critics argued he had moved to consolidate personal power rather than share it with his own coalition. The opposition, meanwhile, saw an opportunity to regroup and exploit the division within the governing bloc.
What no one anticipated was that Sonko — dismissed, villified, and effectively frozen out of the executive — would stage the most remarkable political comeback in recent Senegalese history. Within days of his dismissal, he had engineered his election as a parliamentary deputy in a by-election, and within weeks he had been voted into the speakership by a coalition of MPs that included members of his own Pastef party, opposition figures from the former ruling coalition, and defectors from the governing bloc.
What the New Order Means
As Speaker, Sonko now controls the legislative agenda, the scheduling of votes, and the composition of parliamentary committees — tools that can be used to frustrate or delay the executive’s programme. He also has a platform from which to speak directly to the Senegalese public every time parliament sits, raising questions about the president’s legislative priorities and his ability to push the IMF-related reforms through the assembly.
The political paradox at the heart of the crisis has gripped Dakar’s commentariat. “The president sacked his prime minister and now his former prime minister is running parliament against him,” wrote political analyst Assane Diagne in a widely shared commentary. “This is not a crisis of institutions — it is a crisis of alliances. Faye and Sonko built a coalition on shared opposition to the old system. They never agreed on what to replace it with.”
The IMF has been watching the developments closely, with a programme review scheduled for June. Senior Fund officials have privately indicated that further delays in passing the fiscal reforms could trigger a suspension of disbursements under the existing standby arrangement — a prospect that would worsen the franc CFA zone country’s fiscal position at the worst possible moment. Senegal’s public debt has risen sharply in recent years, and the currency’s peg to the euro — maintained through the regional central bank — has come under mounting pressure as foreign reserves have declined.
For now, the political crisis has no obvious resolution. President Faye retains significant constitutional powers and remains personally popular outside the capital. But Sonko’s elevation to the speakership has given the opposition a central platform and a procedural stranglehold on the executive’s legislative agenda. The next few weeks will test whether Senegal’s institutions can absorb the shock — or whether the country is heading toward a more fundamental confrontation.