Senegal's National Assembly has passed a sweeping constitutional reform that would significantly reduce presidential powers, even as opposition lawmakers boycotted the vote and demonstrators clashed with police outside the chamber in the capital, Dakar. The reform, put forward by the ruling Pastef party, redistributes authority away from the presidency and toward parliament and the prime minister — a shift supporters describe as a necessary rebalancing of Senegal's political system.

The vote took place against a backdrop of unusual divisions, not only between ruling party and opposition but within the broader presidential camp itself. The Coalition Diomaye Président, which backs President Bassirou Diomaye Faye, had called for the bill to be withdrawn, criticising last-minute amendments it said distorted the original text. Among the contested changes are a tighter legal framework for trying a president for high treason, a restriction limiting the president's power to dissolve the National Assembly to once per term, and a new requirement for the head of state to declare personal assets at the end of each mandate — not only upon taking office. Aminata Touré, the coalition's general supervisor, attributed some of these amendments to what she called a "revanchist" posture by Ousmane Sonko, the former prime minister who now serves as president of the National Assembly.

Pastef lawmakers defended the process, arguing it was rooted in national dialogues — the Justice Assizes of 2024 and the political system consultations of 2025. Mohamed Ayib Daffé, head of Pastef's parliamentary group, rejected accusations of haste, saying that at some point institutions must act on the results of dialogue rather than deliberate indefinitely. With 130 of the assembly's 165 seats, Pastef held a comfortable majority to pass the bill. Opposition members boycotted the session after one MP was forcibly removed from the chamber.

Following the vote, President Faye announced that the proposed changes will be put to a national referendum, handing Senegalese voters the final say. The announcement offered a degree of political breathing room, effectively bridging the gap between the ruling party's legislative push and the presidential coalition's demand for broader public consultation.

Why this matters: Senegal has long been regarded as one of West Africa's most stable democracies, and any significant shift in its constitutional balance of power carries regional implications. The reform debate reflects wider tensions over how authority should be distributed in a presidential system — a question that resonates across the continent. Whether voters ultimately approve the changes at referendum will be a critical test of both the government's mandate and the resilience of Senegal's democratic institutions.