Senegal's deepening political crisis reached a dramatic new chapter this week when Ousmane Sonko, dismissed as prime minister just four days earlier, was elected president of the National Assembly with 132 of 133 votes cast — immediately positioning himself as the country's second-highest official and a direct institutional counterweight to President Bassirou Diomaye Faye. The swift political comeback, achieved despite an opposition boycott of the parliamentary session, marks one of the most turbulent ruptures in Senegalese politics in recent memory.

Faye had abruptly dismissed Sonko and dissolved the government following months of mounting tensions within the ruling PASTEF movement, a pan-Africanist party that won a landslide in Senegal's November 2024 legislative elections, securing 130 of the 165 parliamentary seats. In Sonko's place, Faye appointed Ahmadou Al Aminou Lo, a senior economist and former central banker, tasked with steering the country through severe economic pressures — including a debt burden estimated at 132% of GDP and a suspended $1.8 billion IMF programme. The two men had long diverged on economic strategy: Faye favours renewed engagement with international financial institutions, while Sonko has championed a sovereigntist, domestically focused approach.

In his first address as speaker, Sonko made clear he would not quietly retreat from power. He sharply criticised the president for excluding PASTEF from consultations over the new prime minister and future cabinet. "You cannot have Pastef without Pastef," he told lawmakers. While pledging there would be no "vendetta" or "institutional chaos," he promised "strict oversight of government action" and said he would use "all available levers of counter-power" in cases of disagreement. Political analysts described the arrangement as an unprecedented and fragile cohabitation — one in which Sonko, as PASTEF's party leader and now parliamentary chief, retains significant leverage over the executive.

The session itself was contentious. Opposition figures, including former foreign minister Aissata Tall Sall, denounced Sonko's reinstatement as a lawmaker as an "institutional coup," citing Article 54 of Senegal's constitution, which bars simultaneous membership in government and parliament. Critics argued that Sonko forfeited his parliamentary mandate when he joined the cabinet. Supporters counter that his election had been validated by the Constitutional Council and was never legally challenged within required deadlines, and that the constitutional provision merely prohibits the concurrent exercise of both roles — not the recovery of a seat once executive duties have ended.

The stakes extend well beyond the current standoff. A recent reform of Senegal's electoral code has made Sonko eligible to run for the presidency, raising the prospect of a future electoral confrontation between two men who were once inseparable political allies. With a new government still to be formed, PASTEF already signalling conditions for its participation, and no clear resolution to the constitutional dispute in sight, Senegal faces a prolonged period of institutional uncertainty — its nascent political era already being tested at its foundations.