A “national awakening”! That is the call Idrissa Seck issued yesterday. The former Prime Minister refuses to choose between Diomaye Faye and Ousmane Sonko. He is presenting himself as an alternative to the two former allies.

By Malick GAYE – The verdict is harsh. “Senegal is unrecognisable today,” declared Idrissa Seck. He pointed to the downgrading of the country’s economic ratings, a “torn” social fabric and a public debate marked by threats and insults. According to the former Prime Minister, “more serious than the economic crisis is the institutional crisis that threatens to bring the country to a standstill”.

After two and a half years of silence, Idrissa Seck has returned to the forefront. The leader of the Rewmi party spoke on Tuesday 27 October 2026 at a keenly awaited press conference. He explained that he had kept silent since the presidential election of March 2024 out of respect for the choice of the Senegalese people, and to give the new authorities time to prove themselves.

On the split between President Bassirou Diomaye Faye and Ousmane Sonko, dismissed as Prime Minister on 22 May and now Speaker of the National Assembly, the former Prime Minister does not take sides. He holds them equally responsible and accuses them of leading the country into an impasse over “questions of petty politics”. The two men had promised a clean break, he recalls. It has indeed come, but not the one he expected: “A rupture between Senegalese people who insult each other with ‘mouton’ and ‘Kuluna’, a diplomatic rupture, a rupture with economic partners.”

Idrissa Seck also rules out joining either camp. He will join neither Kiiraay nor Pastef. He proposes another path, that of mobilising the political class, civil society, the trade unions, the private sector and citizens. “We support the determination to build a genuine cordon sanitaire against deceptive populism, which carries destructive seeds for our country,” he said. For him, “the depth of the crisis calls for a genuine national awakening to save the Republic and its institutions”. He welcomed the mobilisation of many Senegalese, at home and in the diaspora, as well as the involvement of young people and women. He then concluded: “The time has come to give the People back their voice and to support them in their clearly perceptible desire to put an end to the populist adventure.” Before adding: “We intend to play our full part in this, alongside our partners in the Front for the Defence of the Republic.”

mgaye@lequotidien.sn