Senegalese police fired tear gas this Monday to disperse protesters outside parliament as lawmakers debated a constitutional amendment that would expand parliamentary powers \u200cand reduce those of the President, a proposal critics say could upset the balance of power in government.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Senegalese civil society groups and political parties say the reform is an attempted power grab by parliament speaker \u2060and former Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Dispute over constitutional reform risks deepening political divisions in Senegal, particularly between President Bassirou Diomaye Faye and Sonko.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Sonko’s dismissal in May underscored a widening split over reforms and the response to a mounting debt crisis.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Relations between them remained tense after Sonko was elected speaker of parliament.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The push for constitutional reform has been driven by the ruling \u200cPastef \u2060party, led by Sonko. Proposed changes include a provision prohibiting a sitting president from serving as leader of a political party. Faye is also a member of Pastef, but no longer \u2060holds any official role in the party.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A political coalition supporting the president has called for an immediate withdrawal of the bill \u2060and said Faye should be able to fully exercise his powers.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Faye was elected two years ago, backed by Sonko, \u2060a charismatic figure with a strong youth following, who was barred from running himself due to a defamation conviction.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
–Reuters–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":38353,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[26],"class_list":["post-38352","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Senegalese police fired tear gas this Monday to disperse protesters outside parliament","published_date":"2026-06-29 16:30:48","news_description":"Senegalese police fired tear gas this Monday to disperse protesters outside parliament","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/38352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/38352\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38354,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/38352\/revisions\/38354"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=38352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}