{"id":40643,"date":"2026-07-26T08:09:34","date_gmt":"2026-07-26T06:09:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=40643"},"modified":"2026-07-26T08:09:34","modified_gmt":"2026-07-26T06:09:34","slug":"senegal-president-launches-new-party","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/senegal-president-launches-new-party\/","title":{"rendered":"Senegal President launches new party \u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Senegal President Bassirou Diomaye Faye has launched a new political party, the Republican Patriots, formally solidifying his rift with long-time ally and former Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The two leaders rose to power as a unified ticket in the 2024 presidential election, when Faye served as secretary-general of Sonko\u2019s PASTEF party. However, relations deteriorated sharply over economic strategy and executive control, culminating in Faye dismissing Sonko as Prime Minister.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The launch of the Republican Patriots follows a series of high-profile defections from PASTEF to the President&#8217;s camp.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>While PASTEF leadership has sought to minimise the impact of these departures, Sonko, who now serves as Speaker of the National Assembly, backed constitutional reforms designed to prohibit a sitting President from simultaneously leading a political party.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Although parliament approved the measure, Faye has opted to put the decision to a public referendum. A date for the vote has yet to be announced, with both camps turning their focus toward the upcoming 2027 local elections.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;ChannelAfrica&#8211;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":38947,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[78,26],"class_list":["post-40643","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-featured","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Senegal\u2019s President Faye launches new party","published_date":"2026-07-26 08:09:00","news_description":"Senegal\u2019s President Faye launches new party","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/40643","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\/40643\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40644,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/40643\/revisions\/40644"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=40643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}