Senegal: major setback for Sonko, his constitutional revision invalidated

On Thursday, July 9, 2026, the Senegalese Constitutional Council annulled the adoption procedure of law n°18/2026 concerning the revision of the Constitution, which was voted on unanimously by the 129 deputies who participated in the vote on June 29. The seven sages deemed that the process followed during the examination and voting of the text was tainted by irregularities and declared the law contrary to the Constitution.

The decision supports President Bassirou Diomaye Faye, who urgently brought the case to the high court on July 6 through his lawyer, Me Cheikh Ahmadou Ndiaye, citing a “violation of the constitutional revision procedure.” The executive submitted to the case file transmission letters, amendment reports, official records as well as full audio and video recordings of the plenary session debates from June 29. The decision comes exactly ten days after the text was adopted by the National Assembly, within the emergency deadlines requested by the presidency.

The invalidated reform was proposed by the Pastef party, whose president Ousmane Sonko has presided over the National Assembly since May 26, 2026. The proposed law, submitted by six deputies from the Pastef group, rewrote the preamble of the Constitution, modified about thirty articles across the executive, legislative, and judicial powers, replaced the Constitutional Council with a Constitutional Court of nine members instead of seven, strengthened the powers of the Prime Minister and the National Assembly relative to the executive, and prohibited the President of the Republic from holding a leadership role within a political party – a provision aimed directly at Bassirou Diomaye Faye, who remains a member of Pastef.

A Procedural Flaw at the Heart of the Decision

The procedural flaw identified by the sages concerns the refusal of the President of the National Assembly to the request of the Minister of Justice to apply the mechanism of the blocked vote during the plenary session of June 29. This mechanism, provided for in the Assembly’s internal regulations, would have allowed the government to request a vote on the entire text without taking parliamentary amendments into account. The presidency argued that the refusal of this mechanism represented a failure to comply with the constitutional rules governing the revision procedure.

The reform was examined in a context of intense tensions: clashes between demonstrators and security forces marked the surroundings of the National Assembly during the plenary session, and opposition members claimed that they had not been able to fully express themselves on the text. The adoption with 129 votes in favor, zero against, and zero abstentions reflected the opposition’s boycott and illustrated the arithmetic dominance of Pastef, which holds 130 of the 165 seats.

The Temporary Epilogue of a Consummated Political Break

The invalidation of the reform constitutes a major legal setback for Ousmane Sonko but does not necessarily close the institutional file. Even before the Constitutional Council’s decision, President Faye had announced his intention to submit the reform to a popular referendum. If the authorities intend to continue the revision process, a new parliamentary procedure in line with constitutional requirements will need to be initiated.

The crisis between the two former allies of Pastef crystallized on May 22, 2026, when Bassirou Diomaye Faye dismissed Ousmane Sonko from the position of Prime Minister. Four days later, Sonko bounced back by being elected President of the National Assembly, with the support of the majority of the 130 Pastef deputies. Since then, the heads of the executive and legislative institutions have openly disagreed over the country’s institutional direction. President Faye is also preparing to establish his own political formation, according to several consistent sources, which would lead to a deeper reshaping of the Senegalese political landscape.

The decision of the Senegalese Constitutional Council recalls a major precedent set by the same institution: in February 2024, the seven sages annulled the postponement of the presidential election decided by former President Macky Sall and Parliament, thereby positioning themselves as arbiters of the major institutional crises in the country.