Wednesday’s Council of Ministers in Dakar adopted two major bills.
The first repeals Organic Law No. 2012-28 of December 28, 2012, relating to the Economic, Social and Environmental Council (CESE) and Organic Law No. 2016-24 of July 14, 2016, relating to the High Council of Territorial Communities (HCCT), confirming the abolition of these two institutions.
The second bill concerns a constitutional revision, the details of which have not yet been specified. The texts in question will soon be submitted to the National Assembly for their final adoption.
These reforms are part of a series of decisions taken by President Bassirou Diomaye Faye.
The president, in fact, dismissed Aminata Mbengue Ndiaye and Abdoulaye Daouda Diallo, respectively
presidents of the HCCT and the CESE, by decree dated September 4, 2024, an announcement made official by Oumar Samba BA, Minister and Permanent Secretary of the Presidency of the Republic.
On September 2, the National Assembly, dominated by the Benno Bokk Yakaar (BBY) coalition, the former majority in power between 2012 and 2024, had rejected a bill aimed at abolishing the CESE and the HCCT.
The following day, Abdou Mbow, president of the BBY parliamentary group, had filed a motion of censure the government led by Ousmane Sonko. The latter, Prime Minister and leader of PASTEF, had then assured, during a meeting with the agents of the Prime Minister’s office on September 4, that no motion of censure would be adopted.
Faced with this institutional crisis, Bassirou Diomaye Faye dissolved the National Assembly and called early legislative elections, held on November 17.
Those polls were won by the PASTEF party, which obtained an overwhelming majority of 130 seats out of the
165 in parliament, allowing President Faye to consolidate his program of institutional reforms.
