“I have decided, in agreement with the parties and organizations of the coalition Taxawu Senegaal Ak Khalifa Ababacar Sall, to accept the offer of alliance of the candidate Idrissa Seck. Together, we decided to seal a partnership based on a shared commitment to break up with the current trend and reform institutional, democratic, economic and social governance. With Idrissa Seck and with all the forces of the Nation, we will give impetus to the momentum needed to achieve our common ambition for a Senegal of peace, progress, freedom, social justice and solidarity,” Khalifa Sall was quoted as saying in a statement dated Friday, 8 February, 2019.
Mr. Sall was stripped of his role as the mayor of Dakar and his parliamentary immunity following the ruling of the case of the so-called “Caisse d’Avance” in which he was prosecuted for embezzlement.
The former mayor added: “I know that you are ready to start this fight. I am with you, convinced that Senegal deserves all the sacrifices. I will remain this man steeped in values, a politician who will never renounce and who will never give up his commitment to our country.”
According to him, hailed by the whole world in the past, Senegalese democracy has been “put to death these last seven years through breaking the chain of political dialogue, the manipulation of the constitution, the twiddling of the electoral process and the questioning of the democratic gains.”
On 8 February, the ECOWAS Court of Justice dismissed Khalifa Sall’s appeal to challenge the Constitutional Council’s invalidation of his candidacy for the presidential election in Senegal.