One is former Dakar mayor Khalifa Sall who is discreetly positioning himself as a responsible alternative contender eschewing Sonko-style demagoguery...
In local and legislative elections in 2022 Seck's Rewmi party lost control of Thiès Senegal's third city and for decades Seck's political fiefdom to the opposition alliance of Yewwi Askan Wi led by Ousmane Sonko and Khalifa Sall (AC Vol 63 No 3 Sall sags at polls)...
Last year's municipal and legislative polls brought sweeping gains for the opposition particularly the Yewwi Askan Wi (YAW) alliance led by Sonko and former Dakar mayor Khalifa Sall...
He hopes to woo a slice of Wade's traditional voters who may not like their still influential leader's alliance with the Sonko-Khalifa Sall camp...
If anything the opposite has happened: people have become highly sceptical of such accusations given Sall's efforts to eliminate political competitors by using Senegal's legal system most notably Abdoulaye Wade's son Karim and the former mayor of Dakar Khalifa Sall...
Provisional results confirm the dominance in most urban areas of the opposition alliance of Yewwi Askan Wi led by Ousmane Sonko and Khalifa Sall and the Wallu movement of 96-year-old former President Abdoulaye Wade (AC Vol 63 No 11)...
Its success in the local elections in January were built around the Yewwi Askan Wi ('Free the People' in Wolof) alliance between Sonko's Pastefs and the Taxawu Senegaal movement formed by the former Dakar mayor Khalifa Sall...
It resulted in the election of the hot-headed populist Barthélémy Dias a Khalifa Sall protégé as mayor of Dakar and Sonko's capture of the mayoralty in Ziguinchor the main city in Casamance...
Veteran socialist Khalifa Sall beat presidential son Karim in Dakar's municipal polls in 2009...
The key partnership is the Yewwi Askan Wi ('Free the People' in Wolof) alliance between Ousmane Sonko's Pastefs les Patriotes and the Taxawu Senegaal movement formed by the former Dakar mayor Khalifa Sall...
But the 23 January local polls show they now face serious opposition after years of political hegemony aided by court cases that removed two major challengers – Khalifa Sall and Karim Wade – from the field of play (AC Vol 59 No 18 Not lacking convictions)...
The government suffered a crushing defeat in Dakar outpolled two-to-one by the opposition Yewwi Askan Wi with Khalifa Sall protégé Barthélemy Dias becoming mayor of the capital – while the President's brother Aliou was ousted from the mayoralty of Guédiawaye...
These will show whether his Alliance pour la République (APR) and its partners are on course to retain a comfortable majority in June's parliamentary election – or whether the new opposition alliance led by Ousmane Sonko and Khalifa Sall can seriously hope for a breakthrough...
The next step in dakarois disillusion came when Macky exercised his presidential prerogative to send prosecutors the findings of a probe into the political misuse of municipal funds by Khalifa Sall mayor of the capital and a potential challenger in the 2019 presidential race...
Seeing these contests as the first step towards 2024 Sonko and Khalifa Sall have united their supporters in a new alliance Yewwi Askan Wi (meaning 'liberate the people')...
Yewwi's official candidate is Barthélemy Dias a key aide to Khalifa Sall and currently local mayor of the capital's Mermoz-Sacré district...
For many Senegalese the claims were reminiscent of the legal cases that had removed other prominent opponents Karim Wade and Khalifa Sall from the electoral scene (AC Vol 59 No 17 President plays by his rules & Vol 59 No 18 Not lacking convictions)...
But the crisis has not gone away – even if the courts treat Sonko's case with scrupulous fairness and thus demonstrate greater independence from political influence than they did when handing Khalifa Sall a five-year jail sentence for a secondary misdemeanour that shut him out of the 2019 presidential race (AC Vol 58 No 9 Macky challenger gaoled)...
His determination to keep the party in the governing Benno Bokk Yakaar coalition and back the President in this year's presidential election provoked a rift with Khalifa Sall (no relation) the jailed former mayor of Dakar who saw himself as the man to carry the PS banner (AC Vol 59 No 18 Not lacking convictions)...
All this is making a PS approach to Khalifa Sall appealing...
