June 8, 2026

The African Tribune

Bold, independent reporting on Africa's most important stories, in English, every day.

Ousmane Sonko bans insults and mockery from PASTEF


Ousmane Sonko :« Les quolibets, les surnoms et les insultes, cela ne doit plus être PASTEF »

Ousmane Sonko used the PASTEF congress at the Dakar Arena to call for an end to behavioral laxity and to initiate a deep restructuring of his movement’s militant mindset.


The leader of the Patriots firmly banned the culture of insults that had long marked the public space. ‘Mockery, nicknames, and insults must no longer be part of PASTEF,’ he declared. Anticipating opponents’ provocation tactics, he demanded from his followers a posture of high responsibility and absolute respect for institutions, traditional chiefs, and religious authorities in Sénégal.

 

Ousmane Sonko places this disciplinary overhaul at the heart of a formidable strategy for party structuring and electoral conquest. Downplaying the recent departure of a few officials as anecdotal, the PASTEF president set ambitious organizational targets to saturate the political field: selling one million membership cards and deploying ten thousand local cells.


By ordering his supporters to ‘crisscross the country’ and oversee massive voter registration drives, he is definitively transforming his movement into a party of order and governance, entirely focused on upcoming elections.