Bassirou Diomaye Faye remains adamant that the Pastef majority will approve the 2026 revised finance bill. Yet inside the National Assembly, Ousmane Sonko commands real constitutional weapons to slow the text, reshape it, or bring it down entirely. The real question is what the Constitution permits each side to do — and what price each would pay.

The head of state has no doubts about the outcome. For Bassirou Diomaye Faye, Ousmane Sonko, president of the National Assembly and leader of Pastef — which holds a commanding majority in the chamber — will have no choice but to ensure his deputies validate the revised finance bill in the interest of Senegalese citizens enduring a difficult period. That assurance also carries the weight of a warning, directed at the man who served as his prime minister for two years.

The political landscape, however, has shifted dramatically. On 22 May 2026, a presidential decree ended Ousmane Sonko’s tenure at the Primature and dissolved his government. Ahmadou Al Aminou Lô was appointed prime minister on 25 May 2026, while the Pastef leader took the helm of the National Assembly, replacing El Malick Ndiaye. The 2024 duo has become an institutional face-off, and the 2026 revised finance bill is now the first battleground.

The text arrives in a tense atmosphere. After the agreement reached with the International Monetary Fund, which still awaits approval from its board of directors, the government prepared this revised finance bill. Ousmane Sonko publicly demanded clarifications on the agreement’s content and on how the debt would be handled. Following weeks of controversy over the transmission of the file, the National Assembly confirmed it had duly received the 2026 revised finance bill, along with the president’s transmission letter and the presentation decree, on Friday 18 September 2026.

The vote: a majority’s first and sharpest weapon

On paper, nothing compels deputies to adopt a finance bill. The Constitution grants the National Assembly alone the power to vote laws and scrutinise government action. With 130 seats out of 165 won in the November 2024 legislative elections, Pastef can single-handedly reject the text in plenary session, without needing a single ally. It is the most direct path — but also the most politically risky: a frontal refusal would saddle Sonko’s party with responsibility for any blockage of public finances during negotiations with the IMF.

The head of state cannot count on defections to reverse the trend either. Article 60 of the Constitution stipulates that any deputy who resigns from their party during the legislature is automatically stripped of their mandate. This lock protects Pastef’s group discipline and limits the room for manoeuvre of the Diomaye Président coalition inside the chamber.

Between adoption and rejection, deputies have a third, subtler path. Article 82 strictly frames their right of amendment on budgetary matters: no additional article or amendment to a finance bill is admissible unless it seeks to delete or effectively reduce an expenditure, or to create or increase a revenue. In other words, the majority cannot inflate credits, but it can cut spending planned by the government. This offers a way to deeply rewrite the executive’s arbitrations — particularly those tied to commitments made with the IMF — without resorting to outright rejection.

The government, however, has a counter. The same Article 82 allows it to request a single vote on all or part of the text, retaining only the amendments it proposed or accepted. This procedure forces deputies to decide en bloc, returning them to the original dilemma: adopt the text as the executive wants it, or bear the consequences of rejecting it.

Playing for time: a strategy with two edges

Holding the Assembly presidency gives Ousmane Sonko genuine influence over the legislative calendar. But Article 84 severely limits the possibility of burying the text: priority inscription of a bill on the agenda is a right as soon as the President of the Republic or the prime minister requests it.

Above all, time works against an obstruction strategy. Article 68 sets a maximum of sixty days for the Assembly to vote finance bills. If the text is not definitively adopted by the end of that period, it is brought into force by decree, taking into account amendments voted by deputies and accepted by the President of the Republic. Since the bill was filed on 18 September, that deadline falls around 17 November 2026. Letting the examination drag on would therefore hand Diomaye Faye the possibility of promulgating his budget without Parliament’s approval.

A grey area remains, however. The Constitution explicitly provides for a text “not voted” within the deadlines, but is silent on the scenario of a formal rejection in session. Whether recourse to decree remains open after an explicit negative vote could then be brought before the Constitutional Council, which Article 74 allows one-tenth of deputies to petition.

The executive holds another tool, already used in December 2024 to pass the 2025 budget, when Ousmane Sonko himself headed the government. Article 86 allows the prime minister, after deliberation by the Council of Ministers, to engage the government’s responsibility on the vote of a finance bill. The text is then considered adopted, unless a motion of censure, filed within twenty-four hours, is passed by an absolute majority of Assembly members.

That is where Pastef’s majority regains its full power. A motion of censure requires only the signature of one-tenth of deputies to be admissible, and 83 votes to pass. Pastef comfortably exceeds that threshold. If Ahmadou Al Aminou Lô’s government chose this route, Sonko’s deputies could not only defeat the budget but also topple the government. A formidable weapon, but heavy with consequences, since it would open a governmental crisis just weeks before the date from which the head of state regains his power to dissolve the Assembly.

2 December: the date that defines the balance of power

This is the other key element of the standoff. Article 87 authorises the President of the Republic to dissolve the National Assembly after consulting the prime minister and the Assembly president, but prohibits any dissolution during the first two years of the legislature. Installed on 2 December 2024, the current Assembly is protected until 2 December 2026. Asked about a possible dissolution, Bassirou Diomaye Faye himself recalled that this date had not yet been reached.

The calendar thus draws a tight sequence. The sixty-day deadline to vote the revised finance bill expires in mid-November, just days before the head of state can send deputies back to the voters. A prolonged budget blockage would give Diomaye Faye a strong argument to justify dissolution, while a smooth adoption would deprive the president of that political lever.

In the end, Ousmane Sonko does possess the constitutional means to block or rewrite Bassirou Diomaye Faye’s budget — through rejection, through reduction amendments, or through censure. But each of these options exposes him to a high political cost, against an executive that retains the Article 68 decree, the Article 86 engagement of responsibility, and soon, the Article 87 dissolution. More than a legal question, the examination of the 2026 revised finance bill is shaping up as a real-world test of the new cohabitation between the Palace and the chamber.