{"id":38255,"date":"2023-05-08T18:29:00","date_gmt":"2023-05-08T18:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/senegal-appeals-court-hands\/"},"modified":"2023-05-08T18:32:03","modified_gmt":"2023-05-08T18:32:03","slug":"senegal-opposition-leaders-presidential","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/senegal-opposition-leaders-presidential\/","title":{"rendered":"Senegal opposition leader&#8217;s presidential bid in doubt after appeal court ruling"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>DAKAR (Reuters) -The presidential bid of popular Senegalese opposition politician Ousmane Sonko was thrown into doubt on Monday after a court of appeal handed him a heavier suspended sentence in a libel case. <\/p>\n<p>Boubacar Ciss\u00e9, a lawyer involved in the case, said Sonko&#8217;s suspended prison sentence in the case involving the tourism minister, whom Ciss\u00e9 represents, had been extended to six months.<\/p>\n<p>In March, Sonko had received a two-month suspended sentence, a ruling that still allowed him to compete for the presidency in next year&#8217;s election. <\/p>\n<p>If he does not successfully challenge the new sentence, it will likely preclude him from the race under the electoral code on candidates&#8217; eligibility, said Moussa Diaw, senior lecturer in political science at Gaston Berger University\u00a0in the Senegalese city of Saint Louis.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If this sentence is final, there is a good chance that his candidacy will be inadmissible,&#8221; Diaw said. &#8220;This could seriously sully the political dialogue.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Sonko&#8217;s lawyers declined immediate comment. He has six days to file an appeal with the Supreme Court. <\/p>\n<p>The earlier lighter sentence was interpreted as an apparent effort by authorities to defuse a long-running stand-off with Sonko&#8217;s supporters, who have repeatedly taken to the streets to denounce what they say is a politically motivated campaign.<\/p>\n<p> (Reporting by Ngouda Dione and Diadie BaWriting by Alessandra PrenticeEditing by Mark Potter)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/senegal-appeals-court-hands\/senegal-opposition-leader-indicted-and-released-on-bail-in-dakar\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportWorldNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ470KH-VIEWIMAGE.jpg\" alt=\"tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ470KH-VIEWIMAGE\"><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>DAKAR (Reuters) -The presidential bid of popular Senegalese opposition politician Ousmane Sonko was thrown into doubt on Monday after a court of appeal handed him a heavier suspended sentence in a libel case. Boubacar Ciss\u00e9, a lawyer involved in the case, said Sonko&#8217;s suspended prison sentence in the case involving the tourism minister, whom Ciss\u00e9 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":38256,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1222],"tags":[1223],"class_list":["post-38255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-u-s-world-news","tag-updated"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportWorldNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ470KH-VIEWIMAGE.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38255"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38255\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38312,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38255\/revisions\/38312"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}