Senegal’s budget: can Ousmane Sonko afford to block Bassirou Diomaye Faye’s 2026 plan?

Ousmane Sonko now leads Senegal’s National Assembly, and with that role come real powers over the 2026 rectified finance bill. The question is simple but loaded: can he actually block Bassirou Diomaye Faye’s budget, and at what cost to the country?

Bassirou Diomaye Faye says he is certain the Pastef majority will pass the 2026 rectified finance law. But inside the National Assembly, Ousmane Sonko holds genuine levers to slow, reshape, or even bring down the text. The real issue is what the Constitution allows each side to do, and what price each would pay.

The head of state has no doubt about the outcome. For Bassirou Diomaye Faye, Ousmane Sonko, as Assembly president and Pastef leader with a large majority in the chamber, will have no choice but to join his deputies in approving the rectified finance bill in the interest of Senegalese citizens facing hard times. That assurance also sounds like a warning to the man who served as his prime minister for two years.

The context has shifted dramatically. On 22 May 2026, a presidential decree ended Ousmane Sonko’s functions at the Primature and those of 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 rectified finance law is now their first battleground.

The text arrives in a tense climate. After the agreement reached with the International Monetary Fund, which still needs approval from its board, the government prepared this rectified finance bill. Ousmane Sonko publicly demanded clarifications on the deal’s content and on debt treatment. After weeks of controversy over how the file was transmitted, the Assembly confirmed it had duly received the 2026 rectified finance bill on Friday 18 September 2026, along with the president’s transmission letter and the presentation decree.

The vote: a first weapon for an overwhelming majority

On paper, nothing forces deputies to adopt a finance bill. The Constitution gives the National Assembly sole power to vote laws and oversee government action. With 130 of 165 seats won in the November 2024 legislative elections, Pastef alone can reject the text in plenary session without any ally. It is the most direct route, but also the most politically risky: a frontal refusal would make Sonko’s party responsible for a potential public finance blockage in the middle of IMF negotiations.

The head of state cannot count on defections to flip the balance either. Article 60 of the Constitution states 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 Diomaye Président coalition’s room to maneuver inside the chamber.

Between adoption and rejection, deputies have a third, subtler path. Article 82 strictly frames their amendment rights on budgetary matters: no additional article or amendment to a finance bill is admissible unless it aims to delete or effectively reduce an expense, or to create or increase a revenue. In other words, the majority cannot inflate credits, but it can cut spending planned by the government. That is a way to deeply rewrite the executive’s trade-offs, especially those tied to IMF commitments, without a plain rejection.

The government still has a counter. The same Article 82 lets it request a single vote on all or part of the text, keeping only the amendments it proposed or accepted. This procedure forces deputies to decide in one block, bringing them back to the original dilemma: adopt the text as the executive wants, or own its rejection.

Playing for time: a double-edged strategy

Leading the Assembly gives Ousmane Sonko real influence over the work calendar. But Article 84 sharply limits the chance to bury the text: priority inscription of a bill on the agenda is a right as soon as the president or prime minister requests it.

Above all, time works against obstruction. Article 68 sets a maximum of sixty days for the Assembly to vote finance bills. If the text is not definitively passed by that deadline, it enters into force by decree, taking into account amendments voted by deputies and accepted by the president. With the bill registered on 18 September, that deadline falls around 17 November 2026. Dragging out the review would therefore hand Diomaye Faye the option to promulgate his budget without parliamentary approval.

A grey area remains, however. The Constitution explicitly covers a text “not voted” within the deadline, but is silent on a formal rejection in session. Whether decree use remains open after an explicit negative vote could end up before the Constitutional Council, which Article 74 allows one-tenth of deputies to refer.

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

That is where Pastef’s majority regains full power. A censure motion only needs one-tenth of deputies’ signatures to be admissible, and 83 votes to pass. Pastef holds far more than that threshold. If Ahmadou Al Aminou Lô’s government chose this route, Sonko’s deputies could not only sink the budget but also topple the government. A formidable weapon, but one heavy with consequences, since it would open a governmental crisis just weeks before the date when the president regains his dissolution power.

2 December: the deadline that defines the balance of forces

This is the other key element of the standoff. Article 87 allows the president to dissolve the National Assembly after consulting the prime minister and the Assembly president, but bans 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 the date had not yet arrived.

The calendar thus draws a tight sequence. The sixty-day deadline to vote the rectified finance law expires in mid-November, just days before the head of state can send deputies back to 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 have the constitutional means to block or rewrite Bassirou Diomaye Faye’s budget, through rejection, reduction amendments, or censure. But each option exposes him to a high political cost, against an executive that keeps the Article 68 decree, the Article 86 responsibility engagement, and soon the Article 87 dissolution in hand. More than a legal question, the 2026 rectified finance law review is shaping up as a full-scale test of the new cohabitation between the Palais and the chamber.

By Claire Mvondo — Security and State Policy Expert