Gambiaj.com – (DAKAR, Senegal) – Ousmane Sonko has suffered another institutional setback after the Constitutional Council rejected a parliamentary initiative aimed at regulating the president’s special funds in the latest episode of an increasingly visible struggle over the boundaries between Senegal’s executive and legislative powers.
The decision, handed down on Tuesday, August 25, declared inadmissible the bill on the legal regime governing special appropriations, commonly referred to as political funds or “caisses noires.” The bill had been adopted by the National Assembly, where Sonko’s Pastef holds a dominant majority, and was intended to establish rules governing the use and control of funds attached to the presidency.
The Council’s ruling effectively blocked the latest attempt by the Sonko-controlled Parliament to impose legislative rules on an area that the constitutional framework places outside the ordinary law-making domain.
The government had challenged the bill before the Constitutional Council on August 18, arguing that several of its provisions belonged either to the domain of organic finance legislation or to the regulatory powers of the executive. The Council ultimately agreed with the government’s position.
Another boundary set for Sonko
The ruling is particularly significant because it comes against the backdrop of the political rupture between President Bassirou Diomaye Faye and Sonko, his former prime minister and political ally who is now president of the National Assembly.
Since their break-up, the two men have increasingly found themselves on opposite sides of an institutional struggle over who controls the levers of power.
The latest dispute centers on special appropriations managed at the presidential level. The parliamentary initiative sought to define their legal regime and establish rules for their execution, justification, and control.
But the Constitutional Council stressed that the ordinary legislature cannot simply create a new legal regime for such credits where the Constitution and the organic law on finance allocate the relevant powers elsewhere.
It also found that rules concerning the engagement, liquidation, ordering, payment, justification, and control of the credits fall within the regulatory domain.
In other words, the Assembly’s political majority does not give it unlimited authority to legislate on matters falling within the constitutional prerogatives of the executive.
A second major setback in less than two months
The decision is the second major constitutional blow to the Sonko-aligned parliamentary majority in less than two months.
On July 9, the Constitutional Council invalidated Law No. 18/2026 on constitutional revision, which had been adopted by the National Assembly on June 29.
That reform sought to alter the existing institutional balance by strengthening Parliament and increasing legislative control over the executive. The Constitutional Council, however, found procedural violations, including the creation of public charges without compensating revenues and the rejection of a government request for a blocked vote. It consequently declared the law contrary to the Constitution.
The July ruling was already seen as an important check on an Assembly majority determined to expand its institutional influence at a time when relations between Sonko and Faye had deteriorated sharply.
The latest decision reinforces that message.
The limits of parliamentary power
The two rulings do not mean that Parliament has no authority to scrutinize the executive. The National Assembly retains significant constitutional powers, including legislative authority and mechanisms for holding the government politically accountable.
But the Council’s decisions underscore a fundamental principle: parliamentary power has constitutional limits, just as presidential power does.
That distinction has become increasingly important since Sonko moved from the executive branch to the leadership of the legislature.
As prime minister, Sonko was himself part of the executive and operated within the authority of the presidency. As speaker of the National Assembly, he now commands a powerful parliamentary majority capable of exerting substantial pressure on the government.
The emerging confrontation, therefore, raises a broader question about whether the Assembly is being used to create a new balance of power, or to transfer executive prerogatives into the legislative sphere.
The Constitutional Council has now twice intervened to draw a line.
Sonko’s political power remains intact
The setbacks, however, should not be interpreted as the collapse of Sonko’s political influence.
His position at the head of the National Assembly remains powerful, while Pastef continues to control the parliamentary majority. The Assembly retains important instruments for scrutinizing government action and can exert considerable political pressure on Prime Minister Ahmadou Al Aminou Lô’s government.
But the constitutional decisions demonstrate that political dominance inside Parliament cannot automatically translate into authority over every area of government.
The latest ruling is therefore less about the disappearance of Sonko’s power than about the limits of that power.
It also leaves the Faye-Sonko rivalry increasingly defined by institutional checks rather than political rhetoric alone.
A struggle bigger than special funds
The dispute over special appropriations is consequently only the latest chapter in a much larger confrontation.
The July constitutional reform sought to reshape the distribution of powers between the executive and legislature. The August initiative sought to regulate a sensitive area of presidential financial authority. Both have now encountered constitutional barriers.
The rulings reinforce the position of the presidency, and President Faye, at a time when his relationship with Sonko has deteriorated from political partnership to open institutional rivalry.
For Sonko, they represent a warning that control of the National Assembly does not amount to control of the executive, and that attempts to extend parliamentary authority into constitutionally protected areas can be stopped by the country’s highest constitutional institution.
The immediate consequence is another victory for the constitutional separation of powers.
But the deeper question remains whether Faye and Sonko can eventually establish a workable institutional relationship or whether their rivalry will continue to produce repeated clashes between the presidential palace and an Assembly controlled by the former prime minister.
For now, the Constitutional Council has made its position increasingly clear: the National Assembly may challenge, scrutinize, and legislate within its constitutional mandate, but it cannot cross into powers reserved for the executive.
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