Do we like them?

Do we like Ousmane Sonko?

Our score: 2 out of 10. He defended a law doubling prison terms for same-sex acts, and the whistleblower story is the only real good we could verify.

Sonko is a former tax inspector who became Senegal's anti-establishment hero. He founded the PASTEF party in 2014, and in 2019 he became the youngest person to run for president, finishing third. His following among disaffected young people got the nickname Sonkomania, with an anti-corruption, pan-African, anti-colonial message.

The formative moment came when he was fired from the tax service after accusing a high-ranking official of fraud. That whistleblower story is the foundation of his outsider appeal, and it did cost him his job. It's the one genuinely good-person mark on the record we could verify.

In 2023 a Senegalese court gave him a two-month suspended sentence and a 200 million CFA franc fine for defaming the tourism minister, Mame Mbaye Niang. He wasn't at the hearing, and he and his supporters said the judiciary was being used to eliminate him politically. That conviction later barred him from the 2024 race, so he backed Faye, who won.

Now the harm check, and this is where he loses us. In May 2026 he defended Senegal's new anti-gay laws to the National Assembly. The laws double the maximum sentence for same-sex acts from five to 10 years and criminalise financing same-sex relationships and the so-called glorification of them. Sonko said there is “a kind of tyranny”, accusing the West of trying to impose homosexuality.

The UN human rights chief, Volker Türk, called the law deeply worrying and warned it exposes people to hate crimes and arbitrary arrests, and Human Rights Watch urged its repeal. Reports said arrests of gay men in Dakar rose, including 12 men in February. Supporters see a sovereignty fight against Western pressure, but for LGBTQ+ people it's just a harsher law, and it's the policy Sonko stood behind.

The recent drama is a falling-out between two old allies. Sonko complained his party was left out of the consultations on the new PM, saying “you cannot have Pastef without Pastef.” Analysts see 2029 presidential ambitions behind it, though that's their read, not his stated plan. It's a power fight, not a values one, so it doesn't change the harm verdict either way.