The Killing of the Father: Sonko vs. Diomaye
The article analyzes the political "parricide" of Ousmane Sonko by President Diomaye Faye, arguing Faye cannot inherit Sonko's popular charisma. After dismissing Sonko as prime minister, Sonko was elected President of the National Assembly, illustrating that the symbolic father rises again, leaving the son truly alone.
This, perhaps, is the true curse of political parricide: the father dies institutionally, but rises again symbolically. And the son who thought he was freeing himself finds himself, for the first time, truly alone.
From Parricide Foretold to Its Accomplishment — Reflections on the Faye–Sonko Rupture
On May 22, 2026, a presidential decree ended the duties of Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko. For anyone who had read the signs, the act came as no surprise. It was the logical culmination of a dynamic that some — including the author of these lines — had tried to name in these very columns: institutional parricide. This text is its sequel — not an indictment, but a political autopsy.
A few months ago, I wrote in these same columns that the Faye–Sonko relationship carried within it the seeds of an institutional parricide. I used the word then with the caution of the metaphor-maker — one who names a structure without prejudging its outcome. That outcome has now arrived, and it calls for a rereading.
If political heirs often become haunted by the very figures they overthrow, how can African movements truly break cycles of authoritarian legacy without falling into symbolic reincarnation?