When Power Erases the Memory of Its Own Birth (Sonko vs. Diomaye)
Bassirou Diomaye Faye’s government excludes Pastef members despite a massive parliamentary majority, breaking the movement that brought him to power. Critics see this as narrative perjury—a betrayal of his promise and identity, erasing collective memory in favor of figures from the old system.
Keeping one's promise means maintaining oneself where the temptation would be to evade. Diomaye has evaded. Not in the face of his adversaries, but in the face of himself.
The Workers of Oblivion: There are figures that sum up an era. 130 against zero is one of them. One hundred and thirty Pastef deputies out of one hundred and sixty-five, an overwhelming, historic parliamentary majority, unprecedented in the modern political history of Senegal. And yet zero ministers from that same movement in the government just formed by President Bassirou Diomaye Faye. Zero. The number does not lie. It does not plead. It states with the implacable coldness of facts that need no comment to be scandalous.
Political scientists will see a tactical reshuffle. Activists will see a betrayal. Paul Ricœur, for his part, would read something even more serious: a man at odds with himself.
Any complex political situation—and the one we are experiencing is such—carries within it several simultaneously legitimate readings. This is one of the fundamental teachings of hermeneutic philosophy, which makes it an irreplaceable tool in the face of power ruptures.
First reading, that of the demos.
Is Bassirou Diomaye Faye’s exclusion of Pastef from his government a strategic betrayal of the movement’s revolutionary promise, or a necessary sacrifice for broader national unity—and what does this say about the recurring tension between loyalty and governance across African liberation movements?