Imprisoned Senegalese opposition leader Ousmane Sonko has ended the hunger strike he started mid-October, political allies who visited him have said.
Sonko, who maintains that his long-running legal battles are an attempt to block him from the 2024 presidential race, was hospitalised at the end of October after losing consciousness, according to his lawyers.
He is now “in excellent shape” and good spirits, members of his opposition camp said.
Sonko’s hunger strike is over “for the time being,” MP Guy Marius Sagna told AFP in a message.
Habib Sy, a member of Sonko’s political coalition, also confirmed the end of the strike in a Facebook post.
Senegal’s Supreme Court dealt a fresh blow to Sonko’s presidential ambitions last week, sending the question of whether the opposition figure can be included in the 2024 electoral rolls to a retrial.
Last month, a court in Ziguinchor, the southern city where Sonko is mayor, cancelled his removal from the electoral roll, but the state appealed the ruling.
The top court did not specify a retrial date, possibly derailing Sonko’s presidential bid, as he faces a race against time to obtain and submit the necessary sponsorship papers.
His PASTEF party has bolstered their number two politician, Bassirou Diomaye Fay, as a possible alternate, though he is also jailed.
The party has spread a campaign slogan saying that “to sponsor Diomaye is to sponsor Sonko”, though Sagna said there was no change of course.
“Sonko remains our one and only candidate,” he said.
The 49-year-old political thorn in President Macky Sall’s side has faced a series of legal woes over the past two and a half years.
He was convicted in absentia on June 1 of morally corrupting a young person and sentenced to two years in prison, which set off the deadliest unrest Senegal has seen in years.
In July, he was arrested on other charges, including fomenting insurrection, criminally associating with a terrorist body and endangering state security.
He has periodically been on hunger strikes since then.
He is particularly popular among Senegalese under 20 years old, who make up half the population, striking a chord with his pan-Africanist rhetoric and tough stance on former colonial power France.