The Senegalese president, Bassirou Diomaye Faye, took a decisive step on Saturday, July 25, at Dakar, by officially launching KIIRAAY – Les Patriotes Républicains, his own party vehicle. The announcement was made during an assembly general constitutive held in a hotel in the capital, consecrating the political emancipation of the head of state from the African Party for Independence, Work, Ethics and Fraternity (PASTEF), which had brought him to power in March 2024. The new party is set up under the motto "La Patrie d'abord", displaying an early positioning centered on national sovereignty and institutional solidity.
A Break with Ousmane Sonko
The birth of KIIRAAY comes on the backdrop of public dissensions between Bassirou Diomaye Faye and his former mentor, Ousmane Sonko, who remains at the head of PASTEF and Prime Minister. Long-time presented as two complementary faces of a single wave of rupture, the two men have seen their trajectories diverge over the past few months, until this organizational separation is now taken effect. For the president, having a party structure of his own means getting out of a political dependence that has become uncomfortable and equipping himself with an apparatus aligned with his presidential arbitrage.
The symbolic choice is not insignificant. In Wolof, the term kiiraay refers to protection, a register that contrasts with the PASTEF’s posture of frontal contestation. Where the old party cultivated the rhetoric of sovereignty through rupture, the new formation intends to articulate patriotism, republicanism, and institutional stability. This semantic shift translates a repositioning of the head of state towards an institutional center of gravity as he consolidates his power.
A Patriotist and Republican Position
The party’s agenda puts emphasis on defending national interest, strengthening republican institutions, and solidifying the rule of law. These axes, mentioned during the assembly constitutive, outline a project less protestatory and more focused on state management. The formula "Les Patriotes Républicains" seeks to reconcile two registers: attachment to sovereignty, a marker of the Faye-Sonko camp since the 2022 legislative elections, and fidelity to republican norms, an address to administrative, economic, and diplomatic elites.
This framework is not neutral in its impact on international partners. Since his arrival at the presidency, Bassirou Diomaye Faye has multiplied signs of openness towards donors and investors, while continuing to renegotiate certain strategic contracts in hydrocarbons and mines. The creation of a party explicitly centered on institutions aims to reassure on the predictability of public action, in a context where Dakar seeks to preserve its access to financial markets and its relation with the International Monetary Fund.
The Recomposition of Seneagal’s Political Landscape
The emergence of KIIRAAY reconfigures power dynamics. PASTEF, now without presidential backing, retains significant militant anchorage but loses the symbolic lever of the palace. Opposition parties, from the Democratic Party to the structures inherited by the Benno Bokk Yaakaar coalition, must recalibrate their strategy in face of a president-majority party equipped with its own partisan column. The question remains as to what part of PASTEF’s apparatus, particularly among elected deputies in November 2024, will migrate towards the new structure.
The political calendar reinforces the challenge. The upcoming local elections and the preparation for the 2029 presidential election will be the first major tests for KIIRAAY. The party must rapidly demonstrate its ability to structure a territorial network, formulate a distinct programmatic offer, and mobilize beyond the inherited militant base of the 2024 campaign. Concretely, the battle will also take place on the control of resources, administrative networks, and regional economic networks.
For Bassirou Diomaye Faye, the equation politics moves from the terrain of personal loyalty to that of institutional construction of a presidential force. According to Financial Afrik, this step opens a new phase in Senegalese politics.