A fresh institutional showdown is brewing in Senegal. On Thursday, October 1, 2026, the National Assembly led by Ousmane Sonko bypassed the government’s amendments on the special funds reform, despite the use of a blocked vote. The text, an organic law, now heads to the Constitutional Council, where President Bassirou Diomaye Faye’s camp might once again secure a victory.

The organic bill No. 38/2026, which modifies the Organic Law on Finance Laws (LOLF), was debated in Thursday’s plenary. Its stated goal is to enhance budget transparency and regulate the management of special funds, often criticized as the presidency’s “slush fund.”

This is the second attempt. An initial effort was struck down by the Constitutional Council on August 25, 2026, in decision No. 7/C/2026. The judges then reminded that the status of public credits falls exclusively under the organic law. Pastef lawmakers thus returned with the correct legal vehicle, but the substance of the disagreement with the Executive remains unchanged.

The government defends the president’s “social role”

Before the deputies, Minister of Justice and Keeper of the Seals Me Moussa Sarr presented the government’s position. While claiming to share the transparency goal, the Executive proposed deep adjustments.

The first disagreement concerns the nature of special funds. The bill sought to make them a distinct category, reserved for defense, security, and diplomacy missions. The government opposes this. According to it, such a restriction would ignore the social character of the Republic enshrined in Article 1 of the Constitution. In its view, the head of state must be able to mobilize these resources for national solidarity actions in the face of humanitarian emergencies.

Through Amendment No. 2, the Executive proposed reintegrating these expenses into the overall allocation of constitutional institutions, as provided in Article 14 of the LOLF. Me Moussa Sarr invoked Directive No. 06/2009/CM/UEMOA, which sets a limitative list of budget allocations. Isolating special funds would, according to him, create a legal vacuum by failing to designate their authorizing officer.

The second point of friction concerns the deputies’ oversight powers under Article 70. Through Amendment No. 3, the government sought to limit the Finance Commission’s monitoring to the current annual management. It thus removed the possibility for the Assembly to control the use of credits at the end of each budget year. For the Keeper of the Seals, such a prerogative would encroach on the exclusive competences of the Court of Auditors.

The Executive also wanted any request for a minister’s hearing by deputies to be mandatorily transmitted to the President of the Republic, in accordance with the Assembly’s Rules of Procedure.

Heading to the Constitutional Council

To lock down the text, the government deployed the blocked vote. Me Moussa Sarr requested the application of Article 82, paragraph 4, of the Constitution and Article 87 of the Rules of Procedure, which impose a single vote on the text with only the amendments retained by the government. “The government does not see transparency as a constraint, but as a lever for consolidating the rule of law,” he argued, presenting the blocked vote as a tool provided by the Constitution to ensure the coherence of texts.

The Pastef majority did not follow. The deputies rejected all of the Executive’s proposals to maintain their own version of the text. The disagreement between the Palace and the Hemicycle is now complete.

The outcome of this standoff will be decided before the judges. An organic law can only be promulgated after being declared constitutional by the Constitutional Council, seized by the President of the Republic. The text voted by the majority must therefore pass through this filter.

The government will then have several arguments: compliance with UEMOA directives, the competences of the Court of Auditors, and the regularity of the procedure, after the rejection of a blocked vote that is nonetheless provided for by the Constitution. These are all points on which the judges will have to rule.