During a vote on the justice ministry’s budget presentation in Senegal’s parliament, one female MP and the lawmakers exchanged blows on a tossed chair.
One of the male lawmakers slapped a female MP who ended up being deeply heated in the face. This was televised and the footage went viral on social media.
Amidst the budget presentation, opposition MP Massata Samb struck Amy Ndiaye Gniby of the ruling Benno Bokk Yakaar coalition.
Before another lawmaker dragged the female Mp to the floor, Gniby hit back, throwing a chair back in Samb’s direction. The session was in due course suspended as MPs continued to exchange blows with mob insults.
Restlessness has grown recently between ruling and opposition politicians. A July legislative election saw the ruling party lose its comfortable majority, damaged partly by fears that President Macky Sall will seek a third term in 2024.
While addressing the assembly on Thursday about the saga of Gniby made criticising remarks on a spiritual leader opposed to a third Sall term during the weekend.
“Mister President, a deputy has stood in front of this tribune to insult someone’s marabout spiritual leader,” said Samb.
However, Uganda has also experienced this that is to say the “Togikwatako” saga in 2017 where lawmakers brawled in Uganda’s parliament for a second day running on over a fiercely disputed move to change the constitution to let long-ruling President Yoweri Museveni run for re-election after age 75.
In conclusion, the violent brawl that broke out in Senegal’s parliament reminds us of the Uganda parliament blow exchange after 25 opposition members of the parliament on n 27th September 2017. In this governments must keep a keen eye on constitutional reforms however as the MPs should also act their age accordingly.
