THE speaker of Senegal’s parliament resigned on Sunday amid the deepening political crisis in the west African country.

El Malick Ndiaye’s resignation came two days after his close ally Ousmane Sonko was fired as the country’s prime minister.

The move clears the way for the sacked premier to run for the speaker’s role, where his Pastef party holds a strong majority, in a challenge to President Bassirou Diomaye Faye.

A full session of parliament has been called for this morning to both reinstate Mr Sonko as an MP and to vote for a new speaker.

Mr Faye owed his presidency in large part to Mr Sonko, who would almost certainly have taken the top job had he not been barred from running in the last presidential election due to a conviction for defamation.

But in recent months tensions between the two have grown. Mr Sonko had become vocal in his criticism of his former protege, accusing the president of a “failure of leadership” for not backing him against his critics.

He has also regularly denounced what he said was the slow pace of legal action for corruption against senior figures in the previous government of former president Macky Sall.