According to a decree read on public television on Tuesday evening, former rival Ousmane Sonko was appointed as Senegal’s prime minister by new President Basirou Diomay Faye, who was sworn in during the day.
Leftist Pan-Africanist Basirou Dimaye Faye appointed Ousmane Sonko as prime minister on Tuesday, April 2, becoming Senegal’s fifth president, pledging “orderly change”, sovereignty and appeasement, according to a decree. the presidency
“Mr Osman Sonko has been appointed Prime Minister”, indicated the decree read by the Secretary General of the Presidency of the Republic, Omar Samba Ba, on public television (RTS).
“I measure the importance of the trust that he (President Faye) has placed in my person,” RTS Osman declared on Sonko, 49, who proposed Basirou Diomey Faye’s candidacy after his invalidation. He announced the formation of a new government “in the coming hours”.
Hours earlier, new President Faye, 44, confident in his words and appearance in a blue suit and tie, was sworn in at the demonstration center in front of hundreds of Senegalese officials and several heads of state and African leaders. In the new town of Diamniadio, near Dakar.
Then he returned to the capital, a horse guard opening the way for his car procession among hundreds of Dakar residents, who came to greet him on the roads leading to the gates of the presidential palace. There, his predecessor Mackie Sale, after a brief and cordial greeting, symbolically handed him the key to the presidential seat before walking through the door in the opposite direction.
Basirou Diomei Faye, who had never been elected before, became the youngest president of a West African country since independence in 1960, less than three weeks after being released from prison.
After three years of tension and crisis ahead of the final election in 2024, his arrival at the end of an express campaign was “almost a miracle”, Constitutional Council President Mamadou Badiou Kamara said before he was sworn in.
Raising his right hand, Bassirou Diomaye Faye swore, “before God and before the nation of Senegal, to faithfully fulfill the office of President of the Republic of Senegal.”
breaking a promise
In a brief speech, Basirou Diomey Faye said he “knew” that his landslide victory in the first round of presidential elections on March 24 expressed a “deep desire for systematic change”. “Under my leadership Senegal will be a country of hope, a peaceful country with independent justice and a strong democracy,” he said.
Bassirou Diomaye Faye succeeded Mackie Sale, 62, for five years, who led the country of 18 million inhabitants for 12 years and maintained strong ties with the West and France while diversifying partnerships. The past three years have been marked by unrest, which has led to dozens of deaths and hundreds of arrests.
The promise of a breakthrough, the anointing of the popular Osman Abhishek, who was on the front row on Tuesday, and the apparent humility of this personality from a modest and educated background gave him a resounding victory with 54.28% of the votes. .
Basirou Diomaye Faye, a senior tax administration official who has discreetly shadowed Osman Sonko, has listed cost-of-living reductions, the fight against corruption and national reconciliation among his priorities.
Basirou Diomei Faye’s program outlines his intention to exit the CFA franc, renegotiate or reconsider contracts with foreign companies for oil and gas exploitation, as well as mining and fishing contracts starting this year.
Political and social fronts
Basirou Diomei Faye, a practicing Muslim, married to two women present at his inauguration and father of four, embodies a new generation of politicians.
An admirer of former American President Barack Obama and South African hero of the anti-apartheid struggle Nelson Mandela, he calls himself a “leftist” Pan-Africanist.
He wants to work to return, to the community of West African states ECOWAS, Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, the Sahelian countries facing jihadism and led by juntas that have broken with France and turned to Russia. Rebels from Mali, Burkina Faso and Guinea sent their representatives to Diamanteau, including Guinean President General Mamady Doumboya.
The head of the Burkinabé military regime, Captain Ibrahim Traure, congratulated Basirou Diomey Faye, “the symbol of a new era for an unrestricted, free and sovereign Africa”. He said at X that he was ready to work with them on “renewing sub-regional and international cooperation”.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres welcomed the inauguration as “testimony to the fight of Senegalese for the right to vote”, said his spokesman Stephane Dujarric.
Brought to power by a desire for change, Basirou Diaumey Fayé is particularly focused on employment, in a country where 75% of the population is under 35 and where the unemployment rate is officially 20%, forcing young people to flee. undertakes a perilous journey to poverty and Europe.
with AFP
