Senegal’s new president Faye vows ‘systemic change’, names firebrand opposition leader Sonko as PM

Only hours after being sworn in as Senegal’s president on Tuesday (2 April), Bassirou Diomaye Faye named popular opposition figure Ousmane Sonko as the nation’s prime minister.
At 44, former tax inspector Bassirou Diomaye Faye is Senegal’s youngest president ever elected. During his campaign, he vowed to fight corruption, promised to renegotiate oil, gas and mineral contracts with foreign companies and also pledged systemic change after years of deadly turmoil — the decision to chose his mentor, opposition figure Ousmane Sonko, as prime minister, should be seen in this context. Faye took the presidential oath in front of hundreds of officials and a dozen African heads of state, including Nigerian President Bola Tinubu, Ghanaian President Nana Akufo-Addo and African Union Commission Chair Moussa Faki Mahamat.
Despite having never previously held an elected office, Faye swept to a first-round victory on a promise of radical reform just 10 days after being released from prison. Faye and Sonko were among a group of opposition politicians freed from prison only days before the 24 March presidential vote under an amnesty announced by former president Macky Sall, who had tried to delay the vote. “I have painful memories of the martyrs of Senegalese democracy, the amputees, the wounded and the former prisoners,” Faye said, referring to the past three years of bouts of deadly political unrest triggered by a stand-off between the state and the 49-year-old Sonko. “The results of the election showed a profound desire for change,” Faye said after taking the oath of office. He promised “systemic change,” adding that he believed voters expressed an “aspiration for greater sovereignty, development and well-being.”