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Momodou
Denmark
11516 Posts |
 Posted - 26 Mar 2024 : 11:15:32
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Bassirou Diomaye Faye elected Senegal’s president
The Point, Mar 26, 2024
https://thepoint.gm/africa/gambia/headlines/bassirou-diomaye-faye-elected-senegals-president
Bassirou Diomaye Faye, 44, a replacement for opposition leader Ousmane Sonko who was excluded from the presidential race in January this year, has been elected as the 5th president of Senegal.
The co-founder of the opposition Pastef party secured 57.4 % of the votes cast, according to latest results by RFM. He was released from prison along with Sonko on 14March 2024.
The ruling party candidateAmadou Ba finished second with 31.9% of the votes cast.
Other presidential candidates such as Khalifa Babacarr Sall got 3.8%, Alieu Mamadou Dia 2.5% and ALY Ngouille Ndiaye 1.3%.
Anta Babacar Ngom, Boubacar Camara, Déthié Fall, Daouda Ndiaye, Mame Boye Diao, Mouhamed Boun Abdallah Dionne, Aliou Mamadou Dia, Malick Gackou, Mamadou Lamine Diallo, Serigne Mboup, Pape Djibril Falland Thierno Allassane Sall all got 0%.
Two candidates (Habib SY and Cheikh Tijan Dieye) withdrew two days before the elections. Mouhamed Boun Abdallah Dionne who stood as an independent candidate did not vote. He got sick and was flown to Paris for medical check-upon the same day.
Diomaye was born on 25 March 1980 at Ndiaganio, 115 kms from Dakar. He was a tax inspector and former secretary general of PASTEF. He is married with two wives - Marie Khone Faye and Absa Faye. He has three girls and one boy with his first wife.
When the results were announced on Sunday, it was raining in some parts of Dakar.
President-elect Faye will assume office on 2nd April 2024.
Factors or reasons that led to Senegalese voting for change include the high cost of living due to rising prices of commodities and rent, lack of job opportunities, migration - which has claimed thousands of lives, corruption and financial malpractices by government officials, especially around COVID funds.
The new authorities are expected to renegotiate all agreement deals in their gas and petrol sector when they start operations at the end of December this year, official sources said.
They have been implored to improve security and intensify the fight against smuggling illicit drugs and timber trafficking.
In the wake of the preliminary results of the presidential election in Senegal, Amadou Ba, Sall’s preferred successor, called and congratulated President-elect Bassirou Diomaye Faye on his victory.
Ba also expressed sincere wishes for the new president, inviting him to exercise his functions with energy and determination to meet the expectations of the Senegalese people. “I pray to the Almighty to grant him the energy and strength necessary to assume this high office as the head of our country,” added Amadou Ba.
Ba also expressed hopes for the better for Senegal under the leadership of Bassirou Diomaye Faye. “I wish him great success and for the well-being of the Senegalese people,” he said.
Other candidates in the election congratulated Faye on his victory.
Senegal election result: Bassirou Diomaye Faye to become Africa's youngest elected president
By Natasha Booty,
BBC News
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-68656967
Few had heard of him a year ago, and now he is set to become president.
Bassirou Diomaye Faye's extraordinary rise caps a rollercoaster period in Senegalese politics that caught many off-guard.
Months in jail alongside ally and kingmaker Ousmane Sonko ended suddenly, with the pair released the week before the presidential election.
Now Mr Clean, as he's nicknamed, must get to work on the sweeping reforms he has promised.
"Methodical" and "modest" are words often used to describe the tax collector, who celebrates his 44th birthday on Monday.
Mr Faye fondly recalls his rural upbringing in Ndiaganiao, where he says he returns every Sunday to work the land.
His love and respect for village life is matched by his deep distrust of Senegal's elites and establishment politics.
"He's never been a minister and wasn't a statesman so critics question his lack of experience," analyst Alioune Tine tells the BBC.
"But, from Faye's point of view, the insiders who've run the country since 1960 have made some catastrophic failures."
Fighting poverty, injustice and corruption are top of Mr Faye's agenda. While working at the Treasury, he and Mr Sonko created a union taskforce to tackle graft.
Gas, oil, fishing and defence deals must all be renegotiated to better serve the Senegalese people, says Mr Faye.
He is ushering in an era of "sovereignty" and "rupture" as opposed to more of the same, he told voters, and that is especially true of ties to France.
Senegal's president-elect says he will drop the much-criticised CFA franc currency, which is pegged to the euro and backed by former colonial power France.
Mr Faye wants to replace it with a new Senegalese, or regional West African, currency, although this will not be easy.
"He will have to deal with the reality of the budget to begin with... But I see that he has a lot of ambition," former Prime Minister Aminata Touré, who served under outgoing President Macky Sall, tells the BBC.
Source: BBC
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Senegal New President: Bassirou Diomaye Faye elect
