Published on : 17/09/2022 – 16:58
For the first time since 2019, Senegal has a prime minister once more. Amadou Ba was appointed on Saturday by President Macky Sall, more than a month following legislative elections in which the presidential camp came in slightly ahead.
More than a month later the legislative, the Senegal gets a prime minister. President Macky Sall on Saturday September 17 appointed a new Prime Minister, a post he had abolished in 2019 then restored in December 2021, then waiting for the local and legislative elections to be passed to make his choice.
Amadou Ba, former Minister to the Head of State, was appointed by presidential decree in a country very divided politically, five days following a parliamentary return marked by a series of incidents and completed under the guard of the gendarmes.
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Faced with rising prices, the new head of government, former Minister of Finance from 2013 to 2019, and of Foreign Affairs between 2019 and 2020, will be responsible for carrying out “broad consultations” and taking “new measures” on the social plan, said Friday evening Macky Sall in an address to the nation broadcast on national television.
purchasing power
“Measures to reduce the cost of living and support employment and entrepreneurship for young people, the fight once morest floods and high rents will remain for me the priority of priorities”, declared the head of the Senegalese State.
These priorities were recalled by the new Prime Minister in his first speech following the reading of the decree by the Secretary General of the Presidency.
Supposed to make the functioning of the state more fluid, the abolition of the post of Prime Minister in May 2019 had established a new balance between the powers by reinforcing the presidential character of the Senegalese regime.
At that time, the opposition and part of civil society had denounced the abolition of this post as an attempt by President Sall to seize power.
Strong man
Nearly three and a half years later, Macky Sall is still criticized by the opposition for his solitary conduct of power. She also lends him the project of running for a third term in 2024.
President Sall, elected in 2012 for seven years and re-elected in 2019 for five years, still remains vague regarding his intentions for 2024.
On Friday, a concert to be held on Saturday and organized by civil society associations for the limitation of mandates in Africa was banned by the authorities because of “risks of unrest”, triggering a wave of indignation on social networks.
The presidential camp in Senegal came in slightly ahead following the July 31 legislative elections. He had kept an absolute majority in the National Assembly thanks to the rallying of an opposition deputy, despite a sharp drop in the number of his elected parliamentarians.
Macky Sall also fell out with a figure of his clan, the head of the list of his coalition in the last legislative elections, the former Prime Minister Aminata Mimi Touré, who was not chosen Monday to take the presidency of Parliament and denounces since “an injustice”.
With AFP
