Senegal's President announces new cabinet, leaves out PASTEF members

Senegal’s President Bassirou Faye has named a new cabinet. This comes less than two weeks after he fired his former ally, Ousmane Sonko, and dissolved the government.

The new cabinet, which has 30 members, was revealed on Monday during a live broadcast. This happened an hour after Mr Sonko, the ousted prime minister, said his party, PASTEF, would leave the new government.

PREMIUM TIMES reports that Mr Sonko made this announcement on Monday. He said PASTEF will no longer take part in the government and that no minister from the party will be involved. Shortly after, Mr Faye announced his new cabinet members, none of whom are from PASTEF, according to Bloomberg.

Mr Sonko shared on X that he met with Mr Faye. He said “points of disagreement” came up over PASTEF’s role, even though the party has a large majority in parliament.

“As a result, PASTEF will not participate in the next government and will not be represented there by any minister. We will return to this with more detailed information. We wish every success to the new team,” he wrote.

This paper reports on the latest developments from the political rift between these former allies. This rift further weakens the country’s ability to handle its debt crisis.

In 2024, the IMF stopped its $1.8 billion lending program to Senegal after officials found out about previously misreported debt figures. This suspension raised the country’s debt burden to 132 percent of GDP by the end of 2024.

The tension originally came from a growing power struggle for control of the government. There were also disagreements over economic policy and IMF negotiations.

Mr Sonko felt that President Faye was moving away from the party’s original agenda. He had even threatened to pull PASTEF out of government and return to the opposition.

A few days after Mr Sonko was dismissed, Mr Faye appointed Ahmadou Al Aminou Lo as the new prime minister. Lo is an economist and a former banker at the Central Bank of West African States.

Meanwhile, Mr Sonko was elected as the speaker of the parliament just four days after his dismissal. This paper reported on his election, which occurred hours after he was reinstated as a lawmaker and appointed as the deputy speaker.

Mr Sonko was elected president of the National Assembly with 132 out of 133 votes cast. This victory was made possible by the ruling PASTEF party’s strong majority in parliament.

The former parliament speaker, El Malick Ndiaye, stepped down to allow Mr Sonko’s election.