The president of Senegal dismisses the Government before the February 2024 elections

Dakar, Oct 7 (EFE).- The president of Senegal, Macky Sall, has dismissed the Government ministers and has reappointed Amadou Ba as prime minister of a new Executive before the presidential elections scheduled for February 2024. according to a statement from the Presidency published late on Friday.

“The President of the Republic, His Excellency Mr. Macky Sall, has put an end, by decree of October 6, 2023, to the functions of the ministers who are members of the Government,” states the official note, without explaining the cause of the remodeling. .

“At the same time, the President of the Republic decided to form a new Government, under the leadership of Prime Minister Amadou Ba,” the statement said, adding that Sall thanked the outgoing ministers “for their commitment and the notable work carried out.”

The outgoing ministers were appointed on September 17, 2022, following the appointment of Amadou Ba as prime minister on the same day.

Sall made the decision a few months before the presidential elections that Senegal plans to hold on February 25, 2024.

The president, who gave up running for a controversial third term in the 2024 elections, last month named Amadou Ba as a candidate for the ruling coalition Benno Bokk Yaakaar (United for Hope, in the Wolof language).

Ba, 62, is a member of Sall’s party, the Alliance for the Republic and, apart from holding the head of the Government, he served in the past as Minister of Foreign Affairs and Economy and Finance.

After months of controversy, uncertainty and political tension in Senegal, on July 3, Sall – in power since 2012 – officially confirmed that he would not seek a third term in the next presidential elections, considered illegal by his detractors.

The uncertainty about the president’s possible candidacy caused an increase in political tension, aggravated by the parallel prosecution of the opposition leader Ousmane Sonko, who was sentenced on June 1 to two years in prison.

The verdict against Sonko, which could prevent his participation in the presidential elections, generated violent protests in which 16 people died, according to the Government, a figure that the organization Amnesty International (AI) raised to 23.

Sonko has denounced the “instrumentalization” of justice through the “power of Macky Sall” in order to rule him out as a presidential candidate.