2024-04-05 22:47:00
Three days after the inauguration of Bassirou Diomaye Faye, the country’s fifth president, Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko made his government team public. It is made up of 25 ministers and five secretaries of state.
Published on: 06/04/2024 – 00:47
2 mn
With our correspondent in Dakar, Léa-Lisa Westerhoff
This is a tight team. With twenty-five ministers, they are almost 10 fewer than the last government under Macky Sall. In introduction, the Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko promised a disruptive government.
Among the sovereign ministries, only two portfolios are occupied by important members of the president’s party. In Foreign Affairs, Yassine Fall, vice-president of Pastef, responsible for international relations. She is also one of the rare women, four in all, in this very masculine government. And then at the Ministry of Energy, Oil and Mines, another important position with oil exploitation which will start, Birhame Souley Diop, one of the co-founders of the Pastef les patriotes party, and campaign director of Bassirou Diomaye Faye.
Thirteen Pastef executives in all inherit ministerial portfolios such as El Malick Ndiaye, appointed to Infrastructure and Transport, or the government spokesperson, Amadou Moustapha Ndiak Saré: Minister of Vocational Training, and one of the founders of the party.
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For the rest of the sovereign ministries, a desire for openness. With the Justice, it is the prosecutor of the Supreme Court, Ousmane Diagne who was appointed. A former public prosecutor, he has a solid and serious reputation.
Two soldiers in the government
For Defense, the former Chief of General Staff of the Armed Forces, General Birhame Diop takes the portfolio of Minister of the Armed Forces. More surprisingly, at the Interior, a general was also appointed, General Jean-Baptise Tine, former high commander of the national gendarmerie, therefore an apolitical personality.
Two generals in the same government is unprecedented in Senegal. Professor of political sociology Alassane Ndao sees this as a sign of rupture and a desire for openness, to integrate into this government and in particularly strategic positions personalities deemed neutral to reassure the opposition and civil society, according to him.
But others, on the contrary, are worried about the weight of the military within this team. And speak of a “ government of prudence » with certainly varied profiles and some experts, but also executives from the Pastef party and therefore loyal lieutenants within it and some figures of continuity.
Like Mustapha Guirassy, appointed Minister of National Education. He was in charge of communications under Abdoulaye Wade. Or even Seigne Gueye Diop, in charge of Industry and Trade, former Minister-Advisor of Industry under Macky Sall.
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For the rest, many personalities from civil society little known to the general public. We will see if for the Senegalese, this team will be perceived as the government of unity and proximity that Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko promised them when appointing his team.
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