Senegalese President Bassirou Diomaye Faye \u200bsaid the ruling party is on a path that could lead to its downfall \u200cbut that the party’s leader, Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko, will remain in his post if he keeps “doing his job properly”.<\/p>\n
Faye’s comments, aired on state television late Saturday, come amid persistent speculation that the two men’s political alliance is on \u200bthe rocks and as the West African country faces growing economic challenges linked to debt \u200band the fallout from the Iran war.<\/p>\n
Sonko was a popular opposition figure under the previous \u2060administration. He was barred from running in the 2024 presidential election due to a legal conviction and \u200bchose little-known Faye, a longtime aide and member of the Pastef party, as his replacement candidate. Faye then \u200bappointed Sonko as prime minister. Since then, signs of dissension have begun to appear between the two men.<\/p>\n
In\u00a0March, Sonko said he was willing to take his party out of the government and return to opposition if Faye broke with \u200bPastef’s vision. \u201cIf Pastef\u2019s supporters do not change course, the party risks collapsing,” Faye said on Saturday, adding \u200bthat the party garnered broad support because Senegalese people backed its ideals rather than any individual’s personal ambitions.<\/p>\n
He also \u200cnoted \u2060that he had the right to appoint and dismiss his prime minister. “As long as (Sonko) remains prime minister, it’s because he is doing his job properly, and I am satisfied with that. However, the day I am no longer satisfied, I will put Senegal’s interests first,” he said.<\/p>\n
CHALLENGES FROM DEBT, IRAN WAR<\/strong><\/p>\n The International \u200bMonetary Fund froze Senegal’s $1.8 \u200bbillion programme in 2024 \u2060after the government uncovered misreported debts by the previous administration.<\/p>\n Sonko said in\u00a0November\u00a0that the IMF had proposed a debt restructuring, which he said Senegal would not \u200baccept. Talks to negotiate a new programme have made\u00a0scant visible progress.<\/p>\n Faye said on \u200bSaturday that Senegal’s \u2060economy was faring well without IMF support but the war in Iran could be a drag on growth. \u201cWe had projected our growth based on an oil price of $64.5 per barrel.<\/p>\n When the price rises to $119 \u2060per barrel, \u200bour growth forecasts are revised downward,” he said. “The resources that \u200bwere initially intended for investment are eventually redirected toward supplying the country with petroleum products, which delays the investments we had planned \u200bfor this year.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Senegalese President Bassirou Diomaye Faye \u200bsaid the ruling party is on a path that could lead to its downfall \u200cbut that the party’s leader, Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko, will remain in his post if he keeps “doing his job properly”. Faye’s comments, aired on state television late Saturday, come amid persistent speculation that the two […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20772,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"video","meta":{"iawp_total_views":3,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":null,"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,2362,3,33,27],"tags":[1758,1203,283],"class_list":["post-20769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-video","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","category-featured","category-interview","category-politics","category-west-africa","tag-bassirou-diomaye-faye","tag-ousmane-sonko","tag-senegal","post_format-post-format-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20769"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20769\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20770,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20769\/revisions\/20770"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}