Senegal President Macky Sall appointed Amadou Ba as the first prime minister of the West African nation in three years after abolishing the role in 2019.
Ba, who served as Sall’s finance minister before he was appointed foreign minister in 2019, he will lead a new cabinet set to be appointed later on Saturday, Oumar Samba Ba, secretary general at the presidency, said this in the capital Dakar.
The move follows parliamentary elections that Sall’s ruling coalition narrowly won, while losing its absolute majority in parliament. The vote was widely seen as a test of the president’s popularity.
Sall, 60, has faced political unrest in the last 18 months, partly fueled by uncertainty over whether he intends to run for a third term when his mandate expires in 2024. While the Senegalese constitution allows only two terms, Sall, who was elected for seven years in 2012 and re-elected for five years in 2019, has been vague when asked whether he’s considering staying on.
