Senegal’s President Bassirou Diomaye Faye fires prime minister after years of tensions

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — Senegal’s President Bassirou Diomaye Faye has fired Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko after years of simmering tension.

The decision was announced by the secretary general of the government, Oumar Samba Ba, during a late-night broadcast on Friday.

The firing caps a period of open confrontation between the two former allies from the Patriotes Africains du Sénégal pour le Travail, l’Éthique et la Fraternité (Pastef) party who had defeated the former ruling party.

Ba said the sacking of the prime minister led to the resignation of all the members of the government and its dissolution.

The Pastef party had ridden into office after a fierce campaign mounted against the then-ruling party Alliance pour la République following widespread speculation that former President Macky Sall used a 2016 constitutional change to revise his term in office. Sall, who led the country between 2012 and 2024, eventually did not contest the election and his party lost.

Sonko, who heads the Pastef party, was barred for running after a defamation conviction was upheld by Senegal’s supreme court and the Constitutional Court dismissed his candidacy. Faye ran instead of Sonko.

“Praise be to Allah. Tonight I will sleep with a light heart in the Keur Gorgui neighborhood,” Sonko wrote in a short post on X after his dismissal.