Senegal’s Bassirou Diomaye Faye Is Sworn In as New President
- Bassirou Diomaye Faye wants to renegotiate oil and gas deals
- At 44, Faye is Africa’s youngest democratically elected leader
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Opposition leader Bassirou Diomaye Faye was sworn in as Senegal’s president, becoming Africa’s youngest elected leader less than three weeks after he was released from prison to run in last month’s election.
Faye won by a landslide against the ruling party candidate, former Prime Minister Amadou Ba, in a vote that pivoted on the frustration of Senegalese youth over a lack of jobs and poor governance in one of the world’s fastest-growing economies. About a fifth of the population is unemployed and more than a third of the nation’s 18 million inhabitants live in poverty, according to official data.