Foreign

Senegal election result: Bassirou Diomaye Faye to become Africa’s youngest president

Published

6 months ago

March 26, 2024

Naijablitz

“Politics never crossed my mind,” says the tax collector and husband to two wives

Few had heard of him a year ago, and now he is set to become president.

Bassirou Diomaye Faye’s extraordinary rise caps a rollercoaster period in Senegalese politics that caught many off-guard.

Months in jail alongside ally and kingmaker Ousmane Sonko ended suddenly, with the pair released the week before the presidential election.

Now Mr Clean, as he’s nicknamed, must get to work on the sweeping reforms he has promised.

“Methodical” and “modest” are words often used to describe the tax collector, who celebrates his 44th birthday on Monday.

Mr Faye fondly recalls his rural upbringing in Ndiaganiao, where he says he returns every Sunday to work the land.

His love and respect for village life is matched by his deep distrust of Senegal’s elites and establishment politics.

“He’s never been a minister and wasn’t a statesman so critics question his lack of experience,” analyst Alioune Tine tells the BBC.

“But, from Faye’s point of view, the insiders who’ve run the country since 1960 have made some catastrophic failures.”

Fighting poverty, injustice and corruption are top of Mr Faye’s agenda. While working at the Treasury, he and Mr Sonko created a union taskforce to tackle graft.

Gas, oil, fishing and defence deals must all be negotiated to better serve the Senegalese people, says Mr Faye.

He is ushering in an era of “sovereignty” and “rupture” as opposed to more of the same, he told voters, and that is especially true of ties to France.

Senegal’s president-elect says he will drop the much-criticised CFA franc currency, which is pegged to the euro and backed by former colonial power France.

Mr Faye wants to replace it with a new Senegalese, or regional West African, currency, although this will not be easy.

“He will have to deal with the reality of the budget to begin with… But I see that he has a lot of ambition,” former Prime Minister Aminata Touré, who served under outgoing President Macky Sall, tells the BBC.

Strengthening judicial independence and creating jobs for Senegal’s large young population are also key priorities for Mr Faye – neither of which “President Sall paid much attention to and it caught up with him”, Ms Touré adds.

She is not the only political heavyweight to have thrown her support behind the 44-year-old – former President Abdoulaye Wade did the same just two days before Sunday’s vote.

It is a remarkable turnaround for Mr Faye who spent the last 11 months in prison on charges of insurrection, and many more years before that in his ally’s shadow.

‘Bassirou is me’

Bassirou Diomaye Faye was announced in February as the so-called “Plan B” candidate, replacing the charismatic opposition firebrand Ousmane Sonko. “I would even say that he has more integrity than me,” Mr Sonko said proudly.

Both men founded the now-disbanded Pastef party, both men are tax collectors, and both men found themselves jailed last year on charges they said were politically motivated.

Mr Sonko ended up being convicted of two offences, which meant he was barred from the election, so Mr Faye stepped in.

“Bassirou is me,” Mr Sonko told supporters recently. “They are two sides of the same coin,” Pastef colleague Moustapha Sarré agrees.

This has led to criticism that Mr Faye is merely “president by default”.

Not so, says analyst Mr Tine. But the pair’s relationship could usher in a new style of leadership.

“Maybe they will establish a tandem and break away from the hyper-presidential model of having an all-powerful head of state.

“Sonko is of course the uncontested leader of Pastef – an icon, even… [But] the two have had a [dynamic of] complicity and collusion.”

Once upon a time, Mr Faye wanted nothing to do with politics. “It never crossed my mind,” he said in 2019 while recalling his childhood.

One of Mr Faye’s heroes is the late Senegalese historian Cheikh Anta Diop – whose work is seen as a precursor to Afrocentrism. Both are seen as left-wing cheerleaders for pan-Africanism.

As early results came in on Monday showing Mr Faye was set for victory, people in the capital, Dakar, celebrated by honking car horns and singing to loud music.

The reaction from international markets was less jubilant, with Senegal’s dollar bonds falling to their lowest level in five months. Reuters news agency reports that investors are concerned Mr Faye’s presidency may wind down the country’s business-friendly policies.

The election was originally due last month but Mr Sall postponed it just hours before campaigning was set to begin, triggering deadly opposition protests and a democratic crisis.

Most candidates had very little time to prepare once the new election date was set – but Mr Faye had just over a week after being freed from jail.

Despite the shortened campaign period, Senegal’s citizens were adamant they would turn out and use their vote, Christopher Fomunyoh – of the National Democratic Institute for international affairs – told BBC Newsday.

“Senegal is in the process of confirming that democracies can self-correct and come out stronger and more resilient.”

And the true test for Senegal’s clean-up guy has only just begun.

Foreign

Sales of US existing homes slip slightly in August

Published

11 hours ago

September 19, 2024

Austin Ojomah

By Francesca Hangeior

Sales of previously owned US homes fell in August, according to industry data released Thursday, but lower mortgage rates and growing supply were likely to boost the industry.

Existing home sales dropped 2.5 percent last month from July to an annual rate of 3.86 million, seasonally adjusted, said the National Association of Realtors (NAR).

This was largely in line with the 3.90 million consensus that analysts expected.

“Home sales were disappointing again in August, but the recent development of lower mortgage rates coupled with increasing inventory is a powerful combination that will provide the environment for sales to move higher in future months,” said NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun.

Homebuyers in the United States have been grappling with a sharp rise in mortgage rates after the US central bank rapidly lifted the benchmark lending rate in 2022 to tackle inflation.

But with growing expectations that the Federal Reserve was going to pivot to rate cuts after holding rates at a decades-high level for months, mortgage rates have also shifted lower.

The popular 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 6.2 percent as of September 12, according to mortgage finance firm Freddie Mac — reaching the lowest level since February 2023.

A year ago, the rate was around 7.2 percent.

On Wednesday, the Fed kicked off a process of easing monetary policy with a bold half-percentage-point rate reduction, adding to expectations that mortgage rates would fall further.

“Existing home sales fell to a 10-month low in August, but forward looking indicators like mortgage applications point to a pickup in sales in September and October,” said economist Nancy Vanden Houten of Oxford Economics.

But Oliver Allen of Pantheon Macroeconomics cautioned that a mortgage rate of six percent remains “well above the average rate of about four percent on the stock of existing mortgages.”

“So moving home and taking out a new mortgage still requires a prohibitive jump in monthly payments for most current homeowners,” he said in a note.

“As such, a constrained supply of existing homes for sale will continue to hold back sales,” Allen added.

Compared with a year ago, NAR data showed that existing home sales were 4.2 percent down in August.

The median price increased 3.1 percent from August 2023 to $416,700, with all four US regions seeing price jumps.

Yun told a media call on Thursday that although home sales are struggling, home prices remained high.

Foreign

Meta shuts down Russia’s State-media accounts

Published

24 hours ago

September 19, 2024

Kayode Sanni-Arewa

Facebook parent company Meta is banning RT and other Russian state media networks from its platforms over claims they carried out covert operations to influence social media users.

The ban, which was announced on Monday, will globally block the accounts from Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp and Threads users over the coming days.

“After careful consideration, we expanded our ongoing enforcement against Russian state media outlets,” said Meta, which already restricted activity from the accounts.

“Rossiya Segodnya, RT and other related entities are now banned from our apps globally for foreign interference activity.”

Rossiya Segodnya runs news brands including Sputnik and Russian news agency RIA Novosti.

RT had responded to Sky News agency that Meta “censoring information flow to the rest of the world”

“Don’t worry, where they close a door, and then a window, our ‘partisans’ (or in your parlance, guerrilla fighters) will find the cracks to crawl through,” their spokesperson said.

“It’s cute how there’s a competition in the West – who can try to spank RT the hardest, in order to make themselves look better,” they added.

The Kremlin said Meta was “discrediting itself” by banning the networks from its platforms.

Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “Such selective actions against Russian media are unacceptable.”

He added the move complicated prospects for Moscow normalising relations with the company.

The ban comes after the United States filed money-laundering charges earlier this month against two RT employees for what officials said was a scheme to hire an American company to produce online content to influence the 2024 election.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Friday that countries should treat the activities of Russian state broadcaster RT as they do covert intelligence operations.

“We’re exposing how Russia deploys similar tactics around the world,” Mr Blinken said.

“Russian weaponisation of disinformation to subvert and polarise free and open societies extends to every part of the world.”

In July, the US Department of Justice shut down nearly 1,000 social media bot accounts it said were created to spread Russian disinformation in the US.

It linked the accounts to RT, a state-owned broadcaster, accusing one of their senior employees of creating the bot farm which was used to “advance the mission of the FSB and the Russian government”.

When the media company was asked for a response to those allegations, RT replied: “Farming is a beloved pastime for millions of Russians.”

Foreign

Kamala Harris reacts to Trump’s assassination attempt; Says, ‘I am glad he is safe’

Published

3 days ago

September 17, 2024

Kayode Sanni-Arewa

Following the second assassination attempt of Former President Donald Trump in the Florida golf course ahead of the US Presidential elections, US Vice President Kamala Harris stated,‘ I am glad he is safe’. The shooting took place at Trump’s golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida. After the news broke out, Kamala Harris shared a post on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter) and said there is no place for violence in America.

“I have been briefed on reports of gunshots fired near former President Trump and his property in Florida, and I am glad he is safe. Violence has no place in America,” she wrote on X (formerly Twitter).

I have been briefed on reports of gunshots fired near former President Trump and his property in Florida, and I am glad he is safe. Violence has no place in America.
— Vice President Kamala Harris (@VP) September 15, 2024

According to the White House, both the Vice President Kamala Harris and President Joe Biden have been informed about the security incident of the Former President when he was golfing on Sunday and are both “relieved to know” that Donald Trump is safe, reported CNN.

“The President and Vice President have been briefed about the security incident at the Trump International Golf Course, where former President Trump was golfing. They are relieved to know that he is safe. They will be kept regularly updated by their team,” stated the White House.

Meanwhile, the suspect involved in Sunday’s shooting incident at Trump’s Florida Golf Course has been taken into custody, CNN reported, citing a Facebook post from the Martin County Sheriff’s Office in Florida.

Meanwhile, a suspect, who, according to the officials, is connected to Sunday’s shooting incident at Trump’s Florida Golf Course, has been taken into custody, CNN reported, citing a Facebook post from the Martin County Sheriff’s Office in Florida.

The sheriff’s office “has stopped a vehicle and taken a suspect into custody,” the post said. According to the office, a portion of Interstate 95 close to State Route 714 in Martin County is closed. Trump is “safe following gunshots in his vicinity,” the Trump Campaign said in a statement on Sunday, CNN reported.