Bassirou Diomaye Faye, a leftwing pan-Africanist has been sworn in as Senegal’s youngest president after sweeping to a first-round election victory on a pledge of radical reforms 10 days after he was released from prison.
The 44-year-old has never before held an elected office but several African leaders attended the ceremony in the new town of Diamniadio, near the capital, Dakar.
“Before God and the Senegalese nation, I swear to faithfully fulfil the office of president of the Republic of Senegal,” Faye said before the gathered officials. He also vowed to “scrupulously observe the provisions of the constitution and the laws” and to defend “the integrity of the territory and national independence, and to spare no effort to achieve African unity”.
The formal handover of power with the outgoing president, Macky Sall, will take place at the presidential palace in Dakar later on Tuesday.
Faye was one of a group of opposition politicians freed from prison 10 days before the 24 March presidential ballot under an amnesty announced by Sall, who had tried to delay the vote. Faye’s campaign was launched while he was still in detention.
The former tax inspector has become the West African state’s fifth president since independence from France in 1960 and the first openly to admit to having a polygamous marriage.