Senegal

Former PM creates new party

Article published on the 2008-12-02 Latest update 2008-12-02 16:34 TU

Sall launches his APR party
(Photo : AFP)

Former Senegalese Prime Minister Macky Sall launched his own political party in Dakar on Tuesday, the Alliance for the Yaakaar Republic. Yaakaar in Wolof, Senegal's primary language, means 'hope'. The party has a name, a slogan and even a logo containing 15 stars - for the 14 regions of the country and one for the diaspora - around a horse's head - a sign of endurance.

Sall told RFI that the party "will work to give back the nobility to politics."

The party plans to distribute membership cards this week, while gearing up for a constitutional congress.

Yaakaar will be on the ballot for the first time during the upcoming March local elections.

Sall said that his new party would not be an extension of Senegalese Democratic Party (PDS), to which he previously belonged.

Yaakaar "is a party open to all outlooks, open to civil society," he said.

Sall was fired from his position as the assembly president on 9 November after deputies adopted a resolution sacking him after 17 months in office.

In October, President Abdoulaye Wade passed a constitutional law cutting the mandates of the presidents of the two chambers of parliment from five years to one year. The law was applied retroactively.

Sall had summoned the president's son, Karim, to appear before the National Assembly to explain the management of building contracts by an Islamic agency which Karim Wade heads.

The Senegalese press reported his sacking, which Sall denounced as the product of a "plot" against him, as the end of the career of a pretender to the presidential throne.