Amadou Ba, the ruling coalition’s candidate for the presidential elections

With our correspondent in Dakar. Leah Lisa Westerhoff

The person chosen as the best of the eleven candidates, Amadou Ba, finally won the race to succeed President Macky Sall.

He is the only candidate of the Banu Bok Yakar coalition, the president announced in a message read out from the presidency, as he was this Saturday afternoon with all party representatives in his coalition.

Amadou Ba, 62, is a technocrat. Senegalese had seen him as the natural heir to Macky Sall as head of government since September 2022.

Natural runner-up also since this Tabaski celebration, where, for the first time, the outgoing head of state was not present, represented precisely by his prime minister, many saw this as a sign.

Mr. Ba is very close to the president. He was Minister of Finance, but also Minister of Foreign Affairs, which gave him a certain international prestige.

But it also splits within Macky Sall’s party, the Alliance for the Republic. He was particularly criticized for not being a partisan activist from the start.

So, it remains to be seen how the Bino Bok Yakar coalition, made up of very different parties, will survive this announcement. Some members, such as the Socialists, have already said they want to have their own candidate for 2024.

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