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The President of Senegal, Bassirou Diomaye Faye, has sacked the country’s prime minister, Ousmane Sonko.
According to a statement read on Friday by Oumar Samba Ba, secretary general of the Senegalese president’s office, Faye’s decision dissolved the government and dismissed all ministers.
“The members of the outgoing government are responsible for handling current affairs,” Ba said.
The rift between Faye and Sonko, who were once allies before becoming rivals, has reportedly been widening for months.
Sonko, regarded as a charismatic political figure with a large youth following, supported Faye in the 2024 election after he was barred from contesting the election due to a defamation conviction.
After the announcement on Friday, Sonko wrote in a social media post, “Tonight I will sleep with a light heart in the Keur Gorgui neighbourhood”.
According to Reuters, Sonko had signalled a possible split in March.
He said he would be willing to withdraw his Pastef party from the government and return to the opposition if Faye departed from the party’s agenda, fuelling speculation about an irreconcilable power struggle between the two men.
The political split comes as the West African country faces mounting economic pressure.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) froze its $1.8 billion lending programme to Senegal following the discovery of misreported debt, which led the institution to estimate the country’s end-2024 debt level at 132% of its economic output.
Sonko strongly opposed restructuring Senegal’s debt, estimated at $13 billion, in November 2025.
He argued that the IMF was pushing for the restructuring.
