Follow us on social

Senegal Faye

‘Peacemaker’ Faye wins snap Senegal elections

The popular president has taken a different approach, tasked with warming relations with neighboring junta leaders

Analysis | QiOSK

The Patriotes africains du Sénégal pour le travail, l'éthique et la fraternité (PASTEF) party — the party of Senegalese president Bassirou Diomaye Faye — won handily in Sunday’s parliamentary snap elections, giving the president a strong mandate with which to govern.

Faye, 44, was inaugurated president of Senegal on April 2, only a few weeks after being released from prison following a sentence he served for "spreading false news, contempt of court, and defamation of a constituted body" for a social media post he made questioning injustice within the country’s judicial system.

Since taking office, Faye has set forth an ambitious agenda and has sought to make Senegal a power within West Africa, a region that has struggled in recent years with the spread of armed group violence and numerous coups that have toppled governments.

Faye has taken a lead in efforts to warm relations between Senegal and the junta-led countries of Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger. All three of these states have experienced coups in recent years and have since left the West African regional body of economic and political integration, ECOWAS.

Faye has been one of the few heads of state in Africa that has visited Burkina Faso and Mali in an effort to mend ties with the junta leaders. He was also named by ECOWAS as its special envoy tasked with warming relations between these three states and the regional bloc.

Rather than holding a more traditional perspective — that economic and political seclusion caused by isolating the junta governments will force them to reinstitute a constitutional democracy — Faye has operated under the realist belief that it’s better to take the governments of these states as they are, and work with them to try to solve mutual concerns.

In other words, engaging with them rather than isolating them, Faye believes, is more likely to bring them back into the diplomatic fold, which will lead to greater political and economic cooperation.

Faye’s ambitions extend beyond regional diplomacy. Among Faye’s most ambitious proposals is a 25-year plan to improve the country’s justice system and political and economic sovereignty, which he argues has been infringed upon by Western economic and political players.

Senegal 2050, as the plan is known, lays out goals for the country to meet over the next quarter century, including massively reducing inequality, connecting its natural resources to the global economy, building sustained industry in Senegal, and diversifying the economic makeup of the country.

Among the plan’s central components is an effort to move past Western dependency. Faye’s Minister of the Economy has been critical of past Senegalese regimes’ willingness to strike foreign debt agreements, which he blames for the country’s current economic strife and inability to break past a suffocating cycle of debt repayment. Senegal’s debt-to-GDP ratio stands at 84%, significantly higher than the sub-Sarahan average of 59%.

American policymakers should not ignore Faye’s arguments or brush off his goals as unrealistic. It would be in Washington’s interest to look beyond traditional lending and aid programs, and instead invest in long-term investment projects, as requested by Senegal, that raise the standard of living for private citizens across the region. By creating long-term job opportunities in down-stream employment sectors based in Africa, the United States can become a stronger partner to Senegal and other African countries.

Doing so would also benefit Americans, as the U.S. private sector would be able to access new markets and do business in places currently beyond its reach.

Faye has also announced that his administration will move forward with the Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP) program that the EU and a group of wealthy, western countries (known as the International Partners Group (IPG)) announced in 2023. This $2.7 billion plan is aimed at funneling public and private money as well as technical support from these wealthy countries to Senegal in an effort to transition the Senegalese energy sector away from fossil fuels and towards renewable energy options.

Senegal is in the process of working out the details of this multi-billion dollar plan with the IPG, which is expected to be finalized sometime in December.

Winning a sweeping parliamentary majority will afford Faye the ability to move forward on these ambitious goals.

In many ways, Faye represents the future of Africa. He is a young and forward-looking leader who was carried into power on the shoulders of those ready for African states to seize their economic potential and move past traditional relations with Western states rooted in security, lending, and aid. Political and economic sovereignty is the throughline tying together Faye’s foreign policy objectives.


Top image credit: A supporter holds a campaign poster depicting Senegal's President Bassirou Diomaye Faye and Prime Minister and the head of the ruling Pastef party, Ousmane Sonko, during Sonko's campaign rally for the upcoming early legislative election, in Guediawaye on the outskirts of Dakar, Senegal, November 13, 2024. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra
Analysis | QiOSK
Trump signals death knell of two-state solution
Top photo credit: Hebron, Palestine, November 7 2010. Israeli IDF soldiers check Palestinian woman at military check point by the Abraham mosque in old town of Hebron (Shutterstock/dom zara)

Trump signals death knell of two-state solution

QiOSK

For the first time, a U.S. president has dispensed with even the pretense of supporting a two-state solution.

President Trump’s latest remarks — proposing the forced displacement of Palestinians to Jordan, Egypt, and other Arab nations — should not just be noted as another inflammatory statement. They are the final nail in the coffin of a policy Washington has long claimed to uphold. His words make clear the two-state solution is dead, and Palestinian displacement isn’t a byproduct of American policy — it’s the goal.

keep readingShow less
U.s._area_reconnaissance_patrol_syria_2021-scaled
Top photo credit: U.S. Soldiers conduct area reconnaissance in the Central Command (CENTCOM) area of responsibility in Syria, Feb. 18, 2021. (U.S. Army photo by Spc. Jensen Guillory)

If true, Trump move to withdraw US military from Syria is the right one

QiOSK

Statements from unnamed DoD officials suggest that President Donald Trump is planning to withdraw U.S. troops from Northeast Syria.

ISIS is largely degraded and regional states have pledged to carry on the fight, Bashar al-Assad’s regime is gone, diplomatic outreach to the new leadership in Damascus is underway, and Iran’s proxy forces have taken a severe beating while losing unfettered access to the Mediterranean via Syria. There’s little reason why U.S. troops should remain in Syria.

keep readingShow less
North Korean soldiers in Russia: Were they ever there?
Top photo credit: Photos published by Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Jan 11, 2025 shows oen of two North Korean military personnel reportedly captured by Ukraine forces in the Kursk region. (Ukraine Military handout via EYEPRESS)

North Korean soldiers in Russia: Were they ever there?

Europe

We still don’t know for sure if there are North Korean troops fighting in Russia against Ukrainian forces. Perhaps we never will. But Ukraine’s case for their presence was not made stronger by the sudden announcement on January 30 that they were gone.

Reports of North Korean troops joining Russia in the fight to expel Ukrainian forces from the Kursk region of Russia emerged in October. The U.S. State Department called their presence “a major escalation by Russia.” NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte called it a "significant escalation."

keep readingShow less

Trump transition

Latest

Newsletter

Subscribe now to our weekly round-up and don't miss a beat with your favorite RS contributors and reporters, as well as staff analysis, opinion, and news promoting a positive, non-partisan vision of U.S. foreign policy.