Prime Minister of Senegal
What was the position of Macky Sall from Apr 2004 to Jun 2007?
Macky Sall Macky Sall ( born 11 December 1961 ) is a Senegalese politician who has been President of Senegal since April 2012 . He was re-elected President in the first round voting in February 2019 Senegalese presidential election . Under President Abdoulaye Wade , Sall was Prime Minister of Senegal from July 2004 to June 2007 and President of the National Assembly from June 2007 to November 2008 . He was the Mayor of Fatick from 2002 to 2008 and held that post again from 2009 to 2012 . Sall was a long-time member of the Senegalese Democratic Party ( PDS ) . After coming into conflict with Wade , he was removed from his post as President of the National Assembly in November 2008 ; he consequently founded his own party named APR , and joined the opposition . Placing second in the first round of the 2012 presidential election , he won the backing of other opposition candidates and prevailed over Wade in the second round of voting , held on 25 March 2012 . He is the first president born after Senegalese independence from France . Early life . Sall was one of five children born to Amadou Abdoul Sall , who was a state worker and then a caretaker and Coumba Thimbo , a peanut seller . He was raised in Fatick and Futa Tooro , as well as Mboro from age 2–5 . Salls father was a member of the Socialist Party of Senegal ( PS ) , but , at the high school in Kaolack , Sall associated with the Maoists at the encouragement of his brother-in-law . During his studies at the University of Dakar he was involved in the Marxist-Leninist movement , And-Jëf , led by Landing Savané . He soon left And-Jëf , since he did not share the ideas of the movement or Savanés use a boycott strategy against the PS in the 1983 election , in which Sall voted for the liberal Abdoulaye Wade , as he did again in 1988 . Sall was trained as a geological engineer at the Institute of Earth Sciences ( IST ) of the University of Dakar and then at the French Institute of Petroleum ( IFP ) s National College of Petrol and Engines ( ENSPM ) in Paris . He is a member of multiple national and international associations of geologists and geological engineers . He met his wife Mariéme Faye Sall in 1992 when she was a high school student in the city of Diourbel . Early political career . Sall joined Wades Senegalese Democratic Party ( PDS ) in the late 1980s . He became Secretary-General of the PDS Regional Convention in Fatick in 1998 and served as the PDS National Secretary in charge of Mines and Industry . He was actively involved in the Sopi campaign which brought Wade to power in the 2000 Senegalese presidential election . He was Special Advisor for Energy and Mines to President Abdoulaye Wade from 6 April 2000 to 12 May 2003 , as well as Director-General of the Petroleum Company of Senegal ( Société des Pétroles du Sénégal , PETROSEN ) from 13 December 2000 to 5 July 2001 . He became Minister of Mines , Energy and Hydraulics on 12 May 2001 , replacing Abdoulaye Bathily who had been appointed Vice-President of the National Assembly . Sall was promoted to the rank of Minister of State , while retaining his portfolio , on 6 November 2002 . He additionally became the Mayor of Fatick on 1 June 2002 . On 27 August 2003 , Sall was moved from his position as Minister of State for Mines , Energy and Hydraulics to that of Minister of State for the Interior and Local Communities , while also becoming Government Spokesman . Premiership . On 21 April 2004 , Macky Sall was appointed Prime Minister by President Wade , after Wade dismissed his predecessor , Idrissa Seck . On 25 April 2004 , Sall became Vice-President of the PDS Steering Committee . Although Sall was little known at the time of his appointment , he made a strong impression in his maiden address on general policy . Sall served as the director of Wades re-election campaign for the February 2007 presidential election , in which Wade was victorious , obtaining a majority in the first round . After Wade was sworn in , Sall submitted his resignation on 10 April and was immediately reappointed , with the government unchanged . Sall remained Prime Minister until 19 June 2007 , making him the longest-serving of Wades prime ministers . During his tenure he set in motion several presidential policies which had been neglected by his predecessor , including the Corniche de Dakar motorway and the construction of the Blaise Diagne International Airport . President of the National Assembly . In the June 2007 parliamentary election , Sall was elected to the National Assembly as a candidate on the national list of the Coalition . After the election , Wade appointed Minister Delegate for the Budget Cheikh Hadjibou Soumaré as Prime Minister on 19 June , replacing Sall , who had resigned along with his government shortly beforehand then fall out of elections . Sall said that he was proud of what he had accomplished as Prime Minister . Sall was not elected as President of the National Assembly one day later , on 20 June 2007 ; he was the only candidate and received 143 votes from the 146 deputies present . Sall and Wade came into conflict later in 2007 when Sall called Wades son Karim , the President of the National Agency of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference ( OIC ) , for a hearing in the National Assembly regarding construction sites in Dakar for the OIC Summit planned to take place there in March 2008 . This was perceived as an attempt by Sall to weaken Karims position and possibly influence the eventual presidential succession in favor of himself , provoking the enmity of Wade and his loyalists within the PDS . In November 2007 , the PDS Steering Committee abolished Salls position of Deputy Secretary-General , which had been the second most powerful position in the party , and it decided to submit a bill to the National Assembly that would reduce the term of the President of the National Assembly from five years to one year . Following the death of Mourides religious leader Serigne Saliou Mbacké in late December 2007 , his successor , Serigne Mouhamadou Lamine Bara Mbacké , asked Wade to forgive Sall ; Wade then met with Sall and the two were said to have made peace in early January 2008 . Sall nevertheless remained at odds with the PDS leadership in 2008 . In September 2008 , a PDS deputy presented the bill to reduce the term of the President of the National Assembly to one year , and later in the month , Sall was called before the PDS Disciplinary Committee , although he did not appear . On this occasion , Sall was accused of divisive personal initiatives within the party ; he also allegedly committed acts aimed at undermining the image of the party and country , referring in particular to Salls visits to the Senate of France and the United States Democratic Partys 2008 Convention . A statement released by Salls political adviser condemned the move to discipline Sall as an attempt at political liquidation . On 13 October 2008 , the National Assembly voted to reduce the term of the President of the National Assembly to one year ; this was approved by President Wade on 21 October . Despite Salls determined efforts to maintain his position , the National Assembly voted to dismiss him as President of the National Assembly on 9 November 2008 . There were 111 votes in favor of his removal and 22 against it . Sall promptly announced that he was resigning from the PDS ; this decision meant that he would lose his seat in the National Assembly , as well as his seat on Faticks municipal council and his post as Mayor of Fatick . He also said that he would create a new party . Mamadou Seck was elected to replace Sall as President of the National Assembly on 16 November 2008 . In opposition . Sall founded his own party , the Alliance for the Republic–Yaakaar ( APR ) , on 1 December 2008 . The Interior Ministry accused Sall of money laundering on 26 January 2009 ; Sall denied this and said that the accusation was politically motivated . In late February 2009 it was decided not to prosecute Sall due to lack of evidence . Following the March 2009 local election in Fatick , Sall was re-elected to his former post as Mayor in April 2009 . He received 44 votes from the 45 municipal councillors present ; the Sopi Coalitions five councillors were not present for the vote . In the same local elections , the APR was also successful in the cite of Gossas , twelve districts in the north of the country and three in the south . Intending to stand in the 2012 Presidential elections , Sall travelled through Senegal and met with members of the Senegalese overseas community . He employed , a former member of the French National Assembly who had previously been a close associate of Wade , as an advisor . In 2010 , a poll indicated that he was the frontrunner for the presidency in Dakar and its environs . Presidency . In the 2012 Presidential elections , Sall ran as the candidate of the Macky 2012 coalition , with the slogan , The Path of Real Development ( Yoonu Yookuté in Wolof ) . He campaigned across the country , without cutting off ties with the 23 Juin ( M23 ) opposition movement , which protested against Wade in Dakar calling for him to be barred from running for a third term . The initial result of 26 February 2012 election saw Sall obtain 26.5% of the vote against Wades 34.8% , forcing a runoff . In the runoff , Sall convinced all the eliminated candidates and disqualified candidate Youssou NDour to support him , forming a coalition named Benno Bokk Yakkar ( Wolof for United in the Same Hope ) . He achieved this by promising to return to five-year presidential terms from the previous seven-year term that Wade controversially restored ; he also said he would ensure that no leader could serve for more than two terms . The runoff took place on 25 March 2012 , and Wade phoned Sall at 21:30 GMT to concede the race with congratulations , before the made the official proclamation that Sall had won with 65.8% of the vote . Sall was inaugurated as the fourth President of Senegal on 2 April at the King Fahd Palace hotel . The next day he appointed technocrat and banker Abdoul Mbaye as his prime minister , who became the head of a government limited to 25 ministers and announced his intention to dissolve the National Assembly in order to hold legislative elections on 1 July . Two controversies marked Salls first days in office : his visit to his French counterpart , Nicolas Sarkozy , days before the latters defeat in the 2012 French presidential elections and the publication of his net worth , an astonishing 1.3 billion CFA Francs , largely acquired during his tenure as Wades prime minister . In the lead-up to the legislative elections in July , for which he managed to preserve the Benno Bokk Yakaar coalition intact , Sall carried out many symbolic gestures . In accordance with his promise to reduce state spending , he curtailed some ministerial perks , announced an audit of his predecessors administration and cancelled 59 projects and agencies which were judged unnecessary . He ended several contracts within the Presidential Palace and limited the salaries of the directors of agencies , but also increased the number of minister-counsellors . He re-established the Court for the Repression of Illegal Enrichment and announced the creation of a National Anti-corruption Office ( Ofnac ) and a National Commission for the restitution of property and recovery of wrongly acquired possessions , as well as annulling some of the final decrees and contracts signed by Wade . To reduce the cost of living , the government of Abdoul Mbaye lowered the price of oil , rice and sugar . Retirement pensions were revalued , farmers received emergency subsidies , and the 29 permits issued to foreign deep sea trawlers by the preceding government were annulled . In advance of the new school year , national conferences on education were scheduled . In the foreign policy sphere , Sall charged foreign minister with renewing Senegals traditional links with Morocco , Mauritania and the Gambia and restoring Senegals diplomatic role in Africa . Two difficult legal cases challenged his commitment to avoid interfering with the judiciary : the socialist Barthélémy Dias was charged with the murder of a PDS member and the marabout , an old supporter of Wade was accused of being involved in the deaths of two of his followers . In February 2013 , Sall secured $7.5 billion for his economic development plan , dubbed Emergent Senegal , designed to transform Senegal into an emergent economy by 2035 through investments in agriculture , infrastructure and tourism . Salls government also moved toward the establishment of a new universal healthcare system . While the World Trade Organisation called Salls plans ambitious , popular dissatisfaction with the slow pace of progress was reported . In September 2013 , Sall dismissed Mbaye and named the Minister of Justice , Aminata Touré to the position of Prime Minister . On 4 July 2014 , she was dismissed as prime minister by parliament after she failed to win a council seat in Dakar in the local elections and Macky Sall appointed one of his advisors , Mohammed Dionne as Prime Minister . Since his election in 2012 , peace in the Casamance region has been a top priority for Sall . The Movement of Democratic Forces of Casamance ( MFDC ) have been pursuing the cause of separatism for Casamance , a small region in the south of the country dominated by Christians from the minority Jola ethnic group , since the 1970s . On 1 May 2014 , one of the leaders of the MFDC , Salif Sadio , sued for peace and declared a unilateral cease-fire after secret talks held at the Vatican between his forces and Sall . In January 2016 , Sall supported proposed constitutional reforms that would limit any president to two consecutive terms in office , and reduce the term of office from seven years to five , in accordance with his promise at the 2012 election . The Constitutional Council refused to allow Sall to shorten his own term of office , but allowed the other changes to be put to a referendum , to the dismay of some of Salls former supporters . Protests and violent clashes preceded the referendum , which passed on 20 March 2016 with 63% in favour and turnout slightly in excess of 40% . In the 2019 Senegalese presidential election Sall won reelection with 58% of the vote . In June 2020 Sall said he was self-isolating after he was exposed to someone with COVID-19 . Honors . National Honours . - Grand Master ( and Grand Cross ) of the National Order of the Lion - Grand Master ( and Grand Cross ) of the National Order of Merit Foreign Honours . - Grand Cross of the National Order of Legion of Honour Other Achievements . President Sall was awarded the 2020 Sunhak Peace Prize for successfully shortening the presidential term from seven to five years and reviving the economy through transparent policies , thereby spreading mature democracy to neighboring countries on the African continent where long-term dictatorship and poverty still abound .