DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — Senegal ‘s president on Monday appointed a former banking executive as the new prime minister after his predecessor was sacked last week, a move that comes at a particularly tense moment as the African country grapples with debt and an internal crisis in the ruling party.

According to a statement read on national television, President Bassirou Diomaye Faye named Ahmadou Al Aminou Lo as the head of government, replacing Ousmane Sonko.

Sonko was sacked on Friday, after months of simmering tensions between him and the president. The sacking triggered the resignation of all the members of the government and its dissolution.

Lo will now have to form a new government. He was formerly an executive at the Central Bank of West African States, where he played a significant role in shaping monetary and economic policies at the regional level. He also served as state minister to the president and secretary-general of Sonko’s government.

Faye and Sonko had openly disagreed on key policies over the past few months, including about the negotiations for a loan from the International Monetary Fund. Earlier in May, Faye said Sonko would only keep his job if he did it properly.

The two were former allies from the party known as Pastef, an acronym from its French name, Patriotes Africains du Sénégal pour le Travail, l’Éthique et la Fraternité.

Pastef had ridden into office in the March 2024 parliamentary election after a fierce campaign against the then-ruling party, Alliance pour la République, and widespread speculation that former President Macky Sall wanted to use a 2016 constitutional change to revise his term in office.

Sonko, who heads Pastef, was barred from running after a defamation conviction was upheld by Senegal’s supreme court, and the Constitutional Court dismissed his candidacy. Faye ran instead of Sonko, and subsequently appointed Sonko as prime minister.

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