Senegal Prime Minister Sacked Friday July 04,2014

Senegal's president sacked Prime Minister Aminata Toure, who has only been in power since September, less than a week after her ruling party was beaten in local elections.

She was the second woman prime minister in Senegal after Madior Boye, who headed the government between March 2001 and November 2002.


"Ms Aminata Toure's functions have been terminated," said a decree signed by President Macky Sall

An official at the president's office said that the resignation of the prime minister "means that the government has been dissolved".

Toure, who is 51, is the head of the Alliance for the Republic and was named prime minister last year to replace incumbent Abdoul Mbaye.

Her departure comes less than a week after preliminary results from the June 29 local elections showed defeats for the APR in Dakar and a number of key cities across the country. Official results are still being awaited.

Many members of the government who were running in the local polls were beaten in their strongholds -- a blow for the APR, which controlled only a few towns before the election and was hoping to reinforce its local support bases.

More than 5.3 million people were eligible to vote for more than 2,700 councillors across the country.


Senegalese Prime Minister and Dakar mayoral candidate Aminata Toure (R) casts her ballot to vote in municipal and provincial elections on June 29, 2014 at a polling station in Dakar.

 Note
Senegal is seen as a beacon of democracy in West Africa and remains the region's only country never to have had a military coup.