Senegalese lawmakers on Saturday approved a constitutional
reform to scrap the post of prime minister, the first initiative of President
Macky Sall’s second term in office.
The motion passed with 124 MPs voting in favour and only
seven against, National Assembly president Moustapha Niasse said Saturday
evening after a nine-hour debate.
The government approved the measure last month before
sending it to the parliament where the presidential party enjoys a majority.
The goal is not to increase the powers of the president of
the republic.
Sall, who was comfortably re-elected in February, announced
the plan in early April, telling the prime minister Mahammed Boun Abdallah
Dionne, to abolish his own job.
The move was a surprise as it had not been part of Sall’s
re-election campaign.
On Saturday, lawmakers also backed legislative changes aimed
at preventing the president from dissolving the National Assembly, which in
turn can no longer table a motion of no confidence against the government.
Justice Minister Malick Sall said the changes were “purely
technical and administrative”.
“The goal is not to increase the powers of the president of
the republic,” he told MPs.
Opposition parties have denounced the constitutional
amendments.
“It’s a democratic setback. You can’t concentrate powers in
the hands of one person,” said Toussaint Manga, who heads an opposition group
founded by supporters of former president Abdoulaye Wade.
Sall has been in power since 2012 and secured 58 percent of
the popular vote in the recent election.
A self-proclaimed social liberal — despite a flirtation with
Maoism in his youth — Sall has described, in his autobiography published last
November, a slow, steady rise from a modest background all the way to the top,
despite a stint in the political wilderness.
But critics argue that such single-mindedness has made Sall
willing to bend the rules to get what he wants.
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