Photos:Thomas Padilla\Wikimedia Commons
Bassirou Diomaye Faye, a former tax inspector who went from prison to president-elect of Senegal in 10 days, this week marked a year since his inauguration.
The 45-year-old has shaken up the status quo since becoming Africa’s youngest democratically-elected president last year. Nicknamed “Mr. Clean” on account of his anti-corruption campaign, he swiftly launched an audit of the country’s finances.
In September, Faye called for a new world order that reflects changing demographics and gives “more weight” to Africa. And two months later he called a snap election to drive change in an opposition-dominated Parliament — a vote that reinforced the country’s reputation for having strong democratic institutions. Faye’s overwhelming win was seen as “a strong mandate to implement [his] radical agenda of economic and social reform,” the BBC wrote at the time, an agenda voters are watching ever more closely.
