Youssou N’Dour gets Senegal cabinet post under new president

Singer is rewarded for backing Macky Sall after being disqualified from running for presidency himself

Reuters in Dakar

Youssou N’Dour has been appointed to Senegal’s new cabinet as culture and tourism minister. Photograph: Marcle Antonisse/EPA
Youssou N’Dour, the singer disqualified from running for Senegal’s presidency, has been appointed to the country’s cabinet by the winner of the election.
Senegal’s newly elected president, Macky Sall, has made N’Dour the culture and tourism minister, according to state television.
The new government comes three days after Sall, a former prime minister under Wade, was sworn in and 24 hours after he named Abdoul Mbaye, a former banker without party affiliation, as prime minister.

Grammy award-winning N’Dour put his singing career on hold to try to challenge Wade in the election earlier this year, but Senegal’s legal body blocked him from standing. N’Dour backed Wade’s rivals.

Kane previously headed up BICIS, the Senegalese arm of BNP Paribas. Alioune Badara Cisse, a close ally of Sall, is the new foreign minister, state television reported.

Parties allied to Moustapha Niasse and Idrissa Seck, who also were former prime ministers under Wade but threw their weight behind Sall, have also been given several posts.

Sall, 50, ran for a seven-year mandate but has pledged to reduce the presidential term to five years and to stick to an existing two-term limit.

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