54 Facts About Macky Sall

Macky Sall is a Senegalese politician who has been President of Senegal since April 2012.

Macky Sall was re-elected President in the first round voting in February 2019.

Under President Abdoulaye Wade, Sall was Prime Minister of Senegal from July 2004 to June 2007 and President of the National Assembly from June 2007 to November 2008.

Macky Sall was the Mayor of Fatick from 2002 to 2008 and held that post again from 2009 to 2012.

Macky Sall was a long-time member of the Senegalese Democratic Party.

Macky Sall is the first president born after Senegalese independence from France.

Macky Sall was one of five children born to Amadou Abdoul Macky Sall, who was a state worker and then a caretaker and Coumba Thimbo, a peanut seller.

Macky Sall's father was a member of the Socialist Party of Senegal, but, at the high school in Kaolack, Macky Sall associated with the Maoists at the encouragement of his brother-in-law.

Macky Sall soon left And-Jef, since he did not share the ideas of the movement or Savane's use a boycott strategy against the PS in the 1983 election, in which Sall voted for the liberal Abdoulaye Wade, as he did again in 1988.

Macky Sall is a member of multiple national and international associations of geologists and geological engineers.

Macky Sall met his wife Marieme Faye Sall in 1992 when she was a high school student in the city of Diourbel.

Macky Sall joined Wade's Senegalese Democratic Party in the late 1980s.

Macky Sall became Secretary-General of the PDS Regional Convention in Fatick in 1998 and served as the PDS National Secretary in charge of Mines and Industry.

Macky Sall was actively involved in the "Sopi" campaign which brought Wade to power in the 2000 Senegalese presidential election.

Macky Sall was Special Advisor for Energy and Mines to President Abdoulaye Wade from 6 April 2000 to 12 May 2003, as well as Director-General of the Petroleum Company of Senegal from 13 December 2000 to 5 July 2001.

Macky Sall became Minister of Mines, Energy and Hydraulics on 12 May 2001, replacing Abdoulaye Bathily who had been appointed Vice-President of the National Assembly.

Macky Sall was promoted to the rank of Minister of State, while retaining his portfolio, on 6 November 2002.

Macky Sall additionally became the Mayor of Fatick on 1 June 2002.

On 27 August 2003, Macky Sall was moved from his position as Minister of State for Mines, Energy and Hydraulics to that of Minister of State for the Interior and Local Communities, while becoming Government Spokesman.

On 21 July 2004, Macky Sall was appointed Prime Minister by President Wade, after Wade dismissed his predecessor, Idrissa Seck.

On 25 July 2004, Macky Sall became Vice-President of the PDS Steering Committee.

Macky Sall served as the director of Wade's re-election campaign for the February 2007 presidential election, in which Wade was victorious, obtaining a majority in the first round.

Macky Sall remained Prime Minister until 19 June 2007, making him the longest-serving of Wade's prime ministers.

Macky Sall said that he was proud of what he had accomplished as Prime Minister.

Macky Sall was not elected as President of the National Assembly one day later, on 20 June 2007; he was the only candidate and received 143 votes from the 146 deputies present.

Macky Sall and Wade came into conflict later in 2007 when Macky Sall called Wade's son Karim, the President of the National Agency of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, for a hearing in the National Assembly regarding construction sites in Dakar for the OIC Summit planned to take place there in March 2008.

Macky Sall nevertheless remained at odds with the PDS leadership in 2008.

In September 2008, a PDS deputy presented the bill to reduce the term of the President of the National Assembly to one year, and later in the month, Macky Sall was called before the PDS Disciplinary Committee, although he did not appear.

On this occasion, Macky Sall was accused of divisive personal initiatives within the party; he allegedly committed "acts aimed at undermining the image of the party and country", referring in particular to Macky Sall's visits to the Senate of France and the United States Democratic Party's 2008 Convention.

Macky Sall received 44 votes from the 45 municipal councillors present; the Sopi Coalition's five councillors were not present for the vote.

Macky Sall employed Jean-Pierre Pierre-Bloch, a former member of the French National Assembly who had previously been a close associate of Wade, as an advisor.

Senegal under Macky Sall has taken a neutral approach to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, abstaining from many United Nations resolutions concerning it.

Macky Sall has met with both Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv.

Macky Sall has repeatedly defended the country's laws on homosexuality, saying Senegal is not yet ready to decriminalise homosexuality, while insisting he and the Senegalese people are "tolerant" and not homophobic.

Macky Sall has incarcerated more than 500 people from the opposition.

Macky Sall opposes jihad and "excessive forms of Islam" and supports "tolerant Islam".

Macky Sall is married to Marieme Faye Macky Sall and has three children; two sons and one daughter.

Macky Sall is a polyglot, being able to speak five languages; three local languages and two European languages.

Macky Sall campaigned across the country, without cutting off ties with the "23 Juin" opposition movement, which protested against Wade in Dakar calling for him to be barred from running for a third term.

Macky Sall achieved this by promising to return to five-year presidential terms from the previous seven-year term that Wade controversially restored; he said he would ensure that no leader could serve for more than two terms.

Macky Sall ended several contracts within the Presidential Palace and limited the salaries of the directors of agencies, but increased the number of minister-counsellors.

Macky Sall re-established the Court for the Repression of Illegal Enrichment and announced the creation of a National Anti-corruption Office and a National Commission for the restitution of property and recovery of wrongly acquired possessions, as well as annulling some of the final decrees and contracts signed by Wade.

In February 2013, Macky Sall secured $7.5 billion for his economic development plan, dubbed "Emergent Senegal", designed to transform Senegal into an emergent economy by 2035 through investments in agriculture, infrastructure and tourism.

Macky Sall's government moved toward the establishment of a new universal healthcare system.

In September 2013, Macky Sall dismissed Mbaye and named the Minister of Justice, Aminata Toure to the position of Prime Minister.

On 4 July 2014, she was dismissed as prime minister by parliament after she failed to win a council seat in Dakar in the local elections and Macky Sall appointed one of his advisors, Mohammed Dionne as Prime Minister.

In January 2016, Macky Sall supported proposed constitutional reforms that would limit any president to two consecutive terms in office, and reduce the term of office from seven years to five, in accordance with his promise at the 2012 election.

In June 2020 Macky Sall said he was self-isolating after he was exposed to someone with COVID-19.

Macky Sall was elected as chairperson of the African Union for the year 2022, with his term beginning on 5 February 2022.

On 3 June 2022, Macky Sall met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi, Russia to discuss grain deliveries from Russia and Ukraine to Africa.

Macky Sall told Putin he should be "aware that our countries, even if they are far from the theatre [of action], are victims of this economic crisis" caused by the war in Ukraine.

Macky Sall complained that the side effects of the EU's decision to expel many Russian banks from SWIFT will hurt the ability of African countries to pay for imported food and fertilizers from Russia.

President Macky Sall was awarded the 2020 Sunhak Peace Prize for successfully shortening the presidential term from seven to five years and reviving the economy through transparent policies.

President Macky Sall received the American Academy of Achievement's Golden Plate Award in 2022.