Meanwhile President Bassirou Diomaye Faye has been pursuing a more orthodox international approach receiving EU Council President Charles Michel in Dakar before touring first regional neighbours Mauritania Gambia and Guinea Bissau and now the very heart of the Ecowas establishment...

The EU hopes to resume these talks with President Bassirou Diomaye Faye's officials in the coming weeks...

The election of Senegal's President Bassirou Diomaye Faye who wants substantive reform or to take his country out of the bloc has revived pressure for change...

By the afternoon of 25 March less than 24 hours after the polls had closed it was clear that he had been decisively defeated by Bassirou Diomaye Faye of the radical opposition Patriotes africains du Sénégal pour le travail l'éthique et la fraternité (Pastef)...

Diomaye Faye – from prison to the palais Victory in the 24 March elections for Bassirou Diomaye Faye the presidential candidate of Patriotes africains du Sénégal pour le travail l'éthique et la fraternité (Pastef) – officially dissolved as a party by the authorities but in reality very much alive – is widely seen as a triumph for his political mentor Ousmane Sonko...

Withdraw from the French-backed Communauté Financière Africaine (CFA) monetary zone restructure public debt and renegotiate the oil gas and mining contracts – these are the policy imperatives that propelled the Bassirou Diomaye Faye-Ousmane Sonko platform to its first-round victory in the 24 March elections...

The two leading candidates out of 19 contenders in the first round of voting are: former prime minister Amadou Ba who is 62; his main opponent and radical nationalist Bassirou Diomaye Faye is 44...

Bassirou Diomaye Faye standing in for the barred Ousmane Sonko was still on remand in jail when the campaign kicked off (AC Vol 65 No 4 Fury as Sall's vote delay unleashes mayhem)...

But his colleague Bassirou Diomaye Faye is still eligible although he is also in jail...

Expecting such problems Sonko's campaign team lined up a stand-in Bassirou Diomaye Faye also a former tax inspector and secretary-general of his officially dissolved Patriotes Africains du Sénégal pour le Travail l'Ethique et la Fraternité (Pastef) movement...