From jail to Africa’s youngest elected president Bassirou Diomaye Africa’s youngest elected president

A year ago, few people had heard of him, and now he is about to become president.

Bassirou Diomay Faye’s extraordinary rise caps a roller-coaster period in Senegalese politics that has taken many by surprise.

Months in prison alongside ally and kingpin Ousmane Sonko came to an abrupt end and the pair were released a week before the presidential election.

Now Mr. Clean, as he is nicknamed, must get to work on the sweeping reforms he has promised.

“Methodical” and “humble” are words often used to describe the tax collector, who turns 44 on Monday.

Mr. Faye fondly remembers his rural upbringing in Ndiaganiao, where he says he returns every Sunday to work in the fields.

His love and respect for village life is matched by his deep distrust of Senegalese elites and establishment politics.

“He’s never been a minister and he’s never been a statesman, so critics question his lack of experience,” analyst Alioune Tine told the BBC.

“But from Faye’s point of view, the insiders who have run the country since 1960 have made some catastrophic failures.

The fight against poverty, injustice and corruption is at the top of Mr Fay’s agenda. While working at the Ministry of Finance, he and Mr Sonko formed a trade union task force to deal with graft.

Agreements on gas, oil, fisheries and defense must be renegotiated to better serve the Senegalese people, Mr. Faye says.

It was ushering in an era of “sovereignty” and “rupture” as opposed to more of the same, he told voters, and that was especially true of ties to France.

Senegal’s newly elected president says he will ditch the much-criticized CFA franc currency, which is pegged to the euro and backed by former colonial power France.

Mr Faye wants to replace it with a new Senegalese or regional West African currency, although this will not be easy.

“He will have to deal with the reality of the budget to begin with… But I can see he has big ambitions,” former prime minister Aminata Touré, who served under outgoing president Macky Sall, told the BBC.

Strengthening the independence of the judiciary and creating jobs for Senegal’s large young population are also key priorities for Mr Faye – neither of which “President Sall has paid much attention to and it has caught up with him”, Ms Touré adds.

He is not the only political heavyweight to have endorsed the 44-year-old – former president Abdoulaye Wade did the same just two days before Sunday’s vote.

It is a remarkable turnaround for Mr Faye, who has spent the past 11 months in jail on sedition charges and many years before that in the shadow of his ally.

Bassirou Diomaye Faye was announced in February as the so-called “Plan B” candidate to replace charismatic opposition mercenary Ousmane Sonko. “I would even say he has more integrity than me,” Mr Sonko said proudly.

Both men founded the now-defunct Pastef party, both men are tax collectors and both men were jailed last year on what they say were politically motivated charges.

Mr Sonko was eventually convicted of two offences, which meant he was barred from contesting the election, so Mr Faye stepped in.

“I am Bassira,” Mr Sonko told his supporters recently. “They are two sides of the same coin,” agrees Pastef’s colleague Moustapha Sarré.

This has led to criticism that Mr Faye is only “president by default”.

Not so, says analyst Mr. Tine. But the pair’s relationship could bring a new style of leadership.

“Perhaps they will establish a tandem and break away from the hyper-presidential model of having an all-powerful head of state.

“Sonko is of course the undisputed leader of Pastef – an icon, even… [But] the two had a [dynamic of] complicity and collusion.”

Once upon a time, Mr. Faye wanted nothing to do with politics. “It never crossed my mind,” he said in 2019, recalling his childhood.

One of Mr Faye’s heroes is the late Senegalese historian Cheikh Anta Diop – whose work is considered a precursor to Afrocentrism. Both are considered left-wing pan-Africanism cheerleaders.

When the first results came in on Monday showing that Mr Faye was on course for victory, people in the capital Dakar celebrated by honking their car horns and singing loud music.

The reaction from international markets was less cheerful, with Senegalese dollar bonds falling to their lowest level in five months. Reuters reports that investors fear Mr Faye’s presidency could undo the country’s trade policy.

“By electing me, the Senegalese people have decided to break with the past,” he told reporters later on Monday. “I promise to govern with humility and transparency.”

The election was originally due to be held last month, but Mr. Sall postponed it just hours before campaigning was due to begin, sparking deadly opposition protests and a democratic crisis.

Most candidates had very little time to prepare once the new election date was set – but Mr Faye had just over a week after being released from prison.

Despite the shortened campaign period, Senegalese citizens were adamant that they would turn out and use their votes, Christopher Fomunyoh of the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs told BBC Newsday.

“Senegal is in the process of confirming that democracies can repair themselves and emerge stronger and more resilient.”

And the real test for the Senegalese cleaning guy has only just begun.