Senegal names new prime minister after polls

DAKAR, June 19 (Reuters) Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade named junior minister Cheikh Hadjibou Soumare as his new prime minister today following parliamentary elections earlier this month.

Soumare, a former junior minister in charge of the budget, replaces Macky Sall, a prominent member of Wade's ruling Senegalese Democratic Party (PDS), which swept to victory in the legislative polls on June 3 after an opposition boycott.

''I have accepted the position of prime minister,'' Soumare, a technocrat who trained as a treasury inspector, told reporters in the capital Dakar after a meeting with Wade.

The PDS won 131 seats out of 150 in this month's polls. The opposition refused to take part in protest at what they say was Wade's fraudulent victory in February presidential elections.

Soumare is expected to name a new cabinet in the former French colony in the coming days.

REUTERS PY RAI2037