Ugandan-born becomes Seychelles president

Danny Faure born at Kilembe in Kasese District will be sworn in on October 16

What you need to know:

  • Mr Faure is married with four children, and among other languages understands Swahili.
  • In June 1989, he was appointed director of the NYS but was strongly criticised by the opposition until it was phased out in 1998.

Kampala. Ugandan-born Danny Faure is tipped to become the new president of the Seychelles to complete the five- year term of outgoing President James Michel, a statement from the country’s presidency issued on Wednesday stated.
“I am leaving the Office of the President with a sense of mission accomplished. During these 12 years that you gave me the honour and privilege to lead our nation, I have completed my responsibility and my duty,” president Michel said in a statement.

The statement said vice president Faure would take over and will be sworn in as president of the Indian Ocean country located 900 miles off East Africa’s east coast on October 16.
President Michel was 10 months into his third and final five-year term in office when he resigned on Wednesday.
Mr Faure, a member of the country’s longest ruling People’s Party (known previously as the Seychelles People’s Progressive Front/SPPF), has been serving as vice president since July 2010 and has been holding the portfolio of Minister of Finance since 2006.

The 54-year-old was born in Uganda at Kilembe mines in Kasese, 345km from Kampala, to Seychellois parents working at the mines at the time but moved back to Seychelles when Faure was only nine.
According to the Seychelles presidency website, Faure completed his primary and secondary education in the Seychelles and later in the 1980s moved to socialist Cuba where he graduated with a degree in Political Science.
Upon his return to Seychelles in 1985, Mr Faure worked as an assistant curriculum officer in the ministry of education, but at the same time moonlighting as a lecturer at both the now defunct National Youth Service (NYS) and the Seychelles Polytechnic.
In June 1989, he was appointed director of the NYS but was strongly criticised by the opposition until it was phased out in 1998.

At the same time, Mr Faure worked in the structures of the SPPF and would later be appointed chairman of its youth wing and later as member of the party’s elite Central Committee. The SPPF was founded in 1964 by one of the country’s leading political figures, France-Albert René, who also until his death in 2004 served as its chairman.
Several Ugandans have been known to occupy key positions in the Seychelles government, notably Justice Fredrick Egonda-Ntende, who is the country’s Chief Justice and most recently Justice Duncan Gaswaga who was re-appointed as judge of the Supreme Court.

During René’s early presidency, Seychelles was closed off as a one-party state but with the return of multi-party politics in 1993, Mr Faure was tapped as leader of government business in the National Assembly, a position he held until 1998.
In 1998 he was appointed Minister of Education, and in 2001 was added the youth docket to become the Minister of Education and Youth until 2006 when he was tapped as Finance minister.
As Vice President, Mr Faure also doubled as the country’s governor of the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and African Development Bank.
The resignation of President Michel, who had served 12 years in office, on Wednesday coincided with last month’s election of an opposition majority in the National Assembly under the coalition Linyon Demokratik (LDS) amidst growing public frustration over economic inequality in the country. President Michel, however, did not offer reasons for his decision.
Mr Faure is married with four children, and among other languages understands Swahili.

Several Ugandans have been known to occupy key positions in the Seychelles government, notably Justice Fredrick Egonda-Ntende, who is the country’s Chief Justice and most recently Justice Duncan Gaswaga who was re-appointed as judge of the Supreme Court.
Seychelles has connections with Uganda, most prominently when the British colonialists exiled Kabaka Mwanga of Buganda and Omukama of Bunyoro Kabalega, who were opposed to their administration to the island in 1899.