New Delhi, May 26 -- Senegal 's president on Monday appointed a former banking executive as the new prime minister after his predecessor was sacked last week, a move that comes at a particularly tense moment as the African country grapples with debt and an internal crisis in the ruling party.

According to a statement read on national television, President Bassirou Diomaye Faye named Ahmadou Al Aminou Lo as the head of government, replacing Ousmane Sonko.

Sonko was sacked on Friday, after months of simmering tensions between him and the president. The sacking triggered the resignation of all the members of the government and its dissolution.

Lo will now have to form a new government. He was formerly an executive at the Central Bank of W...