Senegal's veteran President Abdoulaye Wade has promoted his son Karim to a key ministry post, reviving speculation yesterday that the 82-year-old is preparing a family succession.
Last Friday, Karim Wade entered the government for the first time, accepting the powerful post of Minister of State and International Co-operation, covering construction, infrastructure projects and air travel.
The appointment immediately drew criticism from Senegal's opposition Alliance for the Republic (APR) party of former premier Macky Sall.
"The president had wanted to capture power for his son from (his base in) Dakar. Now, he's doing it from within the government," APR spokesman Seydou Gueye told AFP.
"While the Senegalese people wanted a government which took responsibility for social suffering, the president is forming a government to regain power," he added.
Karim Wade failed in a bid to become mayor of Dakar in March when an opposition coalition trounced the ruling parties in local elections.
Yesterday's edition of the pro-government newspaper Le Soleil noted that Karim Wade had become the first son of a Senegalese president to be given a cabinet seat, but downplayed the promotion, keeping it off the front pages.
But Sud-Quotidien said the president had given his son the biggest ministry "ever created since independence" from France in 1960.
Independent newspaper L'As said Senegal now had its Ali Bongo, a reference to the son of Gabon's President Omar Bongo, who is his country's defence minister.
Karim Wade, 40, who is half-Senegalese and half-French on his mother's side, studied in Paris and worked as a banker in London before becoming a close political adviser to his father in 2001.
Five years later in 2006 he set up a political movement, the Concrete Generation, but failed in his ambitions the first time he faced an election in the March local polls, while still winning a seat as a city councillor.
President Wade, re-elected for five years in 2007, has frequently denied rumours that his son is being groomed to succeed him in 2012, having insisted that Karim is a "simple citizen" like anybody else.
Karim Wade, who is known for his sympathy for business and close ties to Middle East investors, is judged to have had mixed success in his previous government work.