Djibo Leyti Kâ

Djibo Leyti Kâ (February 21, 1948 – 14 September 2017) was a Senegalese politician and the Secretary-General of the Union for Democratic Renewal (URD). He was a prominent minister under President Abdou Diouf from 1981 to 1995 and founded the URD in 1998 after splitting from Diouf's Socialist Party (PS). From 2004 to 2012, he again served in the government under President Abdoulaye Wade, initially as Minister of State for Maritime Economy and then as Minister of State for the Environment beginning in 2007.

Kâ was born in Thiarny, located in Louga Region. He was Deputy Governor of Saint-Louis Region from 1975 to 1976, then Technical Adviser and Deputy Director of the Cabinet of President Leopold Sedar Senghor from 1976 to 1977. From 1978 to 1980, he was Director of the Cabinet of the President. When Abdou Diouf succeeded Senghor as President, Kâ became a member of the government; he was Minister of Communications from January 1981 to April 1988 (and was additionally responsible for relations with the assemblies from 1983 to 1988), Minister of Planning and Cooperation from 1988 to 1990, and Minister of National Education from 1990 to 1991. On April 8, 1991, he became Minister of Foreign Affairs, serving in that position until June 1, 1993; he was then moved to the position of Minister of State for the Interior, serving in that position until March 1995, when he was dismissed from the government.

Kâ subsequently formed the Renewal Movement within the governing Socialist Party (PS) to seek internal party reforms, and this move seriously divided the PS in late 1997. The PS steering committee rejected the formation of the Movement, and President Diouf expressed agreement with the steering committee's decision. Subsequently, on November 19, 1997, Kâ and ten other leading members of the Movement were suspended from the PS for three months by the party's Political Bureau. Kâ and his supporters were publicly denounced by the party in March 1998 and resigned from the party in early April 1998. The government also restricted him from travelling outside of Senegal, but the actions taken against him had the effect of raising his national profile greatly, and he was thus able to find more candidates to run alongside him in the May 1998 parliamentary election. His newly formed Union for Democratic Renewal (URD) received about 13% of the vote and won eleven seats in the National Assembly in that election. Kâ was one of the successful URD candidates, and he was President of the Democracy and Freedoms Parliamentary Group in the National Assembly from July 1998 to January 2001; he also became Secretary-General of URD in July 1998.

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