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'Abdoulaye Wade' (born May 29, 1926World Leaders 2003: Senegal: Personal Background, Encyclopedia of the Nations.) is the third and current President of Senegal, in office since 2000. He is also the Secretary-General of the ruling Senegalese Democratic Party (PDS) and has led the party since it was founded in 1974.''Profiles of People in Power: The World's Government Leaders'' (2003), page 457.Profile of Wade at PDS web site . He ran for president four times, beginning in 1978, before he was elected in 2000.

Contents

Life before politics

Political career

References

Life before politics

Wade was born in Kébémer, Senegal; officially, he was born in 1926, although some claim he was born several years earlier, and the record-keeping of the time is not considered particularly reliable.^[2] He studied and taught law at the lycée Condorcet in France. He holds two doctorates in law and economics. He was also dean of the law and economics faculty at the University of Dakar in Senegal. He's currently married to Viviane and has one son, Karim, who is the head of the national agency of Islamic Organization Conference, and a daughter, Sindjely, who participated in many Paris-Dakar rallies. It is considered probable that Wade had other children and that Karim and Sindjely are the legitimate ones. (cf. Souleymane Jules Diop, Wade:The lawyer and the Devil)

Political career

At a summit of the Organization of African Unity in Mogadishu in 1974, Wade told President Léopold Sédar Senghor that he wanted to start a new party, and Senghor agreed to this. The PDS was founded on 31 July 1974.Dominique Mataillet, "Senghor reconnaît le parti de Wade", Jeuneafrique.com, 6 August 2006 .Tidiane Dioh, "Sous l'étiquette libérale", Jeuneafrique.com, 21 October 2002 . The party adopted liberalism in 1976 due to the introduction of a law permitting the existence of only three parties with three distinct ideologies, two of which were taken by other parties. Wade first ran for president in February 1978 against Senghor, taking 17.38% of the vote.Elections in Senegal, African Elections Database. Also in 1978, Wade was elected to the National Assembly, where he served until 1980. Subsequently he ran in the presidential elections of 1983 and 1988, taking second place each time, behind Senghor's successor Abdou Diouf. Following the 1988 election, he was arrested due to protests against the results and received a suspended sentence. Subsequently he went to France, but returned in 1990. In April 1991, he and four other PDS members joined a national unity government along with the ruling Socialist Party (PS); Wade became Minister of State without portfolio.Richard Vengroff and Lucy Creevey, "Senegal: The Evolution of a Quasi Democracy", in ''Political Reform in Francophone Africa'' (1997), ed. Clark and Gardinier, page 207."Rapport des Missions d'Observations des Elections Presidentielles", 2000 election . In October 1992, he and the other PDS ministers quit the government due to complaints about the manner in which the PS was said to control the government. In the February 1993 presidential election, Wade again took second place, with 32% of the vote, behind Diouf. Following the May 1993 killing of Constitutional Council vice-president Babacar Sèye, Wade, along with other PDS leaders, faced police questioning. On October 1, he was charged, along with his wife and two PDS members of parliament (Abdoulaye Faye and Ousmane Ngom), with complicity in the murder, but they were not held in custody or put on trial due to parliamentary immunity.^[3] Following riots in February 1994, Wade was arrested along with many others for allegedly threatening state security; this was done despite his immunity, which was deemed unnecessary to waive under the circumstances. The charge of complicity in Sèye's murder was dismissed in May 1994, and Wade and his co-defendants began a hunger strike on June 30. He and his co-defendants were released on July 4, and the remaining charges were dismissed on August 30.^[4] Wade rejoined the government as Minister of State in March 1995, but he and the other PDS ministers left again in March 1998.
In the February 2000 presidential election, he again received second place, taking 31% of the vote, but for the first time, Diouf did not receive a majority in the first round, and consequently a second round was held on March 19. Wade won this round with 58.49% of the vote,"Senegal's Wade names prime minister", Reuters, April 2, 2000. having received the support of candidates from the first round, including third place candidate Moustapha Niasse. Wade became president on April 1, 2000 and appointed Niasse as his prime minister shortly afterwards. Wade was forced to cohabit with the former ruling party (the Socialists), which held a majority in the legislature until the Democratic Party's victory in the 2001 parliamentary elections.

Wade with U.S. President George W. Bush in July 2003

A new constitution (in French) was written in 2001, under the terms of which future presidents of Senegal will be limited to 5-year terms after the completion of Wade's 7-year term in 2007. Wade announced in April 2006 that the following elections would be held on February 25, 2007.^[5]
Wade was nominated as the presidential candidate of the Democratic Party in October 2006.^[6] One of Wade's opponents in this election was his former prime minister Idrissa Seck, who was once considered Wade's protégé, but was arrested in 2005.^[7] Final results released on March 11, 2007, showed Wade winning in the first round with 55.9% of the vote, far ahead of his nearest opponents, Seck with about 15% and Socialist Party leader Ousmane Tanor Dieng with about 13.6%. Dieng and another opposition candidate, Abdoulaye Bathily, filed appeals regarding the election, but these were rejected by the Constitutional Council."Le texte intégral de la décision du Conseil constitutionnel", Agence de Presse Sénégalaise (Seneweb.com), March 11, 2007 . Wade was sworn in for his second term on April 3 at the Leopold Sedar Senghor Stadium in Dakar, with many African leaders and about 60,000 spectators in attendance.^[8][9]
At the July 2007 African Union summit in Accra, Ghana, Wade supported quick formation of the proposed United States of Africa and said: "If we fail to unite, we will become weak, and if we live isolated in countries that are divided, we face the risk of collapsing in the face of stronger and united economies."^[10]

References

1. Laura Bush hosts Viviane Wade The White House, 6 December 2004
2. Naomi Schwarz, "Senegal's President Seeks Re-Election Amid Worsening Problems", VOA News, October 16, 2006.
3. Senegal Human Rights Practices, 1993, U.S. Department of State.
4. Senegal Human Rights Practices, 1994, U.S. Department of State.
5. "Senegal elections set for 25 February 2007", Liberal International, Issue 35.
6. "Wade nominated for February 2007 presidential elections", African Press Agency, October 16, 2006.
7. "President’s onetime protégé to run for election", IRIN, April 5, 2006.
8. "Senegal's president is inaugurated, as dictators, statesmen look on", Associated Press (''International Herald Tribune''), April 3, 2007.
9. "Wade sworn in for second term", AFP (''IOL''), April 3, 2007.
10. Mamadou Ndiaye, "Wade criticises gradual approach to set up AU Government", African Press Agency, July 3, 2007.