Abdoulaye Wade

Former head of the national agency of the Islamic Organization Conference, Karim Wade has served as the Minister of State for International Cooperation, Urban and Regional Planning, Air Transport, and Infrastructure since May 2009, while his daughter is a Special Assistant to the President who has participated in many Paris-Dakar rallies.

According to official records, Abdoulaye Wade was born on 29 May 1926, in Kébémer, Senegal. However there is some discrepancy regarding his birth year and it is generally believed that he was born a few years earlier. Birth records in the 1920s Senegal were not much reliable. At that time the country was under French rule.

He attended secondary school in Senegal where he proved to be a brilliant student. He was awarded a scholarship to study in France.

He attended the lycée Condorcet in France where he studied law. After graduation he also taught law for some time.

He eventually earned his Ph.D. in law and economics from the Sorbonne (now part of the Universities of Paris I–XIII) in 1970.

Abdoulaye Wade practiced law in France for a few years before returning to Senegal. On his return he was offered the post of a professor at the University of Dakar in Senegal. Later on he became the dean of law and economics.

By this time he had developed a keen interest in politics and in 1974, Wade attended a summit of the Organization of African Unity in Mogadishu where he told President Léopold Sédar Senghor that he wanted to start a new party.

Thus on 31 July 1974, Wade founded the Senegalese Democratic Party (Parti Démocratique Sénégalais; PDS) as an opposition party to Senghor’s Socialist Party (Parti Socialiste; PS). While PDS was initially intended as a Labour party, it adopted liberalism in 1976 in order to comply with some new legislation.

Founding of the PDS marked the beginning of a new opposition movement in Senegal. Abdoulaye Wade won a seat in the National Assembly in 1978. The same year he made his first bid for presidency, running against incumbent Senghor. Wade was unsuccessful in this attempt but this loss only fuelled his presidential ambition further.

Senghor stepped down from the presidency in 1981 and was succeeded by Abdou Diouf. In 1983, Wade made another bid for presidency, which was again unsuccessful. He would make two more unsuccessful attempts in 1988 and 1993.

Abdoulaye Wade’s first term as the president is considered to be a successful one. As promised in his election campaigns, he introduced a much-needed modernization program to improve the quality of the Senegalese citizens. Schools were built all over the nation, better drinking water facilities were provided, and improved access to medical facilities was made available to the citizens.

Wade also worked hard to bring down Senegal’s financial dependency on France and strived to build foreign relations with other countries such as China and Dubai by signing agreements with their governments. His vision and statesmanship earned him respect on an international level.