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President Abdoulaye Wade |
If at first you don't succeed, try,
try again. If this maxim applies to anyone in African politics,
then it is surely Senegal's president-elect, Abdoulaye Wade.
He has had his eye on the presidency for a long time before
finally winning in a run-off election on Sunday.
The 74-year-old opposition veteran took part in his first
presidential election in 1978, and in four subsequent polls.
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A
lawyer and a pioneer of African opposition politics long before multi-party
democratic elections were widespread, Abdoulaye Wade founded his party in 1974.
Since then he has been denouncing the de facto one-party rule of his great rival
President Abdou Diouf.
The Socialist Party, which has been in power since independence from France in
1960, has been described by Mr Wade as corrupt and full of cronyism.
"The first great objective of my political life was to get rid of a system in
Senegal. Midnight has struck, the system is dead," Mr Wade said after voting in
the second round of presidential elections on Sunday.
Mr. Abdoulaye Wade is a devout Muslim and presents himself as a liberal,
although he has successfully allied himself to parties further to the left.
Several times a political prisoner, the president-elect describes himself as a
"committed pan-Africanist".
He has been an MP and has served twice in a coalition government in Senegal.
Under a government coalition in the 1990s, Mr Wade
even reported directly to President Abdou Diouf as a minister in the presidency
from March 1995 to March 1998.
He has studied and taught law in France and was dean of the law and economics
faculty at the University of Dakar, Senegal.
During the Senegalese election he failed to make many election promises - other
than to govern by certain principles - "probity, good work and involvement of
the youth in the construction of Senegal".
Though he is most popular in urban areas, it also appears that for the first
time rural voters have also away from the Socialist Party and towards Mr Wade.
The long-standing rivals contested the nation's first ever run-off presidential
vote on Sunday after a first round proved inconclusive.
Five of the six other candidates who dropped out backed Mr Wade, including
Moustapha Niasse, a former foreign minister of Senegal in President Diouf's
party who is expected to become the new prime minister.
Mr Niasse has said the new Senegalese government's first task would be "to
re-establish the country's equilibrium and stop the wave of corruption".
Shaven heads
Mr Wade has also attracted some fanatical supporters - promising some highly
unusual celebrations.
"We have told everyone we will shave our heads to be like Mr Wade," one group of
fervent supporters told journalists.
"After that we are going to stand naked in front of the presidential palace to
proclaim that we are like new-born babies and that a new Senegal is born."
But celebrations aside, Mr Wade's historic victory above all will be seen as a
triumph for Senegal, a country which has long been considered a model of African
democracy, despite the Socialists never previously having lost
their grip on power.
Source: BBC |