Karim Wade

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Karim Wade (2008)

Karim Meïssa Wade (born September 1, 1968 in Paris ) is a Senegalese banker and former politician of the Parti Démocratique Sénégalais (PDS).

Training and work as a banker

Karim Wade is the son of the former President of Senegal, Abdoulaye Wade and his wife Viviane . He began his school education in Dakar , the capital of the country, and finished it in a boarding school in the French city of Pontoise , where he obtained a Baccalauréat B in 1987 . He then took up a degree in economics and management at the Sorbonne , which he completed in 1993 with a DÉSS in finance . After a six-month internship at the Paris branch of the Swiss Bank Corporation , Wade was taken on there, and later he worked in London at Warburg . Here he specialized in the mining sector and advised the governments of Gabon , Angola , Guinea and the Ivory Coast , among others . His clients also included De Beers , Anglo American and Texaco . From November 1999 to April 2000, he took a career break to support his father's ultimately successful candidacy in the presidential election in early 2000 .

politics

After the election, Wade was appointed by his father to act as head of state as his advisor. He commuted between London and Dakar for a while before moving back to Senegal in 2002. Here he mainly took care of financial issues, whereby he increasingly succeeded in persuading people and companies from the oil states on the Persian Gulf to invest in the country. This was discussed quite controversially in the country.

Wade then took over the chairmanship of the national representation of the Organization for Islamic Cooperation (OCI) and was responsible for the implementation of two summit conferences in March 2008 and in autumn 2009 in Dakar.

One month after Wade won a seat on the city council in the local elections in Dakar, the newly appointed Prime Minister Souleymane Ndéné Ndiaye appointed him to his cabinet in May 2009. Here he initially acted as super minister for international cooperation, infrastructure, aviation and spatial planning . Wade gave up the latter area in October 2010, instead receiving the Ministry of Energy . This gave him access to around a third to almost half of Senegal's government spending, depending on the source. His position enabled him to amass a substantial fortune that he transferred to various offshore financial centers .

Wade was widely viewed as a possible successor to his father. He was named one of the 100 most important personalities in Africa for 2009 by Jeune Afrique magazine .

Criminal proceedings

After Macky Hall was elected President of the Republic in 2012, Wade lost his state offices. Investigations into embezzlement and corruption have started against him. A travel ban was imposed on him. A CEDEAO court officially criticized the fact that he was only informed of this at the airport and not in advance . The United Nations Working Group Against Arbitrary Arrests and several human rights organizations also complained about unfair investigative methods on several occasions. Wade was charged in April 2013; at the same time he was taken into custody without the possibility of being released on bail.

A 3,000-page dossier that Wade had submitted to prove the legal origin of his 694 billion francs (CFA) and thus the equivalent of around one billion euros in assets did not save him from six years in prison and a fine in March 2015 of 138 billion CFA francs (about 210 million euros) to be convicted. This judgment was upheld by the country's highest court on his appeal in August 2015. After halfway through the prison sentence, Wade was pardoned by Sall in June 2016 and released from prison. He then left Senegal. A proposed candidacy in the 2019 presidential election would not have been possible because of his prison sentence of more than five years due to the current electoral law, this was confirmed by the Senegalese constitutional court.

The trial against Wade took place before a special court, which was set up to fight corruption in the country. It was controversial in the country, supporters of his party rated it as politically motivated. In contrast, in October 2013, President Sall referred to the independence of the Senegalese judiciary. According to Daouda Seck from the Friedrich Naumann Foundation , Wade's early release was not only due to humanitarian reasons. The work of influential personalities is likely to have played a role as well as the efforts of President Sall to defuse the existing tensions within the political landscape and thereby enable a dialogue between the government and the opposition.

Private

Wade's wife Karine, a French woman, died on April 10, 2009 at the age of 40 after being ill for several months. The couple had met at the Sorbonne and had three daughters. As of early 2019, he lives in Singapore ; he has withdrawn from Senegalese politics.

Web links

Commons : Karim Wade  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Marwane Ben Yahmed: Jusqu'où ira Karim Wade? Jeune Afrique, January 21, 2008, accessed March 19, 2019. (French)
  2. ↑ a b President's son says he will join new government. France 24 , May 1, 2009, accessed March 22, 2019. (English)
  3. ↑ a b Hamadou Tidiane Sy: Wade admits succession plan with son likely choice. Daily Nation , August 6, 2008, accessed March 22, 2019. (English)
  4. ↑ Islamic Summit Puts Spotlight on Senegal President's Son.Voice of America , October 27, 2009, accessed March 22, 2019. (English)
  5. ↑ Karim Wade, super-ministre par la volonté de son père. Jeune Afrique, May 4, 2009, accessed on March 22, 2019. (French)
  6. ↑ Décret 2010-1314 du 04 octobre 2010 mettant fin aux fonctions de Ministres, nommant de nouveaux Ministres et fixant la composition du Gouvernement Decree of 4 October 2010 on the website of the Senegalese government, Memento of 10 October 2010. (French)
  7. ^ A b Son of Senegal's ex-president charged with corruption. Reuters , April 17, 2013, accessed March 22, 2019
  8. ↑ a b Jo Holden: Will Senegal remain a stable anchor of West Africa? Friedrich Naumann Foundation, February 19, 2019, accessed on February 23, 2019.
  9. ↑ a b c Ekaterini Georgousaki: Senegal: son of the former president is pardoned and leaves the country. Friedrich Naumann Foundation, July 1, 2017, accessed on March 23, 2019.
  10. ↑ Leaders et Décideurs. Jeune Afrique, January 20, 2009, accessed February 22, 2019. (French)
  11. ↑ a b Markus M. Haefliger: UN troops unsuitable in the fight against extremists . NZZ , October 26, 2013, accessed on March 22, 2019.
  12. ↑ Biens mal acquis: Karim Wade en garde à vue. Courrier international , April 16, 2013, accessed October 29, 2013. (French)
  13. ↑ a b Senegal: Ex-President's son remains in custody Der Standard , August 20, 2015, accessed on March 22, 2019.
  14. ↑ Senegal: son of the ex-president pardoned. Der Standard, June 24, 2016, accessed March 22, 2019.
  15. ^ Sénégal: décès de l'épouse de Karim Wade, fils du président. Jeune Afrique, April 11, 2009, accessed March 20, 2019. (French)
  16. ↑ Dominic Johnson: Big ambitions, big audience. In: TAZ . February 23, 2019, accessed March 22, 2019.
personal data
SURNAME Wade, Karim
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wade, Karim Meïssa
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Senegalese politician
DATE OF BIRTH 1st September 1968
PLACE OF BIRTH Paris