Abdoulaye Wade
Position: President of Senegal
Age: 84
Time in Power: 10 years
Wade had to wait a long time to get the top job, running for president four times, beginning in 1978. After his fourth unsuccessful bid in 1993, Wade was arrested and charged with being complicit in the murder of Babacar Sèye, the first vice president of the Constitutional Court. The next year he was arrested and charged with inciting a riot that occurred during an anti-government demonstration; both charges were dismissed. He was finally elected in 2000, he was the first person to win against the the then ruling Socialist party since Senegal's independence in 1960. Before his career in politics he studied in both France and Senegal, receiving a PhD in law and economics from the Sorbonne. Although he was officially born in 1926, some claim it was even earlier! Wade made international headlines earlier this year with the construction of a towering $27 million to "African Renaissance" that many critics thought wasteful of government funds.