Tarek Al-Wazir
| Tarek Al-Wazir | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Deputy Minister-President of Hesse | |
|
Assumed office 18 January 2014 |
|
| Prime Minister | Volker Bouffier |
| Preceded by | Jörg-Uwe Hahn |
| Hessian Minister of Economics, Energy, Transport and Regional Development | |
|
Assumed office 18 January 2014 |
|
| Prime Minister | Volker Bouffier |
| Preceded by | Florian Rentsch |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
January 3, 1971 Offenbach am Main, Hesse,  West Germany
|
| Nationality | German, Yemeni |
| Political party | Alliance '90/The Greens |
Tarek Mohammed Al-Wazir (Arabic: طارق الوزير; born January 3, 1971) is a politician in the German Green Party. Since January 2014 he has been Deputy of the Hessian Minister-President Volker Bouffier and Hessian Minister of Economics, Energy, Transport and Regional Development. He is a member of the Landtag of Hesse and was co-chairman of the Hessian Green Party.
Al-Wazir was born in Offenbach am Main, Hesse, the son of an upper-class Yemeni father and a sudeten German mother. He holds dual citizenship with Yemen and Germany. His parents divorced while he was a child, and he spent several years of his youth in the Yemeni capital (Sana'a) with his father, an experience he later described as very influential in his personal development.
After his Abitur in 1991, he studied political science in Frankfurt, where he earned a diplom.
Al-Wazir joined the German Green Party in 1989, and has been a member ever since. From 1992 to 1994 he was chairman of the party's youth organisation (Green Youth) in Hesse. He has been a member of the Landtag since 1995 and is co-chairman of the Hessian Green Party (with Kordula Schulz-Asche).
He was the leader of the Greens during the Hesse state election of 2008, and as such was the Green candidate for the position of minister-president of Hesse. His party gained 7.5% of the votes. In the aftermath of the election, he pushed hard for a "red-green-red" coalition consisting of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), the Greens, and the far-left Die Linke party. This would have succeeded if not for an internal revolt by SPD members, forcing a new election in January 2009. In the 2009 elections, he again stood as the Green candidate for minister-president. Surveys showed Al-Wazir to be Hesse's most popular politician at the time of the vote. This time his party, also benefitting from popular anger at the SPD, increased its share to 13.7% of the vote, but the Greens remained out of government.
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