Amani Abeid Karume

Karume was born on 1 November 1948 in Zanzibar City. ¹ He was schooled at Lumumba Secondary School until 1969, when he became an accountant. During the 1970s he held a series of posts in the Revolutionary Government of Zanzibar: chief treasurer (1970–1971), principal secretary in the Ministry of Finance (1971–1974), in the Ministry of Planning (1974–1978) and in the Ministry of Communications and Transport (1978–1980). In the 1980s he worked as a private consultant for a British-based business in Zanzibar. ¹

He returned to government and politics in 1990, when he was elected to the Zanzibar House of Representatives for the Raha Leo constituency, and was re-elected in the multiparty polls of 1995. He served as minister of trade (1990–1995) and then as minister of communication and transportation. ¹

Standing as the CCM candidate, Karume won 67.04 percent of the vote in the October 2000 election, which was marred by irregularities and criticised by international observers. The controversy led to mass demonstrations, particularly on Pemba, where police opened fire on demonstrators and killed thirteen people, as Human Rights Watch reported. ¹ He was re-elected on 30 October 2005 with 53.18 percent of the vote, in another contested election. ¹

In late 2009, after years of failed reconciliation efforts under the "Muafaka" framework, Karume initiated peace talks with Seif Sharif Hamad of the Civic United Front — the first such dialogue in Zanzibar's democratic history. A referendum in July 2010 approved a government of national unity, and in November 2010, after elections declared peaceful and fair, Karume stepped down and handed over to Ali Mohamed Shein of the CCM. ¹

Hubert Kairuki Memorial University conferred an honorary Doctor of Science on him in 2010, and he serves as chancellor of Mbeya University of Science and Technology. He is married with six adult children and is fluent in Swahili and English. ¹

No source names a religious school for Karume. The English article's text calls him "a Muslim" in one clause — an attestation of Muslim identity that names no school — and Wikidata gives his religion as Islam with no branch, a single structured value in the same family; there is no Arabic or Urdu article. ^{1 2} His faith is therefore recorded as unknown.

He succeeded Salmin Amour as president of Zanzibar and was succeeded by Ali Mohamed Shein; neither man has a record in the museum, so no succession relation is written. The relations written are his parentage — he is the son of Abeid Karume, whose record was built in the same batch — and his birth in Zanzibar City. ¹

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