Is He 90? Senegal Leader's Age a Campaign Issue The question dogging the president of this nation as he tries to convince his country to vote for him one last time can be traced to this town enveloped in sand. It's here inside a house with a goat tethered outside that President Abdoulaye Wade was born. The problem is when? His birth certificate is locked away. And the page stating when he entered primary school has been torn out. As Wade tries to persuade voters to give him a third term in next week's election, his age has become a campaign issue. Officially, Wade was born on May 29, 1926, making him 85 years old in a nation where most people die around age 59. His critics contend that he may be 90 - and the world's oldest leader. They point to the common practice in rural Senegal of reducing children's ages on official documents so they can stay home longer and help in the fields before starting school. The issue is so touchy that a longtime resident who knew the president before he was elected began receiving death threats this week after he claimed Wade was born in 1919. His age is a problem. The issue is the uncertainty it causes. Is he capable of managing the nation?" says Cheikh Bamba Dieye, the mayor of Saint Louis, where Wade's birth certificate is kept in a locked room. The worst-case scenario is not that he dies, but that he remains in office and is incapacitated - a president by default. Someone in office who is exercising his power without actually doing so. 20, 2012 AND THEREAFTER - In this Friday, Feb. 10, 2012 photo, supporters of President Abdoulaye Wade await his arrival for a campaign rally in the town of Dagana, Senegal. As Wade tries to persuade voters to give him a third term in Senegal's Feb. 26, 2012 election, his age has become a campaign issue. Officially, Wade was born on May 29, 1926, making him 85 years old in a nation where most people are dead at 59. His critics contend that he may be 90, and the world's oldest leader. (AP Photo/Gabriela Barnuevo) Close Before independence from France 51 years ago, only people born in one of the four administrative centers in the French colony were considered French citizens. The closest of the four to Kebemer was Saint-Louis, located 45 miles (73 kilometers) to the north over dusty plains dotted with thorn trees. In his biography, Wade says that although his father never attended school, he understood the benefits of French citizenship, so he asked a friend in Saint-Louis to register the birth right after it happened. The archive where Wade's birth certificate is housed is inside a narrow hallway, where men sit in darkness behind moldering binders. Not even the head of the government's main research institute has been allowed to see it. Ibrahima Gueye, the division chief overseeing birth records in Saint-Louis, will not show reporters Wade's birth certificate, or even comment on it. But he says it's no secret that the colonial-era records usually don't state authentic dates of birth. It's well-known that this is what parents did. They reduced the age of their kids. It's not even anything extraordinary," said Gueye. It's not specific to Wade. It's specific to Senegal. Before independence in 1960, most Senegalese only sought a birth certificate when their child needed to enroll in school. Elementary School No. 1 in Kebemer has not changed much in the eight decades since its most famous student passed through its halls. Its children still learn to read in classrooms that are rectangles of cement. The register listing the names of former students is locked away inside a rusting filing cabinet. Its pages are disintegrating and when you leaf through the book, pieces of brittle paper fall to the ground.