Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete has been declared winner of the 2005 Tanzanian presidential elections and is scheduled to be sworn in as the fourth elected president of the United Republic of Tanzania on Wednesday.

Kikwete, 55, has been serving as Tanzania's foreign minister for the past decade.

Born on October 7 of 1950 in the Coast region, Kikwete received his primary and secondary schooling between 1958 and 1971. Later he studied the University of Dar es Salaam between 1972 and 1978 when he earned a bachelor's degree in economics.

Kikwete attended a one-year course at a military college in northern Tanzania in 1983.

His political career started when he won uncontested the Bagamoyo parliamentary constituency and represented the constituency for three terms on end since 1988.

Before serving as the country's longest-serving foreign minister, Kikwete served as minister of water, energy and minerals (1990-1994) and finance minister (1994-1995).

Kikwete joined the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi party in 1975 when the party was still known as the Tanganyika African National Union (TANU). He became a member of the party's National Executive Committee in 1982 and joined the elite Central Committee in 1997.