Cassam Uteem is a former President of the Republic of Mauritius (1992-2002). He was nominated to his first formal leadership position in politics in 1969 when he was elected at the Municipal Elections to serve as Councillor of the City of Port Louis. He remained in this position for several years and later, in 1986, became the city’s Lord Mayor.

In 1976, Uteem was elected Member of the Mauritian Parliament and was successively re-elected in 1982, 1983, 1987 and 1991. Between 1982 and 1983 he served as Minister of Employment, Social Security and National Solidarity (1982-83), and as Deputy-Prime Minister and Minister of Industry and Industrial Technology (1990-1992). He is currently a member of the Club de Madrid, member of the Africa Forum and founder-member of the Global Leadership Foundation (GLF). He is also the Honorary President of ATD Fourth World International Committee.

Between 2002 and 2015 he led several Electoral Observation Missions for the African Union, the Commonwealth Secretariat, the Carter Center and the Electoral Institute for Sustainable Democracy in Africa (EISA) in the Maldives, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Lesotho, Madagascar, Egypt, Tunisia & Zambia. In January 2015, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon appointed him as his Special Envoy and Head of the Electoral Observation Mission in Burundi. He studied at the University of Mauritius and at Paris VII University where he received a Bachelor’s degree in Art and a Master’s degree in Psychology.

Uteem joined the Global Commission on Drug Policy in 2019 and is also a member of the (regional) Eastern and Southern Africa Commission on Drugs (ESACD).