Al-Wazir was born in Offenbach am Main, Hesse, the son of an upper-class Yemeni father and a teacher.

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.

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 Die Linke.

[3] 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.

[10] Al-Wazir's surname has been an aptronym since he assumed ministerial office in 2014, as الوزير "al-wazīr" is Arabic for "the government minister.