Chadian minister to head AU Commission
THE FOREIGN minister of Chad, Moussa Faki Mahamat, will be replacing African Union Commission chairwoman Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma.
This followed a vote by African heads of state and government yesterday afternoon during the AU summit in the Ethiopian capital.
After the initial round of voting, only Mahamat and Kenya’s foreign minister Amina Mohamed were left to contest the position, with Mahamat eventually emerging victorious.
Six months ago, Dlamini Zuma, who declined a second four-year term, had her tenure extended in Kigali, Rwanda, after elections to replace her were inconclusive. Dlamini Zuma, an academic and politician, was the first woman to lead the 50-year-old organisation.
At the weekend, Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, said this time around “there would be no choice” but to conclude the elections.
Five candidates were vying for the post, including Mahamat, Senegal’s Abdoulaye Bathily, a former UN special envoy for Central Africa, Botswana’s foreign minister Pelonomi Venson-Moitoi, Equatorial Guinea’s foreign minister Agapito Mba Mokuy and Kenya’s Mohamed.
In the months leading to the election, Mohamed had campaigned extensively in east Africa and was expected to be a formidable candidate, but Mahamat, who was considered an outside bet, beat her in the final vote.
A Chadian official told a group of reporters that his nation’s candidate had secured 39 votes in the final round. Mahamat, born in 1960, has served as foreign minister since 2008. His previous posts also included a stint as prime minister.
In a race usually resolved in behind-thescenes talks before a summit vote, three of the AU’s four major regions vied for the post – the south, the east and the largely Francophone west – with some regions pushing more than one candidate.
The heads of state at the two-day summit were also set to decide whether to approve the re-admission of Morocco.
The North African kingdom quit the AU’s predecessor, the Organisation of African Unity, three decades ago amid a dispute over the body’s recognition of Western Sahara, most of which has been controlled by Morocco since 1976.
However, King Mohammed VI has been making diplomatic efforts over the past year to try to win Rabat’s readmission.
Some influential African countries have supported the Sahrawi Republic, the domestic political movements that lays claim to the territory along the northern Sahara’s Atlantic seaboard. Early meetings have also been dominated by a debate over the International Criminal Court. – ANA and Reuters