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The influential African Union Commission (AUC) finds itself without a substantive chairperson as the term of the Gabonese politician and diplomat, Dr Jean Ping, comes to an end and elections to find his replacement fail to produce an outright winner. For the Commission, which is the bureaucratic arm of the African Union, to be without a chief executive officer at this point in time when the continent is facing so many challenges is both debilitating and unsettling.
Ping has been criticised for failing to hammer out a comprehensive solution to the crises facing the continent – both long term and recent. The Somalia imbroglio, the thorny issue of the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrants against Sudanese President Omar el Bashir and a reluctance to respond quickly to the crisis in the North Africa have all been blamed on the Commission. The powerful Commission is said to have sat on its hands while Cote d’Ivoire, Libya imploded; Sudan and South Sudan headed dangerously towards fresh confrontation and the Zimbabwean political crisis simmered.
Even the confusion about the status of the Kenyan troops in Somalia; whether they should be fully integrated into the United Nations-supported African Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) or operate under their own separate command is being seen as a failing by Commission, which is the bureaucratic arm of the African Union.
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The bruising contest between the South African Home Affairs Minister Ms Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and Ping did not produce an outright winner as he held to a slender lead in the three rounds of voting but could not muster the required two-thirds majority. The campaigns ahead of the vote overshadowed the two-day summit on intra-African trade on January 29 and 30, 2012 and the first one since the death of AU founder Muammar Gadhafi last year.
Gadhafi had made the formation of a united Africa his pet project and held considerable sway in the AU due to his generous funding. Ms Dlamini-Zuma was then forced under the AU rules to pull out, leaving Ping to face a fourth round on his own, but he still failed to garner the necessary votes ending the dramatic polls in a stalemate. His term ends officially in April.
His deputy, the Kenyan international civil servant Erastus Mwencha, will serve as the executive council’s chair until a fresh poll, which Zambian President Michael Sata announced would take place in June during the next AU summit in Malawi. Mwencha cut his teeth as the long serving secretary general of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa); a 19-member economic bloc charged with promoting peace, security, free trade in the continent. Though the bulk of its membership comes from east and southern Africa, Egypt in the north of the continent is key member.
In a surprising turn of events the AU decided to extend Jean Ping's tenure for six months, Ping 70, a suave and fabulously wealth politician and diplomat, has been at the helm of the AU Commission since 2008 and his first term in office ends this year. He had launched a massive campaign for his second term in office and was said to enjoy good support from most of west, eastern and central African countries.
The rift over Ping’s bid was so intense that South African delegates broke into song and dance after he failed to garner the votes required to clinch a second term.
Southern and Northern Africa has pushed for a new chairman with Pretoria being his harshest critic due to his perceived failure in handling crises in the continent. Indeed, some of his detractors have derisively described him as the King of Wishful thinking due to his propensity to make lofty promises at the heat of the moment.
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But elections for the largely ceremonial AU Chairman were uneventful and stayed true to the script. The outgoing chair Equatorial Guinea’s President Teodoro Obiang Nguema accused Western institutions such as the International Criminal Court of anti-African bias. He declared that African leaders must not remain indifferent to what he called external interference.
The opening session of the 18th Summit saw Benin’s President Thomas Boni Yayi elected to a one-year term as AU chairman. The post rotates according to region, and Boni Yayi was the choice of the West African regional bloc ECOWAS. He is an economist who has led the small West African nation for six years.
South Africa has accused Dr Ping of indulging French interests in the Cote d’ivoire civil war and of been slow and indecisive in responding to the Libyan crisis that saw the ouster and demise of Gadhafi.
Had Ms Dlamini-Zuma won, she would have been the first woman to take up the prestigious seat. But Ping’s failure to clinch the reclaim his seat came as something of a surprise. He was said to enjoy the support of the Economic Community of Central Africa States (ECCAS) and of the Economic Community of West Africa State (ECOWAS) and the Kenyan government. President Mwai Kibaki’s support and, indeed, that of the East Africa Community was based on the fact that he had fully backed Nairobi’s attempt to short-circuit the cases ICC had listed against six senior Kenyans over allegations of crimes against humanity. Charges against Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta, Eldoret North MP William Ruto, Head of the Public Service Francis Muthaura and radio journalist Joshua Sang have since been confirmed. Subsequently, both Uhuru and Muthaura have resigned their position as Finance minister and Head of the Civil Service.
The other two suspects; a former Police Commissioner Major General Hussein Ali and a former Cabinet minister and Tinderet MP Henry Kosgey were dropped after the court ruled that they had no case to answer. Analysts say President Robert Mugabe was likely to back Dr Ping to get back at his SA counterpart Jacob Zuma for putting pressure on him to end a decade-long political crisis weighing down Zimbabwe.
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The AU is made up of 54 member states, with newly independent state South Sudan also attending the summit for the first time, since it gained its independence on July 9, 2011. In a press statement issued by the South African Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Ms Maite Nkoana - Mashabane, she addressed the strategy and need to consolidate the AU as a Pan-African institution.
“We need to ensure that the African development agenda is collectively advanced and issues relating to integration (as per the Abuja treaty), the operationalisation of the African peace and security architecture and enhancing cooperation between AU and UN in conflict resolution.” South Africa has, however, paid tribute to Dr Ping and his predecessors for their efforts in enhancing the renewal of Africa.
“The top Agenda is development and the major direction the AU is taking is about accelerating development in Africa,” said Dlamini-Zuma. Earlier, she presented an eight-point bulletin on how South Africa would restructure the organs of the AU into a “formidable force”. “I have accepted the challenge of leading the Commission because I believe that more can be done to make the AU fulfill the mandate given to it by our forebears,” she said. Among the issues she hopes to address is to ensure that NEPAD programmes particularly in the areas of rail and road, energy, water and sanitation, information communication technologies (ICT) as well as agriculture and food security are given the necessary impetus as drivers of Africa’s development goals.
She is also targeting the full implementation and consolidation of programmes aimed at ensuring the emancipation of women in line with the context of the declared 2010-2020 Decade of Women. She also urges that health; education and skills development of children and youth in Africa are taken care of in order to ensure adequate future human resources for development.
She was backed not only by her own country but by the 15 - nation South African Development Community (SADC) while Ping has major support from French-speaking central and West African countries. He obtained the two thirds majority in 2008. According to Mr Obed Bapela, Deputy Minister in the Presidency, South Africa had managed to split the West African vote.
“In the work we have done so far having spoken to certain leaders in certain West African countries, I can say that there are those supporting our candidate,” he said. By putting forward Dlamini-Zuma as a candidate, SA was challenging the unspoken agreement that the chairmanship is reserved for smaller African states as a counterbalance to the influence of the more powerful states. This has not gone down well with some countries and has prompted realignments.
South Africa believed that time has come to break this tradition by allowing competition among member states to occupy key posts within the AU. Dlamini-Zuma’s bid forms part of Pretoria’s plan to “strengthen governance controls” at the AU to make it more “assertive and effective”.
Her bid to head the African Union executive had also been backed by Russia in a statement from the Embassy of the Russian Federation in Pretoria. Russia said that Dlamini-Zuma is a formidable candidate for the contested post although they did not openly endorse her candidacy. Russia becomes the first country in the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) economic bloc to make an observation publicly on the AU commission leadership race.
“She (Dlamini-Zuma) is a strong candidate but Russia will accept any decision by the AU on the contest as it is our principled position not to interfere about issues that are outside our scope,” Georgy Chepik, a counselor in the embassy of the Russian Federation in Pretoria, said.
South Africa is determined to strengthen multilateral institutions on the continent. As part of the plan, Pretoria wants to strengthen such institutions with experienced officials in key decision-making posts to raise “Africa’s Voice”.Diplomatic efforts to persuade Mr Ping to withdraw from the race and make way for Dlamini-Zuma have so far failed. Gabon’s envoy to the AU, Andre William Anguile, branded as “malicious rumours” reports suggesting the country had withdrawn its support for its candidate.
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