Diplomats are steeling themselves for a battle for the soul of the
African Union at Addis Ababa in January. South Africa’s Nkosazana
Dlamini-Zuma is to challenge incumbent Jean Ping, Gabon’s
former
Foreign Minister, for the chair of the AU Commission. It is the most
senior – and perhaps the most troubled – diplomatic post in Africa.
After a devastating year – the AU was comprehensively sidelined over
Libya and Côte d’Ivoire – there is little to celebrate
for the AU’s
te...
Diplomats are steeling themselves for a battle for the soul of the
African Union at Addis Ababa in January. South Africa’s Nkosazana
Dlamini-Zuma is to challenge incumbent Jean Ping, Gabon’s
former
Foreign Minister, for the chair of the AU Commission. It is the most
senior – and perhaps the most troubled – diplomatic post in Africa.
After a devastating year – the AU was comprehensively sidelined over
Libya and Côte d’Ivoire – there is little to celebrate
for the AU’s
tenth birthday in 2012. This galls South Africa, whose then President,
Thabo Mbeki, aided by Foreign Minister Dlamini-Zuma, did so much
to
establish institutions to monitor democracy and accountability.
The
Southern African Development Community is likely to back Dlamini-Zuma,
as is predominantly Anglophone East and North-East Africa. Central,
West and North Africa are less certain; Ping’s own government failed to
support him, though his dissolved marriage to presidential sister
Pascaline Bongo makes him a member of the local elite. France,
which
had a good year in Africa and wants to be on the winning side, should
favour Ping.
Obsessed by national affairs, Egypt still wants to fill
the North African vacuum in continental matters left after Moammar
el
Gadaffi and is talking to South Africa. Nigeria has
differed strongly
with South Africa but has doubts about Ping. If South Africa can offer
Nigeria strong incentives, it could win its vote and probably the AU
Commission chair.