http://english.manoramaonline.com/cgi-bin/MMOnline.dll/portal/ep/contentView.do?contentId=12010567&programId=1073750974&tabId=1&contentType=EDITORIAL
Midnight drama, deals in battle for AU’s top job
Story Dated: Monday, July 16, 2012 22:27 hrs IST
Addis Ababa: It was midnight drama, intrigue and last-minute deal-making at
the Chinese-built new building of the African Union as rival camps upped
the stakes for the AU's top job, which has been won by South Africa's Home
Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma.
African leaders, who are in the Ethiopian capital for the 19th biannual AU
summit, finally gathered in the conference hall of the AU new building
Sunday evening for the first round of voting for the post of the AU
Commission chair, the 54-nation bloc's chief executive head.
The continent has never been polarised like this before as camps backing
Jean Ping, the incumbent chairperson of the AU Commission and a former
Gabonese foreign minister, and Dlamini-Zuma, a seasoned minister and
anti-apartheid activist, raised their pitch and intensified the last-minute
lobbying.
The first two rounds of voting failed to produce a clear winner, who is
expected to secure two-thirds votes in the 54-nation grouping. Finally, the
last round of voting close to midnight saw Dlamini-Zuma, projected as the
southern Africa region's candidate, sailing through with 37 votes, making
her the first female president to head the AU's executive body.
The results left almost everyone surprised as nobody was expecting such a
clear victory even as there were sighs of relief that the leadership
stalemate, which was dragging on since a deadlocked vote in January, was
finally over.
"Thank God, it's over. We voted for Africa," a Ghanaian diplomat, who
refused to be named, told IANS here Monday.
None of the delegates were ready to disclose which way their country voted
for, saying that the entire continent stood united behind the new AU head.
"We are now looking to the future; we have many crises on our hands and
it's time for robust African leadership of African issues," said a
Zimbabwean diplomat, who looked pleased that the candidate supported by her
country has won.
But declarations of African unity and solidarity apart, there were subdued
whispers about some Francophone countries switching sides to support South
Africa's candidate.
The guessing game is still on, but several diplomats spoken to disclosed on
condition of anonymity that the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Central
African Republic, Benin and Burundi moved over to the South Africa camp.
The voting pattern will never be known as it was a secret ballot and given
the sensitivity of the issue, no one is prepared to stick its neck out.
"South Africa is the continent's largest economy and has enormous clout,"
said a Gambian diplomat, hinting at some deal-making on the sides.
It wasn't exactly a contest between the Anglophone Africa and Francophone
Africa as it was widely projected to be, but the real contest, an insider
disclosed, was between the continent's two heavyweights, Nigeria, pitching
for Ping, and South Africa batting for Dlamini-Zuma.
South Africa's astutely-crafted campaign, led from the front by President
Jacob Zuma, played a role in the victory of Dlamini-Zuma (a former wife of
Zuma), said an insider.
Besides highlighting her credentials as an anti-apartheid activist and her
record, which included stints as health minister and foreign minister, the
South African campaign for Dlamini-Zuma focused on projecting her as the
potential first female head of the AU Commission in the AU's decade of the
empowerment of women.
The campaign also highlighted that the southern Africa region so far has
not got a chance to get its candidate elected for the AU Commission chair.
On the other hand, the Ping backers seemed to have lost momentum in the
last stages of the campaign. While Zuma came to Addis Ababa Friday, a day
before the summit started, the presidents of Nigeria and Ghana, key Ping
backers, failed to show up apparently on grounds of some domestic crises.
According to some insiders, Ping's promotion of China's interests in Africa
and his perceived mishandling of the Libya crisis last year which opened
the door for regime change also played a role in his defeat.
The much-hyped election may be over, but now all eyes are on how the new
head of the AU goes on to tackle multiple crises besetting the continent,
including the fragile security situation in the post-coup Mali, the
Sudan-South Sudan stand-off, and political crises in Guinea Bissau and the
Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Received on Mon Jul 16 2012 - 23:28:52 EDT
