The Horn Of Africa States: The Oncoming AU Chairperson Elections – OpEd
The African Union (AU) is the continent’s main representative body. There are other African continental organizations, which include among others the African Mining Vision (AMV), the Science and Technology Innovation Strategy for Africa (STISA), the Accelerated Industrial Development for Africa (AIDA), the Comprehensive African Agricultural Development Program (CAADP) and others.
The AU consists of some fifty-five members and succeeded the Organization of the African Union (OAU) in 2002. However, despite being a representative body of African countries, it is funded by and large by non-African parties, and many of its decisions are not implemented. In some reports it is stated that over the years 2021, 2022 and 2023, some 93 % of its decisions were not implemented (The Conversation: The African Union is weak because its members want it that way – experts call for action on its powers, March 5, 2024).
It is said that dependence on foreign parties for funding and the lack of political will on the part of the member countries to support the organization have contributed to its inability to achieve its objectives. No wonder, it remains a subdued organization which does not stir interest in the 1.5 billion African population of the continent. The current Chairperson Mahamat Faki is hardly known beyond the political circles of governments and does not inspire much in the international, and African media. Few of the continent’s population are even aware that there will be an election for the top job of the continent in February 2025.
The organization’s inability to meet its budgetary requirements from internally generated resources – member state contributions, in the main, contribute to the failure and hence dependency on parties that want it to fail in the first place. The mandate of the Chairperson is also limited and does not allow the chairperson to manage the organization effectively as every possible decision appears to go back to the members states, who have little time for it, as most leaders appear to be busy filling their pockets at the expense of their people, development of their countries, and indebting the population more and more for generations to come.
Despite its jungles, Africa fails to note that it is a jungle out there in the world, where the strong trample on the weak and where the interests of major, middle and regional powers generally come before the interests of everyone else, in that order all the way to the weakest.
What makes Africa weak is a question most people blame on others which are stronger powers than the continent’s individual countries and collectively the continent. If someone is paying for your bills, it is now doubt, that you will owe that person, at least, some reverence and respect, and Africa, despite its riches, remains poor and makes other continents rich and richer by the year. Africans never blame themselves for their lot and situation, be it political, economic or social.
It was amazing, how after the Second World War and more particularly during the fifties of the last century, many Africans sought independence from the colonial powers, which they were awarded, as the wind of change swept across the continent, as was described by Britain’s Prime Minister, Harold Smith in a speech to the apartheid South African Parliament in February 1960 during a visit to the southern tip of the continent, Cape Town.
It is more amazing how, after chasing the colonials away, Africans in the millions are now streaming into the colonial countries, running away from their independent, now so-called free countries.
What happened is an issue, which Africans and others continue asking themselves, but that is not the subject of this article. It is about the Chairperson of the AU and the oncoming election process for a new one as the allowed two-terms of the current Chairperson Mahamat Faki of Chad ends in February 2025, when a new one has to be elected.
A new leadership involving the Chairperson, a deputy Chairperson and most of the six commissioners are to be elected to replace the sitting ones. The election process follows a protocol which rotates the chairperson among the recognized five regions of the continent. In 2025, the Chairperson is to come from the East Africa region and North Africa will have to produce the Deputy Chairperson.
There are currently three candidates from East Africa for the position of Chairperson of the AU. They are H.E Mahmoud Ali Youssouf of Djibouti, H.E. Richard Randriamandrato of Madagascar and H.E. Raila Odinga of Kenya. There are six candidates (two from Algeria, two from Egypt, one from Libya, and one from Morocco) all contesting for the position of deputy Chairperson of the African Union.
Many challenges face the African Union and whoever is elected to mange its affairs during the coming four years. These challenges include among others:
- Putting the financials of the organization in order, removing or reducing the dependence on others for carrying out objectives that may contradict with the needs of those supposedly helping hands.
- Empowering the AU Commission to take positions that represent the continent’s needs in global politics, economic and social development, climate change and others.
- Putting an order to the continent’s regional economic organizations which seem to have no rules with countries double dipping multiple regional economic communities.
- And others.
An AU Chairperson has limited lee ways as a result of the AU infrastructure. A lot at present depends on the personality of the Chairperson and the ability of the individual to forge relations with the member states and persuade them to help and work with the organization. A lot will also depend with the Chairperson’s relations with the other commissioners of the organizations who were elected to these positions. They hold a lot of power and need to be managed. In any case, the AU needs to undergo serious reforms, which the new chairperson has to be able to sell to his constituency, the 55 member states.
With the current limitations in place, the continent will need an individual who has the will, the capacity and the diplomatic and communication skills to inspire people, not only the Commissioners of the AU, but the entire organization and the continent’s population. It needs new and inspiring leadership skills and not old candidates who should have retired long ago and left the ground for younger persons who can handle the intricacies of modern life in the diplomatic and communications and technology world.
The AU does not definitely need people of the past but persons who can survive the complexities of the modern world and the continent, which is run by young people across the continent, who can understand their wishes, their ambitions, their goals and sympathise with their difficulties. It is not h sixties or the seventies or even eighties of the last century. The continent should work to live in the twenty first century.