Republic of South Africa Minister of Homes Affairs Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma. She is being pushed to takeover the African Union Commission Chair in the near future., a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.
Southern Africa: SADC Should Prevail At AU Elections
4 July 2012
Zimbabwe Herald
opinion
Sadc should prevail this time around! African leaders meet in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, this month for an AU summit that has on its main agenda and the long awaited election of the chairperson of the union's commission.
The chairperson's position is a very powerful as the incumbent does the day to day running of the union, something akin got e a general manager of the union.
The last election failed to produce a winner between Jean Ping and Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma but since then the African political landscape has changed, with French President Nicholas Sakorzy, who was backing Ping having lost the election in his country and the new leadership showing no direct interest.
Ping on the other hand, has largely acted as a front for Europe who, more often than note danced to the tune of his handlers, especially France and the United States of
America. It is a common fact that in Addis Ababa, the European countries and the US will try to influence Ping's reelection because with Ping's help, the allies plan to continue aggressive exploration of Africa's natural resources and intends to push for deployment of Africom on the continent.
Africom, is the US superior military contingent formed specifically to secure fortunes for White House in Africa, disguised as peacekeepers. It was involved in the Libyan war against Muammah Gaddafi and supplied expertise, weaponry and satellite tracking system support to rebels. Africom aided the killing of Gaddafi.
In the last AU commission chair election that ended in a stalemate, Sakorzy had offered to financially support those African countries, who would vote for Ping and this type of bribery was a clear case of direct interference in African politics. So this time around, it is also possible for the same culprits to use the same financial muscle leverage. But if anything Sadc should prevail.
At the last Sadc Summit in Luanda, Angola, the member states reiterated their support for the candidacy of Dlamini-Zuma for the chair of the AU Commission. There is no doubt that this is Sadc's time and that the candidate being proffered is of a better quality and stability and revolutionary credential than the one trying to cling on the power. Ping has clearly demonstrated both the inability to be autonomous from the West and the incapacity to successfully protect the interests of African countries, especially in course of events in Libya. Libya exposed Ping as a circus of great substance, far away from a professional who can be trusted by all and sundry.
Attempts, undertaken by the AU to outline a political resolution to the Libyan crisis, failed due to Ping's inert political performance, which, in turn, resulted in vast civilians casualties. If anything, Ping collaborated with the West and Nato at the expense of an African country he was supposed to protect and his links with former French president Sarkozy, leaves a lot of be desired.
To aggravate the situation, Ping preferred not to notice the massacre of citizens of African states employed in Libya, labelled by the opponents of Gaddafi's regime as mercenaries. Soon after the aggression against Libya stockpiles of weapons from the country's military arsenals found their way into the hands of "AQIM", "Boko Haram" and other radical groups, operating on the African continent. Now Africa has problems from the ripple effects of that war and Mali is a testimony of that. If fact, Ping, should apologise to Africans. He failed the continent. During his term as head of the AU Commission Ping failed to meet expectations of those African countries, which supported and voted for his candidacy.
Moreover, he misguided the attention of the union of AU countries away from the problems at hand. As a result, the AU is abused by the Western countries to enforce advantageous scenarios of crisis management in Africa, through Ping. The above mentioned representative of the southern part of the African continent has never headed the AU Commission. This, in turn, does not correspond with the principals of rotation.
The appointment of Dlamini-Zuma as AU Commissioner is a far more reasonable and logical choice, because South Africa is a regional power player that has both economic and political weight on the international arena, much of which is accumulated through its membership in brics .
Dr Karibu Wa Ngitie is a Tanzanian political scientist who writes for DayAfrica.com
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