AU Commission chair poll postponed
1 February 2012
The election of the chairperson of the African Union Commission was postponed to the next African Union summit in Lilongwe, Malawi in June/July, after voting deadlocked in the election race between the incumbent, Gabonese diplomat and politician Jean Ping, and South Africa's candidate, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma.
After four rounds of voting at the AU summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on Monday - including a final round in which Ping stood alone - neither of the two candidates managed to clinch the required two-thirds of votes.
On Tuesday, African Union chair Thomas Boni Yayi, the president of Benin, announced that Ping's mandate had been extended until the Lilongwe summit, while denying that the deadlocked vote indicated division within the pan-African organisation.
"The continent is united and there is hope that it will continue to be united," Yayi said.
South African International Relations and Cooperation Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, addressing the media following Monday's voting, said the deadlock indicated no disunity but rather a commitment to democracy.
Nkoana-Mashabane said there was nothing to stop South Africa from putting Dlamini-Zuma up for election again in June/July, noting that SA's home affairs minister had "proven to be a formidable candidate that the incumbent could not defeat".
She added: "[W]e fielded a woman candidate from South Africa, and one of our very best. And for the first time since 1963 till date, we have never gone to a round where a female candidate has gotten so far ... I think we should feel very proud of this."
If the Southern African Development Community (SADC) "comes back and asks for [Dlamini-Zuma] to stand as a candidate again, we will do so gladly".
SAinfo reporter and BuaNews
Facebook
Twitter
Mobile
RSS feeds
Newsletter
Weblines
