By Takura Zhangazha*
On Monday 13 January 2025, the former prime minister of Kenya,
Raila Odinga paid a courtesy call on Zimbabwe’s President E.D Mnangagwa in Harare.
It turns out he has been on a tour of a number of African states and meeting with their presidents
in order to let them know that he is bidding to be the next chairperson of the
African Union Commission (AUC).
The current outgoing chair is Moussa Fakki from the Republic
of Chad who’s second term of office ends this year.
The other two candidates for the AUC chairperson’s post are
Mahmoud Youssof of Djibouti and Richard Randriamandrato of Madagascar.
The latter two are yet to pay a similar campaign or bidding visit
to Zimbabwe within the ambit of these lobbyist activities to run the African
Union for at least five years.
What is evident from the visit of Raila Odinga to Zimbabwe
is that to be chairperson of the AUC, you need support of members states and
their heads of state and government. It
is essentially a somewhat elelected position by members of the African Union
(AU).
By the time its general assembly is held and ends in mid-February
2025, there should now be a new chairperson of the AUC. Oh and yes, the AU does have what it calls
its own electoral commission to count the members state s votes for this
position.
The only ambiguity is that electing the chairperson of the AU
is not as easy as walking into a polling station and casting your vote for the
best orator or the most education/experienced of candidates.
The election of the AUC chairperson is a highly lobbied, continental,
global international relations and historically informed process.
I will start with the historical element of this. Ever since the formation of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) in 1963 African states either in the West, North, Centre, East and South of the African continent have tended to compete with each other about what a future free Africa should look like.
Either on religious grounds,
proximity to former colonial powers’ foreign policy interests or greater
regional liberation struggle and ideological ties that converged or differed
between them.
Hence historically we had the Monrovia (moderate) and Casablanca (radical) groups that eventually compromised to form the OAU. I will not go into details on these suffice to say the relative divisions about the role of Africa in the world and international relations have not necessarily gone away between members states of the AU as they approach the selection of a new chairperson of the AUC.
In both an ideological sense or as it is informally
viewed in a regional rotational fashion for the commission chair or for the head
of state chair of the AU General Assembly.
I will now turn to the continental and globalized international
relations of this year’s AUC chairpersons appointment via lobbying and emergent
international relations re-alignments. Especially in the wake of the
Ukraine-Russia conflict, the DRC conflict, the Sudan civil war, the fall of the Syrian government, the
election victory of Donald Trump in the USA, the counterhegemonic role of China
and the Israel-Palestine conflict. Also inclusive of the still recognized freedom
struggle of the people of the Saharawi Republic from the recent AU member
entrant, the Kingdom of Morocco.
Any new AUC chairperson has to be able to balance all of
these emergent global developments with a keen eye on AU member states
interests and vulnerabilities in what is clearly a fluid international
relations and loyalties’ global political environment.
And in most cases, because of the aforementioned
complexities', the position of running the day to day affairs of the AU as its
commission’s chairperson tend to be left to what one could consider a ‘neutral’
diplomat. One that can talk to China and
the USA while straddling the tight rope between Russia, Ukraine and the
European Union. While again all the
while listening to regional treaty based organizations on the African continent
and also individual member states and their interests.
And these points bring me to the three official candidates that
I have cited above for the coveted position of the chairperson of the African
Union Commission.
I had not heard much about the two candidates from Djibouti and Madagascar. But in Zimbabwe we are familiar with Raila Odinga.
Not only because of Kenya’s geographical proximity to us but also because he was politically close to our own former prime minister Morgan Tsvangirai and successor leaders to Zimbabwe’s mainstream opposition political parties.
We also know the dynamics of his domestic
role in Kenya in so far as he has disputed electoral results and supported a
number of nascent pro-democracy movements in the east, central and southern
African regions.
This makes for a clear complexity of his candidacy even if
it is eventually backed by Mnangagwa’s government or the East African heads of
states.
What is apparent is that with the necessary effort, a former
prime minister, foreign minster or president can re-invent their political
careers by seeking regional and international roles. Backed by their multiple
reputations, loyalties and emergent international relations dynamics and
global economic powerhouse interests or direct support.
And it is sort of a good thing that we get to see the
candidates and can now google their backgrounds. But the reality of the matter is that we are
not the ones that vote for them as Africans.
It is our heads of state and government that do so. Not for democratic purposes but within the
ambit of global international and economic relations dynamics.
But for now we can only appreciate that we still have the African
Union and we have an understanding at both elite and national continental levels
of its importance. It is complex but we can only wish the next chairperson of
the African Union Commission all the best in these trying global times.
*Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity
(tajura-zhangazha.blogspot.com) (takurazhangazha.com)
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