One of the most-discussed aspects at the ongoing 27th AU Summit in Rwanda’s Kigali is the election of a new AU Commission Chairperson.
South Africa’s Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma is not running for a second term. The current Deputy Chairperson, and two other commissioners second mandate ends and are not eligible for re-elections, while the remaining six commissioners can still contest.
The positions of the chairperson, deputy chairperson and four commissioners (Political Affairs; Human Resources, Science and Technology; Infrastructure and Energy; and Rural Economy and Agriculture) are open, reported the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) in Pretoria in a recent article.
According to sources, a number of influential Africans approached the AUC arguing that the submission process should be re-opened in order to accept new candidates of a higher calibre.
However, if new candidates are to be accepted, the elections would have to be postponed until January 2017 and this would require consensus among the various African states and their respective governments to change the rules that govern the elections, added ISS.
Postponement of the elections would result in the new commission only taking up its responsibilities in March 2017, three months after the January 2017 Summit.
And there are suggestions that the vote could be postponed for another six months, due to a lack of so-called “competent contenders”.
CCTV’s Girum Chala reports.
