The race for the position of the next AU chairman has just gotten hotter as more candidates have emerged. The elections were postponed till January 2017, last month, at the AU summit in Rwanda, after candidates who contested at the time failed to garner the required number of votes to win. The readiness of these new candidates to contest has reportedly added more credibility to the elections, one of the reasons for the inconclusiveness last month.
The three candidates who contested last month at the AU summit, Agapito Mba Mokuy, Dr. Specioza Naigaga Wandira Kazibwe and Dr. Pelonomi Venson- Moitoi from Equatorial Guinea, Uganda and Botswana respectively, now have a tougher job on their hands. (Read here). For the first two, they seemingly lost out because they represent sit-tight presidents and were not qualified. For the latter, who co-incidentally garnered the highest number of votes in July, though they were not enough, inexperience was her problem.
The nomination process has since been re-opened, and about five more candidates will be vying for the post. Former Tanzania president, Jakaya Kikwete, who originally showed his interest in July, is one of the new candidates. United Nations (UN) Secretary General’s special representative to Central Africa, Prof. Abdoulaye Bathily from Senegal is another one of the candidates reportedly intending to run in January. Other names include Algeria’s Foreign minister and former AU Peace and Security commissioner Ramtane Lamamra, former African Development Bank president, Rwanda’s Donald Kaberuka, and Carlos Lopes, the head of the UN Economic Commission for Africa from Guinea Bissau. Read more on this here.