Bloc backs former South African minister for AU top post

CAPE TOWN, Sunday

Southern African countries meeting today in Cape Town have vowed to lobby hard for South Africa’s Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma to be elected new African Union chief in fresh polls after a recent deadlock.

The 15-member Southern African Development Community (Sadc) again backed the former foreign minister in a two-day meeting called to plot the bloc’s strategy after she failed to unseat Gabon’s Jean Ping as chairman of the AU Commission nearly two weeks ago.

“It’s going to be a campaign of all Sadc member states and we are going to work and convince others with all the strong arguments that we have,” Angolan Foreign minister Rebelo Pinto Chikoti told a gala dinner on Saturday.

Democratic processes

“All other regions have had this position, and through democratic processes, and we have worked with them so what we ask them this time is for them to allow us this chance.”

Chikoti said that it was southern Africa’s opportunity to have the AU’s top post, but that the tightly contested race, seen as exposing divides between geographical regions, was not a rivalry.

“We are not doing this as a fight against anybody, we are not making a fight against people or even against our dear partners,” he said.