Chadian Foreign Minister, Moussa Faki Mahamat, was Monday elected chairman of the African Union Commission.
The former Chadian prime minister will succeed South Africa’s Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, who headed the union’s executive and administrative arm since 2012.
Faki took a surprise victory over Kenyan Foreign Minister, Amina Mohamed, whom many had regarded as a favourite for the post.
Some analysts attributed Faki’s election to the influence of Chadian President Idriss Deby, the outgoing chairman of the African Union.
Deby will be succeeded by Guinean President, Alpha Conde, whom the summit elected as his successor for the ceremonial post.
The Assembly failed to elect a Chairman for the Commission at its meeting in Rwanda in July, following the failure of any of the candidates to garner the required number of votes.
The two-day summit was also due to decide whether to re-admit Morocco into the organisation after a 33-year absence.
The only African country not to belong to the 54-member body, Morocco left its predecessor, the Organisation of African Unity, in 1984 after it recognized the independence of Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara.
Morocco submitted its bid to rejoin last year, reportedly in the hope that being inside the AU would bring it diplomatic gains against Western Sahara’s independence movement Polisario Front and on other issues.
The membership of relatively wealthy Morocco was expected to be welcomed by many members of the AU, which has been criticized for being overly dependent on donor funding.
But it could be opposed by some countries, which support Polisario, analysts said.
Earlier during the summit, UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, described the African countries as being among the world’s largest and most generous hosts of refugees, while the West and other countries closed boundaries and built walls.
“African borders remain open for those in need of protection, when so many borders are being closed even in the most developed countries in the world,” Guterres said, without referring explicitly to recent US travel bans on people from several countries.
Dlamini-Zuma is seen as leaving a mixed legacy as the AU struggles with issues, including a military conflict in South Sudan, the terrorist campaign by al-Shabaab in Somalia and political crises in Burundi and Congo.
dpa/NAN.
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