"“The result has shown up divides in the continent,” said Jakkie Cilliers,
executive director of the Institute for Security Studies in Pretoria.
“South Africa worked hard to reduce Ping's support base.”
http://www.iol.co.za/dailynews/news/au-vote-ends-in-deadlock-1.1223504
AU vote ends in deadlock
January 30 2012 at 07:20pm
By Sapa-AFP
Addis Ababa - A vote by African leaders for the head of their bloc's
influential executive ended in deadlock Monday between Gabon's Jean Ping,
seeking a new term, and challenger Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma of South Africa.
Intense campaigns had preceded the vote and dominated the African Union
summit in Addis Ababa, where leaders gathered to discuss broadening trade
within Africa as well as tackling conflict hot spots.
“We went for an election and none of the two candidates emerged as a
winner,” Zambian President Michael Sata said. “The next elections will be
held in June.”
The deputy AU commission chief, Erastus Mwencha from Kenya, will serve as
the executive council's chair until the fresh polls at the next summit.
However, analysts say the vote for the AU agenda-setting position has
exposed political fault lines between English- and French-speaking Africa,
as well as between different geographic regions.
“The result has shown up divides in the continent,” said Jakkie Cilliers,
executive director of the Institute for Security Studies in Pretoria.
“South Africa worked hard to reduce Ping's support base.”
AU sources said the election was tight, with Ping holding a slender lead in
three rounds of voting in which neither candidate obtained the required
two-thirds majority.
Ping, 69, led Dlamini-Zuma, the ex-wife of South Africa's president and a
former foreign affairs minister, in the first three rounds 28 votes to 25,
27 to 26 and 29 to 24, AU sources said.
Dlamini-Zuma was then forced under AU rules to pull out, leaving Ping to
face a fourth round on his own, but he still failed to muster the necessary
votes in his support.
Ahead of the vote, sources said Ping had been confident of re-election,
counting on support from French-speaking West and Central Africa countries.
However, he has appeared to have fallen foul of criticism that he performed
poorly in recent crises on the continent, after a year that saw a
post-election crisis in Ivory Coast as well as the Arab Spring revolutions.
Dlamini-Zuma, 63, had launched a tough campaign and had the backing of the
15-member Southern African Development Community, and Pretoria lobbied hard
across Africa to drum up support.
South African delegates broke into song and dance after the stalemate vote
conducted at the two-day summit in the new ultra-modern AU headquarters
built by the Chinese and unveiled at the weekend.
But Cilliers warned that while Dlamini-Zuma supporters were celebrating,
her failure to win suggested many might oppose South Africa for the post
too.
“Importantly, this result may mean that Africans don't want a key country
such as South Africa in the position of chair,” he said.
In a pre-vote pledge, Dlamini-Zuma said that if elected she would “spare no
effort in building on the work of those African women and men who want to
see an African Union that is a formidable force striving for a united,
free, truly independent, better Africa.”
No woman has held the post to which Ping was elected in 2008.
Mwencha, AU Commission deputy chairman for the past four years, is a Kenyan
economist who has spent most of his long career promoting the cause of
regional integration and trade.
On Sunday, the 54-member African Union elected Benin's President Thomas
Boni Yayi as its new chairman, a rotating post held for one year. -
Sapa-AFP
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Received on Mon Jan 30 2012 - 22:15:18 EST
