African Union (AU) leaders have chosen Chad’s candidate as the next head of the AU commission.
Chadian Foreign Minister Moussa Faki Mahamat beat Kenya’s top diplomat Amina Mohamed.
The race is usually settled behind the scenes before the vote but this went to seven rounds of voting.
Outgoing commissioner, South Africa’s Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, stayed in the job an extra six months after leaders failed to agree a candidate in July.
The BBC’s Emmanuel Igunza in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa reports that Mr Faki garnered 38 votes in a hotly contested election at the ongoing heads of state summit in the city.
While campaigning for the job, he said he dreamt of an Africa where the “sound of guns would be drowned out by cultural songs and rumbling factories” and pledged to streamline the bureaucratic AU during his four-year term in office.
Analysts say he was considered an outsider but being at the forefront of the fight against Islamist militants in Nigeria, Mali and the Sahel may have worked in his favour.
During the next two days the leaders are also expected to discuss a petition by Morocco, seeking to rejoin the union after nearly three decades of absence.
Morocco left the AU in 1984, after the organisation recognised the independence of Western Sahara, which Morocco claims is part of its territory.
The AU supports political and economic integration among its 54 member nations.
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