Kenya’s surprise decision to nominate the Foreign Minister Amina Mohamed for the job of African Union (AU) Commission chairperson will test the lobbying skills of the country’s diplomats and its influence on the continent.
Elections to replace Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, who is stepping down after one term to prepare for a stab at the South African presidency, will take place in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in January.
A vote in Kigali, Rwanda, during the 27th Heads of State Assembly in July failed after none of the three candidates – Bostwana’s Foreign Minister Dr Pelonomi Venson-Moitoi, her counterpart from Equatorial Guinea Agapito Mba Mokuy and former Vice President of Uganda, Specioza Wandira Kazibwe – collected the two-thirds of the votes required to win.
Member states of the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) abstained from the July ballot amidst concerns about the quality of the candidates. The three candidates are eligible to run again but Uganda has already withdrawn Ms Kazibwe’s name from nominations that closed on September 30.
Dr Moitoi, who topped the July polling with 23 votes after seven rounds of balloting, is expected to be on the list of new nominees to be released later this month, maintaining her position as the official candidate of the Southern African Development Community (SADC).
While the nominees are yet to be made public, diplomatic sources say apart from Ms Mohamed, the list is also likely to include Fowsiyo Yusuf Haji Adan, Somalia’s first female foreign minister who held the position between 2012 and 2014, as well as Senegalese diplomat and politician Abdoulaye Bathily who is currently the UN Secretary General’s special representative for Central Africa.
Mr Mukoy came second in July and is likely to return as the Central African candidate, buoyed by the generous financial support Equatorial Guinea’s President Teodoro Obiang Nguema offers the AU – support that has become ever more important since the departure of Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi.
Chad’s President Idriss Deby, who currently holds the AU rotational leadership, is also believed to have put forth the name of his foreign minister Moussa Faki Mahamat, who served as prime minister between 2003 and 2005, and who would present a second candidate for the Central African bloc.
Regional horse-trading
Ms Mohamed’s candidature faces at least four main challenges. The first is that the AU Commission chairperson’s election follows regional blocs and, should Ms Adan make it to the list of nominees, the Kenyan foreign minister will come into the race without a solid regional bloc behind her, as Somalia and possibly Djibouti would likely vote for Mogadishu’s former foreign minister.
While Ms Mohamed can count on votes from Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, South Sudan, Sudan and Ethiopia, countries like Madagascar, Seychelles and even Tanzania are likely to vote under the SADC umbrella, at least in the first rounds.
Diplomatic sources say Tanzania supported and voted for Dr Kazibwe in July but might have subsequently committed to vote for a SADC candidate. Tanzanian foreign ministry officials were not available for comment.
If, as expected, Ecowas ends up with one candidate they will have a head start with a solid block of 15 votes behind them, despite optimistic views by Kenyan diplomats that some West African states could vote for Ms Mohamed.
When South Africa put forward Ms Dlamini-Zuma in 2012 against Gabon’s Jean Ping it broke two unwritten rules – that the major funders of the AU would not offer candidates for the top job, and that incumbents would not ordinarily be fought if they sought re-election.
Thus, the underlying contest is between Central Africa, which believes it should have another term to see out what should have been Mr Ping’s second term, and SADC, which also believes it should be allowed to see out Ms Dlamini-Zuma’s second term.
‘Hard sale’
Secondly, while East Africa has not chaired the commission since its creation in 2002 (other chairpersons have come from Cote d’Ivoire and Mali), the current deputy chairperson, Erastus Mwencha, is from Kenya although ineligible to seek promotion. This might prevent the possibility of an East African emerging as a compromise candidate.
“I do not see many countries being enthusiastic about the idea of Kenya ceding the number two position after two terms and then getting the top job right away,” a senior African diplomat familiar with the politics at the AU said, speaking on condition of anonymity in order not to cause a diplomatic rift. “It is not impossible but it is a hard sale.”
Third, while Ms Mohamed is a career international civil servant with leadership experience at the International Organisation for Migration, the World Trade Organisation and in the Kenyan Foreign Service, she is a relative newcomer to the world of continental politics.
This inexperience was evident in January 2015 when Kenya failed to garner support for a draft protocol to fast-track an African Court to counter alleged bias in the International Criminal Court at The Hague.
“It was inexperience and a slap in the face,” a diplomat that attended the Summit that year and asked not to be named, said. “You don’t bring such a proposal unless you have a reasonable chance of getting it adopted.”
In Mr Bathily, in particular, Ms Mohamed is likely to face a veteran of African politics with working experience in West and Central Africa, and whose participation in the Pan African Movement and socialist movements left him with contacts across the continent, including liberation movements in Ethiopia, Mozambique, Angola and South Africa.
Anti-ICC platform
While Mr Faki doesn’t have much experience outside Chad, he would be regarded as the senior-most candidate having been a prime minister before. The SADC bloc will put wind behind Dr Moitoi’s sails but Bostwana’s President Ian Khama does not attend many AU summits and might not have the charisma to rally fellow leaders behind his country’s candidate.
Finally, it is not yet clear what theme and tone Ms Mohamed’s campaign will take – the minister was reported out of the country. An anti-ICC platform would appeal to many African leaders concerned about overreach and alleged selective justice of the Court but it could turn away countries like Lesotho, Cote d’Ivoire, DR Congo and others that support it.
In addition, donors pay about 60 per cent of the AU’s $417 million budget and some – in particular the United States, Canada and the European Union – are unlikely to be enthused by anti-ICC rhetoric on the campaign trail.
Under Ms Mohamed’s term as foreign minister, Kenya has hosted US President Barack Obama, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, big international conferences and continues to pay a key role on refugees, peacekeeping in Somalia, regional diplomacy on South Sudan and economic partnerships in the East African Community – not bad for a country that, until three years ago did not have a written foreign policy.
Translating that influence into the top job at the AU would be “extraordinary”, according to an African diplomat at the United Nations in New York.
“The race is likely to be between Botswana and Senegal with Chad as a dark horse if its candidate survives the first round,” the diplomat said, asking not to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter. “The Kenyan candidate has her work cut out for her and it would be quite something, quite extraordinary, if she is able to overcome those hurdles.”
Apart from the chairperson and deputy positions, countries are also vying to replace the eight AU commissioners. The contest between Nigeria and Algeria for the Peace and Security Commission will be one to watch while the horse-trading could also influence the race for the top two posts.
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