Maputo — Foreign Ministers of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), meeting in Maputo on Thursday, have reiterated the region's full support for Malawi in its bid for the leadership of the African Union this year.

The term of office of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafy at the helm of the AU comes to an end at the next AU summit, due to be held in Addis Ababa from 31 January to 3 February. Under the AU's rotating system, it is southern Africa's term to occupy the chair.

At its last summit, in Kinshasa in 2009, SADC decided to back the candidature of Malawian president Bingu wa Mutharika, and the Foreign Ministers, meeting as the SADC Inter-State Politics and Diplomacy Committee, made clear that there could be no going back on this.

The final statement from the meeting "reiterated the 2009 Kinshasa summit decision that, consistent with the established rotational principle of the AU, Malawi remains the candidate for the chairperson of the AU, and SADC members individually and collectively commit to support Malawi in the process".

Mozambican Foreign Minister Oldemiro Baloi, who chaired the meeting, declared "Malawi is maintaining its candidature, and has heard repeated expressions of support and encouragement, including suggestions on how to make its candidature stronger, with greater possibilities of success".

The meeting also discussed the crises in Madagascar and Zimbabwe. It condemned "any unilateral decision that is contrary to the spirit of dialogue in Madagascar" - a clear reference to the self-declared president and coup leader Andry Rajoelina, who has torn up the agreement reached in mid-2009 to establish a transitional government that would guide the country to fresh elections.

The meeting praised the efforts of former Mozambican President Joaquim Chissano, who leads the joint mediation team on Madagascar, for the efforts "to restore constitutional normalcy".

As for Zimbabwe, the statement simply "noted with appreciation the efforts of the SADC Facilitator (South African President Jacob Zuma) in assisting Zimbabwe to fully implement the Global Political Agreement (GPA)" (the agreement between ZANU-PF, the party of President Robert Mugabe, and the two factions of the Movament for Democratic change, MDC).

Baloi added that the situation in Zimbabwe was developing "relatively well", judging by the frequency of meetings between the parties, with "a level of productivity close to that desired".

The meeting, he said, had given the Zimbabweans "words of encouragement, to continue the work so that, in a short space of time, the current situations will pass into history".