Johannesburg — AFRICAN leaders displayed rare courage at the African Union (AU) meeting this weekend when they thwarted an attempt by Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi to extend his chairmanship of the organisation for a second term.

The row over the possible extension of Gaddafi's chairmanship almost prevented the AU from focusing on the continent's main challenges - ramping up efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, and addressing the ever pressing political crises and armed conflicts that afflict the continent, notably those in Somalia, Guinea, Madagascar, Niger and Côte d'Ivoire.

Libya, for all its idiosyncrasies, is one of Africa's heavyweights and among the minority of member countries that bear the bulk of the AU's financial burden. The organisation's budget is estimated at 170m a year, but it needs an extra 1,3bn to fund its programmes.

Gaddafi's financial muscle has unfortunately allowed him to steer the AU in a direction that compromised its own rules and processes and undermined the role of smaller member countries.

At the summit chaired by Gaddafi last year, the AU took a controversial decision not to co-operate with the International Criminal Court (ICC) in its indictment of Sudan's president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir. The resolution was condemned by Botswana and various international bodies, but the rest of Africa bit its tongue.

It was encouraging this time around to see African leaders outmanoeuvring the Libyan "Brother Leader" in Addis Ababa. By refusing Tunisia's proposal that Gaddafi be allowed to stay on so that he could realise his vision of a "United States of Africa", they entrenched the AU's tested procedure of rotating the role every year on a regional basis.

A majority grouped behind the southern African region's candidate, Malawian President Bingu wa Mutharika. In so doing they avoided a diplomatic row that could have had serious consequences for the future of the organisation.