The African Union (AU) is headed for a prolonged period of limbo as South Africa and Gabon fail to come to a compromise to choose a new chair to lead the AU Commission.
Neither South Africa's Home Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma nor Gabonese diplomat and current chair Jean Ping could win the post at the AU's January summit in Ethiopia, and a decision on who should lead the continental body's bureaucracy was deferred to the July summit, due to be held in Malawi. While Dlamini-Zuma could not muster enough votes to unseat Ping in Addis Ababa, the Gabonese also failed to win the two-thirds of votes cast by African heads of state needed to secure the post.
African leaders have since indicated that they would like South African and Gabon to resolve the standoff in direct negotiations with each other. However, there has been no agreement between the two countries, with South Africa rejecting Gabon's demand that both Ping and Dlamini-Zuma withdraw from the race.
Gabon has told South Africa that if both candidates withdrew, Africa's Francophone countries would support a non-South African candidate. Given that SADC has never held the chair of the AU commission (or of its predecessor, the Organisation of African Unity), Gabon and Africa's French-speaking nations have indicated a willingness to fall behind a SADC-nominated compromise candidate.
But South Africa has read the offer as an attempt to split SADC, which has already gone through months of negotiations and horse-trading to select a candidate. Former Mozambican president Joaquim Chissano is thought to covet the position, and has been selling himself as a possible SADC-endorsed compromise candidate, although he is doing this with no SADC support at this time. Chissano is understood to have discussed the issue with Gabonese president Ali Bongo at a meeting in Libreville earlier this month.
Bongo has been a spirited opponent of Dlamini-Zuma's candidacy, and criss-crossed the subcontinent before the January vote to lobby SADC leaders against South Africa's candidate. In Harare, Zimbabwe, Bongo promised crude oil and money to the embattled government of Robert Mugabe, whose relationship with South African President Jacob Zuma is at an all-time low. The same offer was made to, and gratefully accepted by, King Mswati III of Swaziland, desperate for funds after a cash squeeze caused by a sudden decline in Southern African Customs Union (Sacu) revenues, essentially money from South Africa.
Bongo's oil and cash worked: Swaziland broke SADC ranks to vote for Ping. While South Africa's unhappiness with Mswati has not been raised at any significant level between the two governments, Zuma has since delayed a scheduled visit to Swaziland, a clear sign of strained relations.
But the price that Swaziland ultimately pays for its dissent may be heavier than delayed visits and unpaid royal tributes. The crude oil largesse from Gabon will have to be received and refined in South Africa, and then piped or transported overland to Swaziland. The reality of Swaziland's total dependence on its unhappy neighbour for its energy needs could soon be brought to bear on the king. Sacu finance ministers will gather in Pretoria this Friday to review the bloc's revenue-sharing formula, offering another opportunity for the bloc's biggest economy to exert financial pressure on its smallest.
Another factor that could influence the AU election is the changing dynamic in the relationship between South Africa and Nigeria. The West African giant was thought to be unhappy with South Africa fielding Dlamini-Zuma, and banded together with Francophone Africa against the SADC candidate. And when officials at Johannesburg's OR Tambo International Airport barred 125 Nigerian nationals from entering the country in March, leading to tit-for-tat deportations of South Africans from Nigeria, relations between sub-Saharan Africa's two most important nations reached a new low.
But if anything, that incident served to bring the two countries back from the brink, and signs of renewed cooperation have been growing. South Africa has fallen behind Nigerian Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala as Africa's sole candidate for the soon-to-be-vacant post of World Bank president. South Africa has also committed to promote Okonjo-Iweala among its Brics partners, whose summit is currently underway (see The buck stops here elsewhere in this issue), as a common developing world candidate. While it is unlikely Nigeria's highly regarded finance minister, or any other non-American candidate will get the Washington-based post, South Africa's efforts will go a long way to repairing frayed relations with Nigeria.
Perhaps most significantly, a diplomatic trade-off over two of the AU's most powerful posts may already be under negotiation between Nigeria and South Africa. Nigeria is believed to covet the presidency of the Pan-African Parliament, when the term of the incumbent, Chad's Idriss Ndele Moussa, ends in 2014. Based in Johannesburg, the parliament is the AU's legislative arm. A quid pro quo over the AU's commission and parliament may well be on the cards.
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THIS NEEDS TO BESORTED BUT SOUTH AFRICA HAS TO COME TO TERMS WITH HOW THEY USE THEIR VOTES AT THE UN . IS AFRICA FOR DEMOCRACY OR ARE WE FRO REBELLIONS CONCOCTED BYT EH WEST TO EFFECT RGM E CHANGE ALONG ISDE THEIR RULER CLAS BUDDIES WHO WOULD NOT WHAT DEMOCARCY LOOKED LIKE IF IT STOOD IN FRONT OF THEM. AS WE SEE THE US IS NOT ITSELF VERY DEMOCRACTIC , THEY HAVE NEW LAWS WHICH NEGATE THE FREEDOM OF PRIVACY THEY LIKE THE APARTHIED GOVERNMENT IN ISRAEL CAN ARREST AND IMPRISON INDEFINITELY WITHOUT BENIFIT OF JURY TRIAL OR REASON THIS IS INSANE. HWOW CAN DEMEOCRATIC PEOPLE OR FREEDOM LOVNG PEOPLE EVEN BEGIN TO ASSOCIATE WITH THAT TYPE OF THINKING. THE ANC SHOUDL AFTER THEIR MIDDDLE OF THE ROAD ATNCE ON THE WORLD STAGE SHOULD WITHDRAW. THEYARE PART OF BRICS AND VOTE CONTRARY TO BRICS THAT IS WEAK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!