Zimbabwe and South Africa are backing the candidature of Botswana Foreign Affairs Minister Pelonomi Venson Moitoi for the post of African Union (AU) Commission chairperson to replace incumbent South African Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma.
This development was contained in a joint communique of the inaugural session of the Zimbabwe- South Africa Binational Commission communique read out by Zimbabwe Foreign Affairs Minister, Simbarashe Mumbengegwi, in Harare Thursday.
“The two heads of state reaffirmed their support for the SADC candidate for the post of AU Commission chairperson, Doctor Pelonomi Moitoi, the Minister of Foreign Affairs for Botswana,” Mumbengegwi said.
The show of support for Moitoi comes amid reports in Kenya that South Africa was fully behind the Kenyan Foreign Affairs Cabinet Secretary, Amina Mohamed.
Coast Week, a Kenyan publication, last week reported that Mohamed’s candidature for AU Commission chair had support from South Africa, Rwanda and other East African countries.
However on Thursday, Mumbengegwi said both Mugabe and Zuma, who co-chaired the Harare meeting, were backing the Botswana candidate. He also noted that Zimbabwe had two candidates for the post of commissioner for political affairs and commissioner for social affairs.
In July the AU poll in Rwanda contested by three candidates including Botswana’s Moitoi, failed to produce a winner none of them got the required two thirds of the vote. As a result the AU extended the term of the incumbent Dlamini-Zuma
Moitoi had beaten the other two candidates, Speciazo Wandire Kazibwe, former Vice President of Uganda and Equatorial Guinea Foreign Minister, Agapito Mba Mokuy but fell short of the two thirds majority.
Moitoi polled 16 votes against Mokuy’s 12 and 11 for Kazibwe forcing the AU to postpone the vote after seven rounds of voting.
More recently other candidates have joined the race for the coveted AU Commission chair position. They include 69-year-old Abdoulaye Bathily – a Senegalese politician and diplomat. Other candidates are from Chad and Equatorial Guinea.
Dlamini-Zuma, who has been at the helm of the organisation since 2012, is not seeking a second term. The elections to replace her were re-scheduled to January 2017 at the AU headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
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