Jacoline Prinsloo
Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma during a press conference at the African Union headquarters, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
ADDIS ABABA: Home Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma was last night elected as the first woman to head the African Union.
Dlamini-Zuma, 63, who received 37 votes in the last round of voting – she had needed 34 to win – defeated incumbent and rival Jean Ping of Gabon, who had headed the steering body |of the 54-member organisation since 2008.
“Now we have the African Union chair Madam Zuma (sic), who will preside over the destiny of this institution,” Benin’s president and AU chairman Thomas Boni Yayi said.
Her former husband, President Jacob Zuma, was one of the first to offer his congratulations after the vote at the AU summit in the Ethiopian capital. “It means a lot for Africa… for the continent, unity and the empowerment of women – very important,” he said.
“She’s a freedom fighter, not a bureaucrat or a diplomat,” said Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni.
Dlamini-Zuma’s win follows her challenge six months ago to unseat Ping, the former commission chairman, which ended in deadlock after neither won the required two-thirds of the vote, leaving Ping in the post.
Noureddine Mezni, spokesperson for the outgoing chairman, said that Ping had acknowledged defeat.
He “has accepted the results of the elections and wishes Madame Dlamini-Zuma the very best. He expressed his readiness to co-operate with her to work together for the unity of the continent.”
“It’s good for southern Africa. We (in southern Africa) never had this job,” a delegate from Zimbabwe said.
Officials said the elections went to four rounds of voting before Dlamini-Zuma won 37 votes, three more than the required majority, to confirm her win over Ping.
Jakkie Cilliers of the SA-based Institute for Security Studies said Dlamini-Zuma’s score crept up from one round of voting to the next. “She got ahead in the first round and after that the momentum kicked in,” said Cilliers.
Dlamini-Zuma’s win had brought “clarity as to who’s in charge” at the AU, after six months of deadlock over the leadership issue, he added.
Some analysts say SA has violated an unwritten tradition that continental powerhouses do not run candidates for the post, but leave smaller nations to take the job. Before the vote however, Dlamini-Zuma played down concerns. “I don’t think the continent will be polarised,” she said. The winner would “make sure they work with everybody”, she added.
Cilliers said he was optimistic that divisions created by the vote would heal. “She’ll be an inclusive chair… She was a very competent foreign minister and even better at home affairs,” he said.
The DA also congratulated Dlamini-Zuma. “She has the appropriate skills and competence to transform the AU into an efficient and effective body,” said party MP Ian Davidson.
Dlamini-Zuma faces immediate challenges as the AU tries to gain UN Security Council backing for a military intervention in northern Mali, where local and foreign al-Qaeda-linked jihadists seized control.
