{"id":9037,"date":"2012-03-18T03:17:26","date_gmt":"2012-03-18T01:17:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/03\/africa-union-fails-to-break-leadership-deadlock\/"},"modified":"2012-03-18T03:17:26","modified_gmt":"2012-03-18T01:17:26","slug":"africa-union-fails-to-break-leadership-deadlock","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/africa-union-fails-to-break-leadership-deadlock\/","title":{"rendered":"Africa Union fails to break leadership deadlock"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"articleLocation\">COTONOU, March 17<\/span> (Reuters) &#8211; Leaders of eight African<br \/>\nUnion countries failed on Saturday to break a deadlock over the<br \/>\nleadership of the 54-member body, highlighting divisions that<br \/>\nhave repeatedly stymied its decision-making.<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The talks in the Benin port of Cotonou were called after<br \/>\nneither of the two front-runners for the AU commission chairman<br \/>\npost &#8211; former South African foreign minister Nkosazana<br \/>\nDlamini-Zuma and incumbent Jean Ping of Gabon &#8211; managed to<br \/>\nsecure an outright majority during a voting contest in January.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Consultations will continue &#8230; notably (between) Gabon and<br \/>\nSouth Africa,&#8221; said a statement issued after the Cotonou talks<br \/>\nby leaders of those two countries plus officials from Chad,<br \/>\nIvory Coast, Algeria, Ethiopia, Benin and Angola.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>They said a further round of talks would be scheduled to try<br \/>\nand break the deadlock before a summit in Malawi around the<br \/>\nmiddle of the year. Ping&#8217;s mandate has been extended until then.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The commission is the AU secretariat&#8217;s top administrative<br \/>\nunit and the chairman its public face.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>South African President Jacob Zuma&#8217;s failure to secure a<br \/>\nmajority for Dlamini-Zuma, his ex-wife, after Ping&#8217;s much<br \/>\ncriticised tenure was a blow to South Africa, which regards<br \/>\nitself as an emerging power championing African causes, but is<br \/>\nseen by some other states as out of touch with global affairs.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The AU was widely criticised as being behind the curve on<br \/>\nevents leading up to the Libyan war, particularly among the many<br \/>\nAfricans who were uncomfortable with the idea of Western war<br \/>\nplanes bombing African territory.\t<\/p>\n<p> (Reporting by Samuel Elijah; Writing by Mark John; Editing by<br \/>\nAndrew Osborn)<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"copyright\">\n<p>         \t\t\u00a9 Thomson Reuters 2012 All rights reserved<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>COTONOU, March 17 (Reuters) &#8211; Leaders of eight African Union countries failed on Saturday to break a deadlock over the leadership of the 54-member body, highlighting divisions that have repeatedly stymied its decision-making. The talks in the Benin port of Cotonou were called after neither of the two front-runners for the AU commission chairman post [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-9037","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9037"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9037\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}