The Southern African Development Community (SADC) has expressed its support for South Africa's Home Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma to be Chairperson? of the African Union (AU) Commission.
The six foreign ministers of SADC unanimously agreed at their meeting in Cape Town on Saturday that Dlamini-Zuma has the potential to lead the AU.
The foreign ministers discussed the recent deadlocked polls for a new AU Head of Commission, to chart the regional bloc's strategy for the next vote, scheduled for Malawi in June.
SADC meeting was called at short notice by the South Africa International Relation and Cooperation Department after last month's AU vote failed to secure victory for its candidate.
Angolan Minister of External Relations, Geoges Rebelo Chicoti, announced the SADC position during a diplomatic dinner in Somerset West, Cape Town after the meeting.
“We are going to try and convince others that all other regions have had this position through a democratic process. We want them to allow us to have a chairman from the SADC region.
?“Our agenda is going to be very short, we don't have many things to discuss but we have some very important things to debate.
“After consultation, the ministers will make good proposals for heads of state who will be eventually taking some of our proposals further on to other meetings at African Union level.”
Evaluation of the January polls and the strategy for the next vote were listed on the agenda of the meeting, also attended by the foreign ministers from South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia, Namibia and Mozambique.
January's close contest for AU seat was between incumbent chair person, Gabon's Jean Ping, who headed the AU Commission since 2008, and unable to obtain the required two-thirds majority to defeat South Africa candidate Dlamini-Zuma.
Ping's mandate was extended until the AU's next summit in June in Malawi.
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