Kenya seeks Namibia's support for AU top seat

Kenya seeks Namibia's support for AU top seat The Kenyan candidate vying for the position of African Union (AU) Commission chairperson, Amina Mohamed, called on President Hage Geingob last week to seek support.

Mohamed is her country's cabinet secretary for foreign affairs.

She met Geingob at the Swakopmund State House on Thursday in the company of the Rwandan minister of foreign affairs and cooperation, Louise Mushikiwabo, who is on holiday in Namibia. After a closed-door meeting with the head of state, Mohamed told Nampa that Namibia's support in this election would mean a lot to her and Kenya. “In fact, we want all African countries to give support,” she said. Candidates in the race need 34 votes or more from the 54 African countries to win the seat. The first election for the position took place at the AU Summit in Rwanda in July this year. None of the three candidates managed to garner the required number of votes to win.

They are Equatorial Guinea's Agapito Mba Mokuy; Specioza Naigaga Wandira Kazibwe from Uganda; and Pelonomi Venson-Moitoi from Botswana. The election was then postponed to January 2017 and new candidates, including Mohamed, were added to the list. The others are former Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete, who also visited Geingob this month to talk about improving African education; the United Nations (UN) secretary-general's special representative to Central Africa, Professor Abdoulaye Bathily from Senegal; Algeria's foreign minister and former AU peace and security commissioner Ramtane Lamamra; former president of the African Development Bank in Rwanda Donald Kaberuka; and Carlos Lopes, the head of the UN Economic Commission for Africa from Guinea Bissau. Mushikiwabo said her family loved Namibia and would be here for the next three or four days. She said she chose Namibia for a holiday because she loves the peace and hospitality. South Africa's Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma is the outgoing AU Commission chairperson. She has been at the helm since 2012 and did not seek re-election.

NAMPA