After months of presidents and their foreign ministers criss-crossing the continent canvassing for votes, the five candidates for the post of the African Union Commission chairperson will finally face off with each other on January 30 in Addis Ababa.

The candidates are Kenya’s Foreign Affairs Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohamed, Special Representative of the UN Secretary General for Central Africa Dr Abdoulaye Bathily of Senegal, Equatorial Guinea Foreign Minister Agapito Mba Mokuy, Chadian Foreign Minister Moussa Faki Mahamat, and Botswana’s Foreign Affairs Minister Dr Pelonomi Venson-Moitoi.

Traditionally, candidates are expected to be supported by their regional economic blocs while lobbying countries that do not have candidates, or to horse-trade positions in the AU depending on various interests.

READ: Lobbying, horse-trading for African Union Commission chair continue

Ms Mohamed is going into the elections with the support of the East African Community, the East African Business Community, and the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development, while Dr Bathily is the candidate of the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) and Mr Mahamat will be seeking votes from the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS).

Dr Venson-Moitoi will be seeking the full support of the Southern African Development Community (SADC).

However, there has been a lot of horse-trading, with candidates looking for support beyond their economic blocs. The 54 presidents will vote for the five candidates, where a winner must get at least two-thirds — or 37 votes — to win in the first round.

Failure to get a clear winner in the first round would mean the candidate with the least votes is eliminated and the remaining four proceed to the second round. This is where intense lobbying starts.

At this level, the posts of the deputy chairperson, the eight commissioners and membership of the African Union Peace and Security Council, provide the bargaining chips. The person who emerges the winner will depend on how many promises their leaders can make. The rule is that no two senior posts can be held by a single region.

AMINA MOHAMED - KENYA

The Kenyan Cabinet Secretary’s agenda is African economic integration, which would allow free movement of people. She wants to achieve a borderless continent.

Ms Mohamed wants to establish the Continental Free Trade Area by the end of 2017, and to step up the push for a fair international trade regime.

With her background at the World Trade Organisation and the United Nations, she says reforming the international trade regime is a matter she understands, having chaired the three most important bodies of the WTO — the Trade Policy Body, the Dispute Settlement Body, and the Governing General Council.

She has taken industrialisation as her first priority, because she says it can accelerate poverty reduction and generate the large number of jobs needed for the growing numbers of youth in the continent.

Ms Mohammed is also committed to addressing the impact of climate change, since many African countries are highly vulnerable to climate variability, which is severely undermining livelihoods.

“This underlines the urgent need for effective action, especially in building the resilience of vulnerable communities,” she says.

Ms Mohamed also says she will focus on building institutional capacity, starting with enhancing the institutional capacity of the African Union Commission and other organs of the Union, as well as the regional economic communities. She accepts that implementation of Agenda 2063 — the AU’s political and socio-economic development blueprint — will be challenging, but she says she is committed to it.

DR ABDOULAYE BATHILY - SENEGAL

The Special Representative of the UN Secretary General for Central Africa wants to develop the AU from an organisation of partner states into an African Union of the people.  

If elected, Dr Bathily intends to build on the collective vision and aspirations of Africa’s people by making AU a key player in global affairs. To achieve this, he wants to push for more regional and continental integration.

“I want to encourage intra-African mobility of citizens, trade and investment, in the making of a new, bold, and forward-looking African world, confidently powered by the innovative energies of its women, men, youth and children. I intend to contribute to the rebirth of Africa in order to fulfil the founding fathers’ dream of a continent that is united,” he says.

In his quest to transform the organisation from an African Union of states to “an African Union of the people,” Dr Bathily hopes to see the continent being allocated a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.

Having participated in several conflict and crisis management missions in Africa, including Mali, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea Bissau, Niger, Madagascar, Guinea and Central Africa, Dr Bathily is a strong advocate of the principle of African solutions to African challenges, and is a peace mediator and peace builder.

Besides his vision geared towards fulfilling Agenda 2063, Dr Bathily places restoring citizens’ trust in the AU among his top priorities, as he defends the interests of the continent on the global scene.

DR PELONOMI VENSON-MOITOI - BOSTWANA

The Botswana Foreign Minister presents herself as a reformist with five major changes she wants to introduce to the continental body if elected as the chair of the AU Commission.

In addition to championing democratic governance in Africa, the changes include making the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad) the development arm of the commission, with more prominent, distinctive and well-defined roles.

Dr Venson-Moitoi also wants to forge stronger integration between the AUC and regional bodies to ensure regular information sharing and conducting activities in a more efficient and cost effective manner.

“The African Union is uniquely positioned to contribute to laying the foundations for realising Africa’s bright future, and to achieve the Vision 2063 goals. This is not an easy task, though. It will require stewardship and drive; energy and perseverance; pan-African activism, action-orientation and diplomacy, as well as the ability to reach consensus,” she says.

A new tradition, in which activity reports at annual summits are prepared to brief members on the work of the AUC over the period preceding any summit, is also one of her prime goals. Dr Venson-Moitoi, a specialist in public service management and administrative systems analysis and design, wants to make attendance of regional summits and visits by the AUC a regular occurrence.

She will be keen on pushing for the implementation of the AU funding mechanism to speed up processes, and assess other mechanisms available to the Commission to generate income for the Union, including discussions with the private sector.

AGAPITO MBA MOKUY - EQUATORIAL GUINEA

The Foreign Minister of Equatorial Guinea wants to change the working methods of the African Union to bring in dynamism, innovation and competent staff. He is mostly concerned with the AU’s reliance on donors and the lethargic contribution of partner states to the AU budget. He promises to reach out to both traditional and new partners to raise the level of funding. 

Ensuring that AU is financially self-reliant is his priority.

“I want to eradicate the continental dependency virus from the minds of the African people,” he says in his manifesto.

Such is the concern for donor-dependency that Mr Mokuy says partner states should ask themselves why they still continue to depend on foreign financial support more than 54 years since the organisation came into existence.

With his 18 years experience as an international civil servant at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco), Mr Mokuy believes he is capable of transforming the AU to become more dynamic in dealing with the outside world, and innovative in generating funds from its members. 

“This is a disease. One of the challenges that we have in this organisation is this one, financial shortage, and it is unacceptable. This is the first issue that I am going to tackle, otherwise we will go nowhere,” Mr Mokuy said.

He wants to harmonise the continent’s commercial, economic and social policies, and have a common bloc in negotiations with the rest of the world.

Mr Mokuy believes that the 54 partner states need to have serious discussions among themselves, because most member states pay their membership to other organisations but feign lack of finances when it comes to paying for the organisation.

MOUSSA FAKI MAHAMAT - CHAD

The Chadian Foreign Minister, who has had a long experience of political leadership and diplomacy, is equally concerned about AU’s donor-dependency, which he terms a “scandal”.

Mr Mahamat believes that the organisation should cut down on unnecessary expenses otherwise it is likely to remain donor-dependent even when it marks 100 years in 2063.

Mr Mahamat, who has been serving as the Sahellian nation’s Foreign Affairs Minister since 2008, was the country’s prime minister from June 2003 to February 2005.

He says he is a person of consensus and would tackle the issues that divide the AU, either based on regions, religion, culture or wealth.

The Chadian minister is putting more emphasis on the environment in relation to climate change and migration from Africa to Europe, which he believes are the two new challenges facing the continent.

Mr Mahamat says that Nepad is a bold and ambitious way of transforming Africa, but that the continent needs to transition from theory to practice, which is the only way it can change.

“Africa, despite its considerable human and economic potential, is in a difficult situation. So the AU must organise itself to make use of the immense resources to meet the expectations of the African population,” Mr Mahamat says in his campaign briefs.