{"id":32212,"date":"2017-01-31T01:46:58","date_gmt":"2017-01-31T01:46:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/chad-s-moussa-faki-mahamat-named-au-commission\/"},"modified":"2017-01-31T01:46:55","modified_gmt":"2017-01-31T01:46:55","slug":"chad-s-moussa-faki-mahamat-named-au-commission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/chad-s-moussa-faki-mahamat-named-au-commission\/","title":{"rendered":"Chad&#8217;s Moussa Faki Mahamat named AU Commission chair"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>{Chadian diplomat elected as the new AU Commission chairperson after seven rounds of voting in Addis Adaba.}<\/p>\n<p>Addis Ababa, Ethiopia &#8211; Chad&#8217;s Moussa Faki Mahamat has been elected as the new chairperson of the African Union Commission, in a vote held at the bloc&#8217;s headquarters in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, on Monday.<\/p>\n<p>After seven rounds of voting, the Chadian foreign affairs minister defeated favourites Amina Mohamed of Kenya and Senegal&#8217;s Abdoulaye Bathily.<\/p>\n<p>Two other candidates, Botswana&#8217;s Foreign Minister Pelonomi Venson-Moitoi, and Mba Mokuy, of Equatorial Guinea, also contested for the seat.<\/p>\n<p>The 56-year-old and father-of-five succeeds South Africa&#8217;s Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, the first woman to lead the bloc of 54 states, who did not seek a second term in office after completing a four-year term.<\/p>\n<p>Kenya was the first to congratulate the newly-elected AU chief.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Kenya congratulates him on a race well won. We pledge to work with him to defend the pan-African agenda of integration for Africa, as well as democracy, sovereignty and prosperity for all of its people,&#8221; a statement by Kenya&#8217;s State House spokesperson Manoah Esipisu said.<\/p>\n<p>Faki is not new to the workings of the AU, having previously served as the body&#8217;s chair of the Economic, Social and Cultural Council.<\/p>\n<p>Heads of state from the 54-member countries cast their vote in a private ballot.<\/p>\n<p>A candidate needs to secure at least a two-thirds majority, 36 votes, to be declared winner.<\/p>\n<p>The AU was supposed to pick a new leader in July last year but the election was postponed following three rounds of voting after candidates failed to garner the required number of votes.<\/p>\n<p>More than 50 percent of the member states abstained from the second round of voting last year.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, the AU is expected to vote on Tuesday whether Morocco, the only country in Africa that is not part of the organisation, will be re-admitted into the body.<\/p>\n<p>Rabat withdrew from the union in 1984 to protest against the admission of disputed Western Sahara territories.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-17924 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/21315baaa70e4932b1f3c8ffc9099bd0_18.jpg\" alt=\"Faki, Chad&#039;s foreign minister since 2008, beat four other candidates\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>{Chadian diplomat elected as the new AU Commission chairperson after seven rounds of voting in Addis Adaba.} Addis Ababa, Ethiopia &#8211; Chad&#8217;s Moussa Faki Mahamat has been elected as the new chairperson of the African Union Commission, in a vote held at the bloc&#8217;s headquarters in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, on Monday. After seven [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[2474],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-32212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-al-jazeera"],"bylines":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32212\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32212"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=32212"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=32212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}