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The African Union (AU) this week elected 15 member States to serve on the continent's Peace and Security Council.

The election took place in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, during the meeting of the continental body's executive council.

According to a statement, five countries, one per region (Central, East, North, South and West), were elected to serve for a term of three years and ten others to serve for a term of two years.

"The five countries elected to serve for a three-year term are Gabon, Ethiopia, Algeria, South Africa and Nigeria. "Those to serve for a two -year term are Cameroon and Congo (Central), Kenya and Sudan (East), Libya (North), Lesotho and Mozambique (South), Ghana, Senegal and Togo (West)," the statement said.

It added that after being elected, the Peace and Security Council met yesterday at a closed session to adopt its own rules of procedure.

These were later submitted to the executive council for adoption on behalf of the Assembly of the Union.

"The Assembly had in Maputo, Mozambique in July 2003, mandated the Executive Council to adopt the Rules of Procedure on its behalf in order to operationalise the Peace and Security Council," the AU explained.

The Peace and Security Council is envisaged to have legal power to intervene into member states' domestic affairs where transgressions of human rights were recorded and the principles of good governance were flawed.

Also, on Monday the Executive Council filled the two remaining posts of Commissioners. They are the Commissioner for Economic Affairs, Dr M Mkwezalamba, (Malawi) and the Commissioner for Human Resources, Science and Technology, Dr. Nagia Mohammed Assayed (Libya).

The chairperson of the AU Commission Alpha Konare will conduct the swearing in ceremony of the two newly elected Commissioners at a date still to be set. –BuaNews.

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