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The DA congratulates Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma on her election as Chair of the African Union Commission.

We believe that she has the appropriate skills and competence to transform the African Union (AU) into an efficient and effective body as well as the diplomatic acumen to address the many crucial issues facing the African continent.

The time is also ripe for a representative from the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to hold the Commission's highest office. The past three chairs have been from francophone Africa (Ivory Coast, Mali and Gabon).

The AU chairpersonship presents South Africa with an opportunity to establish Africa as a proponent of value-driven international relations, based on the principles of democracy and human rights. Coupled with our current non-permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council and our growing prominence in the BRICS group of countries, we will now also be in a unique position to improve the alignment of international and regional agendas.

It is our sincere hope that, under the leadership of Dr Dlamini-Zuma, the AU will build consensus around appropriate regional responses to the coup in Mali, the civil conflict in Somalia, the hostilities between Sudan and South Sudan and the resurgence of rebel fighting in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

It is also crucial that discussions on the AU agenda start to focus not only on issues of mutual concern, but also issues of mutual benefit – such as intra-Africa trade and widening the Jurisdiction of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights.

We wish Dr Dlamini-Zuma well in her role. We believe that she can lead a new era of a prominent place for Africa in an international agenda driven from the South.

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