The election of the chairperson of the African Union Commission (AUC) has been postponed to July at the next AU summit, a South African official attending the summit said on Monday.

After three rounds of fierce competition, none of the two candidates – incumbent AUC chairperson Jean Ping and South African Home Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma – managed to clinch the required two-thirds of votes. The AUC then decided to suspend the election, an AUC source told the Xinhua news agency.

The competition for the AUC chairperson has been fierce in the election held during the 18th AU summit. An AUC source told Xinhua that Jean Ping stayed ahead of Dlamini-Zuma in the three rounds of vote. In the first round, "it was 28 votes against 25, which does not give him an absolute majority," said the official. In the second round, Jean Ping won 27 votes while the South African candidate got 26.

In the third round, they obtained 29 and 24 votes respectively. According to the AU's rule, the chairperson must get a majority of two thirds of votes from members with the right to vote, that is, member states that are not under sanction. If not, a following round is imposed automatically.

The closed-door voting was held in the conference hall of the newly inaugurated AU Conference Centre.