President Mbeki, who chaired the second AU summit opening this morning, also handed over to his neighbour a brown gavel to help him lead the organisation.
In one of the conference’s lighter moments, the outgoing leader jokingly lifted the gavel up to Chissano, who threw his hands in the air in anticipation of a strike. Speaking after confidently taking over the chairmanship, President Chissano said he was not surprised by the gesture because that sometimes happened (in Africa) when a president did not want to leave the seat.
This, to the laughter of the gathering, where the 53-member organisation is sitting to chart the way forward to further Africa’s unity and prosperity. “But then you have noticed that at the end, we hug each other. We smile, we almost sing. It means that all disputes, all conflicts must end through dialogue and tolerance,” he said, referring to some of the ongoing leadership crisis in member states.
Both Presidents Mbeki and Chissano shook hands and hugged each other before the former disappeared from the stage to take his seat on the floor next to South Africa’s foreign affairs deputy minister Aziz Pahad.
President Mbeki earlier appealed to heads of state, their delegations and countries to support President Chissano and the AU commission in oiling the wheels of the body as the continent moves ahead to undo the damage left by colonialism. Earlier in the week, delegates witnessed a similar move when South Africa’s foreign affairs minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma gave her Mozambican counterpart Leonard Simao control as chairperson of the AU executive council of ministers.
The leadership change, at the highest decision-making level, is in line with the AU protocol and policy allowing an elected member country to chair the continental body for a year before handing over power to another, who is elected at the end of every summit.
However, delegates including the incoming chair, have praised South Africa for successfully leading the AU and helping to resolve some of the tricky conflicts, in the Great lakes region, Comoros and Madagascar.
Dlamini-Zuma told the conference during the week that Pretoria succeeded in introducing the 12-month-old body to world nations around the seven seas where it was warmly welcomed and recognised as the mother body of all Africans. Meanwhile, President Mbeki earlier welcomed Madagascar back into the organisation that replaced the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) founded 40 years ago. Madagascar was barred from the AU after disputed elections on the island, which pitted current President Marc Ravalomanana and Didier Ratsikara, both of them claiming victory.
Only the Central African Republic is currently on suspension following a coup in the landlocked state. - BuaNews.
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