Sarfo Abebrese
The Coalition of Supporters Unions of Africa (COSUA), a civil society group of African sports fans which is a partner of the African Union to use sports to build African unity, has launched its Catch19 agenda for the African Union (A.U.) elections slated for February next year.
Speaking to Mahlet Ayele Beyecha on the Connect Africa TV network in the Netherlands, the founding President of COSUA, Sarfo Abebrese, explained the “Catch19 agenda as a campaign to get up to 19 Heads of State in Africa to decline voting in the forthcoming election of the A.U. Commission Chairperson, in protest against the incumbent, Faki Moussa Mahamat, who is running unopposed.
Abebrese, who is a Ghanaian and US Attorney, explained that several efforts by COSUA and other groups to secure a postponement of the elections due to the undemocratic posture of the chairperson running unopposed, had fallen on deaf ears, hence this campaign to ensure that the incumbent fails to secure the mandatory two-thirds majority votes from the 55 African Presidents who will be voting at the 34th Summit in Addis Ababa next month.
“To achieve that result, we need at least 19 Heads of State to see the insult in Faki Mahamat presenting to them a ballot paper that has only his own name and photo on it as the sole candidate and asking them to vote,” Lawyer Abebrese said.
He likened the situation to the African adage of unfeathering a bird and presenting it to an elder to take a test in identifying it.
“That, in every African custom, amounts to an insult to the said elder, and we believe that our revered political leaders will see it that way and respond accordingly by treating that ballot paper with the contempt it deserves,” Sarfo said in a follow-up interview with DAILY GUIDE Sports.
He explained that their aim was to bring an end to the “despotic rule of Faki Moussa Mahamat, who has taken a stranglehold of Africa for the fleecing by France, and give an opportunity for the likes of current Deputy Chairman, Thomas Kwesi Quartey, and former A.U.Ambassador to the US, Arikana Chihombori-Quao, to step in the saddle and right all the wrongs of Faki Mahamat’s misrule for the past four years.”
He concluded by explaining that, under the rules, the elections would be rescheduled for another six months, if the incumbent candidate failed to secure the two-thirds majority of all the 55 A.U. member states, despite the fact that he was running unopposed.