Sarfo Abebrese
The Coalition of Supporters Unions of Africa (COSUA), which is a pan-African civil society organisation operating as a partner to the African Union (AU) to use sports to build African unity, has called on the Union to extend the deadline for nominations for the elections to November 4, 2020.
This follows the close of nominations on September 4, 2020, which ended with only one candidate for the chairperson position.
In a statement addressed to the Chairman of the AU, His Excellency Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa, the Founding President of COSUA, Sarfo Abebrese, stated that the unopposed run of the incumbent Chairperson of the AU Commission, Faki Moussa Mahamat, “is an affront to the tenets of democratic rule which the African Union seeks to champion in the governance structure of all the 55 member countries.”
It added that if the AU itself frowns on its own democratic rules of engagement, what moral right would they have to enforce same on individual member states who flout same?
“We know for a fact that at least one person filed a nomination for the AU Commission Chairperson position and declared publicly her intention to run against the incumbent, Faki Mahamat.
This individual is no other than Her Excellency Arikana Chihombori-Quao, the former AU Ambassador to the United States of America (USA). We also understand that the government of the Republic of Zimbabwe had to shelve its endorsement of Her Excellency’s nomination by some strange prevalence of ‘Faki fever’ that had gripped the entire continent and which had earlier ‘mafiad out’ another credible contestant in the person of the current Deputy Chairperson, HE Kwesi Quartey of Ghana,” COSUA stated.
Abebrese referred to a similar situation in 2016 when the close of nominations was extended to enable Moussa Mahamat to enter the race as late as December, and asked for the same rules to be applied in 2020 to forestall any appearance of impropriety and despotic rulership at the AU Commission.
“If in 2016 when there was no intervening circumstances like COVID-19 and there were already four candidates for the chairmanship position, the AU still deemed it fit to extend the deadline for democracy to prevail, how much more 2020 when only one candidate is running unopposed in the midst of an intervening COVID-19 pandemic that has engulfed the entire continent, and the world at large,” the statement added.
From The Sports Desk