Amidst Surprise, Mugabe Named Chairman of African Union

Last week, in a move that has surprised experts, African leaders voted to appoint Robert Mugabe, who has been president of Zimbabwe since 1980, as chairman of the African Union (AU) in a meeting held in Addis Ababa. Although Mugabe’s new role is largely ceremonial, his assignment could weaken the AU’s voice in world politics due to the unpopularity of Mugabe’s style of governance.

In his inaugural speech, President Mugabe appealed to other African leaders to denounce colonialism and referenced the “scourge of terrorism” as a shared challenge. Mugabe  called upon Africa’s agency, stating that there was no room for colonialists or imperialists in Africa. He asserted that African states wanted relationships with “friends” on the basis of equality and mutual respect. Moreover, Mugabe specifically stressed the importance of finding strong and efficient solutions to Boko Haram’s threat in Nigeria and Cameroon. The audience erupted into applause when Mugabe touched upon the issue of Western Sahara’s independence and emphasized that so long as the people of the region were under “Moroccan occupation,” Africa could not be totally free.

Furthermore, Mugabe declared that as chairman of the AU, he would the push African leaders to pay special attention to the issues of infrastructure, climate change, agriculture and value addition. The President called for more assistance for African farmers and for the need to guard against foreign exploitation of  the continent’s resources.

But his popularity in last week’s summit is not the usual case for Mugabe. Some local figures in Zimbabwe, as well as many in the international community, have criticized Mugabe’s politics in Zimbabwe for his violent and authoritarian model of governance in his home country, and his recent appointment to such a high position in the continent’s politics is worrisome.

Obert Gutu, a spokesman for the Zimbabwean opposition party named Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), described Mugabe and his party as having “trashed democracy in Zimbabwe and ruined the economy.” In Gutu’s opinion, Mugabe does not have the legitimacy to build an Africa based on the widespread values of good governance and democracy.

The West, not thrilled with Mugabe’s new role in African politics, sees him as a despotic pariah responsible for many human rights violations, corrupt and manipulated elections and turning one of Africa’s most promising countries into a “basket case.” His wrongdoings, which Mugabe has denied, are why the EU and the U.S. imposed travel and financial sanctions to the leader in 2002 and 2008.

Despite this, others like Piers Pigou, project director for the International Crisis Group in Southern Africa, have undermined his new role as a merely symbolic one, but also recognized that it sends a negative signal of African solidarity for other leaders who, like him, have misruled their countries. A Western diplomat studying African Affairs told Reuters that regardless of its chairman, the West would continue to work with the AU, and that Mugabe’s role would not disrupt these relations.

The chairman of the AU is a traditional position that is awarded to the leader of the country that is hosting the next summit. Some exceptions have been made, such as in 2005 with the appointment of Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir and African leaders gave in to pressures of the international community in the uproar over killings in Darfur. Although Mugabe’s appointment, albeit symbolic, is harmful for the Union’s image and legitimacy, it is unlikely to harm or substantially shape the relationship between the AU and the West.