The
published decisions of the 40th Ordinary Session of the Executive
Council, 02-03 February 2022, Addis Ababa Ethiopia on the Pan-African Parliament (PAP) did not mandate the Chairperson of the
African Union Commission to embark on consultations with regional caucuses
before convening the election session for the parliament, contrary to earlier
report.
It
would be recalled that there were earlier reports that the Executive Council
during its meeting on February 3, 2022 directed the AUC Chairperson to embark
on consultations with the other four regional caucuses that could not meet with
the AUC delegation that visited the PAP Secretariat
in September 2021.
On
February 23 and 24 2022, the AUC delegation held consultations with the four
caucuses namely the East Africa, West Africa, Central Africa and North Africa in
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia which observers have described as cosmetic.
However,
the report of the decisions of the said Executive Council meeting published at
the official AU website (https://au.int/sites/default/files/decisions/41584-EX_CL_Dec_1143-1167_XL_E.pdf)
shows that the Council directed the Commission to arrange the holding of PAP’
elections by the end of April 2022 and to report back to the next Ordinary
Session of the Executive Council. No mention was made of consultations before
the elections.
Analysts
had questioned the rationale behind the purported requirement of consultations
before convening the election session since the issue of rotation and venue for
the session had been decided by the Council. Why waste resources on such a
cosmetic venture which only served to delay the election session?
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