PAP Election Session: Southern Caucus confident of securing victory for Chief Charumbira

The Southern Regional Caucus in the Pan-African Parliament (PAP) has expressed confidence that its candidate for president of the continental parliament, Hon. Chief Fortune Charumbira will emerge victorious at the election for president of the parliament scheduled for 30 June 2022 in Midrand, South Africa.

This was disclosed by the SADC Caucus Campaign Manager and Namibia opposition leader, Hon. McHenry Venaan after a meeting of the leaders of the PAP Southern Caucus with President E. D. Mnangagwa at the State House in Harare, Zimbabwe on Monday.

Hon. Venaan added that the Southern Caucus was not only confident but would also unite the African continent for posterity.

“We are here to impress on the President of the country that we should consolidate our lobbying” said Venaan.

“We discussed the Pan-African Parliament presidency. It is Southern Africa’s time. We have achieved a lot at the African Union that the principle of rotation that was denied to the Southern and other regions for a number of years was ventilated”.

“And the African Union Legal Counsel agreed with us that there must be rotation of the office of the President of the parliament”.

It would be recalled that PAP election session was suspended on June 1, 2021 following disagreement over the application of the principle of rotation in the election of the president of the parliament. In an opinion dated 30 May 2021, the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) made it explicitly clear that the application of the principle of rotation in electing the president of the parliament was mandatory.

The 39^th Ordinary Session of the Executive Council, 14 -15 October 2021 EX.CL/Dec.1128(XXXIX) decided that the election for the President of the PAP shall be held at the seat of the parliament in Midrand, South Africa in accordance with the principle of geographic rotation and that only regions that have not held the Presidency of PAP shall be eligible to present candidates for the election. See also the decision of the 40^th Ordinary Session of the Executive Council 02 – 03 February 2022 EX.CL/Dec.1148(XL).

The Bureau of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the AU  on Tuesday 10 May 2022, affirmed the decision of the Executive Council by directing that the PAP election will be held in Midrand, South Africa observing the principle of rotation. Accordingly, the election session was scheduled to hold from Monday June 27 to Thursday July 7, 2022 in line with the above decisions.

Hon. Venaan stated that following the scheduling of the election session, the leadership of the Southern Caucus resolved to rally behind Chief Charumbira.

“Our coming to Zimbabwe is to get our house in order, to consolidate our region, the whole region is in support of Chief Charumbira as our candidate. We want to make sure that our financial resources are in order, making sure that our strategies are in order, our messaging is in order, to make sure that we touch those areas that we are seeing loose ends”.

“The thrust of the discussions was to consolidate under Hon. Chief Charumbira to accelerate our campaign in the next three weeks as we are going to hit the road campaigning to consolidate our position and to go and deliver a United Africa”.

He maintained that Africa should continue to follow the unifying path set by the continent’s founding fathers such as Kwame Nkrumah and Haile Selasie if it must surmount the myriad of geo-political challenges confronting the continent.

“We want to use this opportunity to assure the rest of Africa that Southern Africa is not going to take a presidency that would want to hold on forever”.

“We will abide by the principle of rotation. After we take it, we will give it to another region so that Africa continues to grow. And we are not going to lead an Africa that is divided by regionalism, language barriers and economic barriers. We are saying Africa is one”.

The delegation which had earlier visited the Speaker of Parliament, also plans to visit other presidents in the region to consolidate their position.  

The picture from right are: Speaker of the Parliament of Zimbabwe Adv, Jacob Mudenda, Hon. McHenry Venaan (Southern Caucus Campaign Manager from Namibia), Chief Charumbira (Southern Caucus candidate), President Mnangagwa, Hon Pemmy Majodina (ANC Chief Whip, South Africa), Hon Stars Mathe (Zimbabwe), and Hon. Pupurai Togarepi (Zimbabwe).