Morocco Becomes Fully-fledged Member of the African Union with Landslide Majority Support
The majority of the member states attending the 28th African Union Summit in Addis Ababa have officially welcomed Morocco as a fully-fledged member in the African institutional family.
Morocco was readmitted in the African Union following the broad consensus among an overwhelming majority of member states on the North African country’s application to join the continental organization. Morocco has thus won the support of 39 member states out of 54, a figure that exceeds by far the minimum 28 number needed to secure membership within the AU.
This group of 39 countries imposed de facto the Kingdom’s membership without going through a vote that would have in all cases been predominantly in favor of Morocco.
This broad consensus on Morocco’s return to the pan-African organization evidences the success of the Kingdom’s African foreign policy, which matches words with actions in promoting south-south cooperation and win-win partnerships in the continent.
Speaking to the press, Senegalese President Macky Sall welcomed Morocco’s return saying “if the family grows bigger, we can find solutions as a family.”
Echoing him, Liberia’s President said: “Africa wants to speak in one voice. We need all African countries to be a part of that voice.”
The endorsement of Morocco by 39 AU member countries foiled all attempts by the opponents of the Kingdom’s territorial integrity, notably Algeria and South Africa that vainly campaigned till the last minute in a bid to obstruct the Kingdom from regaining its legitimate place in Africa’s institutional family.
Morocco withdrew from the predecessor of the AU, the Organization of African Unity, in 1984, to protest the biased decision of admitting the separatist SADR entity as a member state within the Organization in total violation of neutrality in the Sahara conflict.
Monday brought another good news for Morocco and for the rest of Africa: the election of Moussa Faki Mahamat as new head of the African Union’s Commission in replacement of Dlamini Zuma whose tenure was fraught with failures on Africa’s pressing issues.
Faki Mahamat, former Foreign Minister of Chad, pledged to place development and security at the top of his agenda and to streamline the organization’s bureaucracy
The Monday session was also marked by the election of a new chairperson of the African Union in the person of Guinean President, Alpha Conde.
The AU Chairperson, elected by the Assembly of Heads of State for a one-year term, is the ceremonial head of the Union. He chairs, in this capacity, the biannual summits and represents the continent in various international fora such as Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD) The Forum on China–Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), the G8 and G20 summits.
