The current efforts to elect a new Chair of the AU Commission have been caught in the crosswinds of the impact of illicit capital outflows, the question of reseating Morocco in the AU and the challenges that Africa will face during a period of the ascendancy of the ideas of Donald Trump and Marie Le Pen. The AU will survive this turbulence. But the rise of the Pan African Movement will likely sweep away the present crop of leaders.
Introduction: Three crossing points
In all countries of Africa, from Egypt to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and beyond there are stirrings of the people who want to assert themselves politically in the context of realizing the pan African project of building a peaceful, integrated and prosperous Africa. These stirrings have created massive political tensions and are nowhere more evident than at the seat of the African Union where the poor and oppressed of Ethiopia have demanded a new democratic dispensation that provides real resources to the majority of the people. Despite the glowing figures of economic growth, averaging 10.8% per year in 2003/04 – 2014/15, exploited Ethiopians have taken to the streets and internationalized their protests at the recent Olympics in Rio. At state of emergency in Ethiopia confronts the AU about its future in a society of contested politics.