South African becomes first woman to head AU
Baku, July 16 (AZERTAC). South Africa`s Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma won a closely fought election to become the new head of the African Union Commission, the first woman to hold the post, African leaders said.
She beat the incumbent, Jean Ping of Gabon, after several rounds of voting.
Dlamini-Zuma, 63, an experienced diplomat, is a veteran of the fight against apartheid. A doctor by training, she has served as health, interior and foreign minister in South Africa.
Her victory brings to an end an impasse that has lasted for the past six months.
Her former husband, South African President Jacob Zuma, was one of the first to offer his congratulations after the vote.
Voting took place at an AU summit, where, earlier in the day, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo agreed to an international force to neutralise rebels in eastern DR Congo, as the African Union said it was ready to send peacekeepers there.
He was speaking after his first face-to-face meeting with DR Congo President Joseph Kabila since a UN report in June accused Rwanda of supporting Congolese rebels. The two leaders met on the sidelines of the AU summit.
Members of the South African delegation smiled and congratulated one another as they filed out of the conference hall.
Jakkie Cilliers of the South Africa-based Institute for Security Studies told AFP how Dlamini-Zuma`s score had crept up from one round of voting to the next.
Some analysts say South Africa has violated an unwritten tradition that continental powerhouses do not run candidates for the post, but leave smaller nations to take the job.
On Monday the heads of state will wrap up their two-day meeting.
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