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Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma becomes first woman to chair African Union
Although that was seen as a demotion, she won plaudits for turning around a ministry mired in gross mismanagement to achieve the first clean audit in 16 years.
In her campaign to win the pan-African bloc’s top job, she vowed to work at making it “a more efficient and effective organisation.”
And while she may have defeated the incumbent, French-speaker Jean Ping of Gabon, she has refused to be labelled as an English-speaking candidate.
“I am not Anglophone, I’m Zulu,” she said.
Once she got to work in the post, she added, she would be “implementing programmes… agreed upon by everybody” rather than “consulting the Anglophone and the Francophone.”
Dlamini-Zuma has the backing of the predominantly English-speaking southern African region and is the first person from the region to hold the top Commission job since the African Union was created a decade ago.
“She takes her work very seriously,” said Prince Mashele, an analyst at the Centre for Politics and Research, who worked with Dlamini-Zuma when she was foreign minister.
“She has the rare quality of putting up very good administrators,” Mashele added.
