NAIROBI, Kenya — Three African politicians seeking to head the African Union detailed their plans on Friday for regional security amid conflicts and political coups while strongly advocating for inter-Africa trade among other issues.
Raila Odinga of Kenya, Mahamoud Ali Youssouf of Djibouti and Richard Randriamandrato of Madagascar are seeking to be elected as chairperson for the 55-member state African Union.
They participated in a two-hour debate Friday in Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa in which they all advocated for two permanent seats for African countries in the U.N. Security Council to effectively represent the continent with the youngest population.
Odinga said that two permanent seats with veto power were “a must for Africa” and that this was “only fair” since the continent has more than 50 countries.
Randriamandrato urged member states to cease the opportunity and “speak with one voice on the choice of who will represent Africa in the UNSC.”
The three are seeking to convince most African countries before the February election to succeed African Union Chairperson Moussa Faki, who has served for two terms.
The African Union has faced several challenges that include conflict in member countries and political coups that have seen five member states expelled from the union, making regional security a major theme in Friday’s debate.
Youssouf said that regional security could be enhanced if the resources for a regional standby force were increased to reduce the overreliance on foreign partnerships for resources.
“When there is no unity of purpose among neighboring countries peace will be compromised,” Youseff said.
Randriamandrato encouraged countries to take charge of their internal security while cautioning that foreign military bases should be “a thing of the past” because they “could be a source of conflict.”
Despite the continent’s young population of 1.3 billion that is set to double by 2050, regional trade has faced challenges that were addressed in the Friday debate.
Odinga said that Africa had a “huge domestic market” that it could leverage on for economic transformation by opening up opportunities for trade between African countries.
Youssouf proposed a payment compensation system that would ensure countries don’t lose out while trading in different currencies adding, “are we going to have a single currency, why not?”
Randriamandrato said that regional economic blocs like the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa had a huge role to play in easing inter-Africa trade.
The African Union has several proposed reforms on its structure and leadership aimed at achieving its purpose, and all candidates promised to implement the reforms if elected.
Youssouf said that key reforms in the union were facing a funding bottleneck and that “it has to change,” adding that he wouldn’t impose it on member states but would “advocate for it.”
