This Saturday, February 15 and Sunday, February 16, 2025, the major annual summit of the African Union (AU) is held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. This summit must choose between the Kenyan Raila Odinga, the Djiboutian Mahamoud Ali Youssouf and the Malagasy Richard Randriamandrato who will be the new president of the African Union Commission. In this article, I present to you the three candidates, their background, CVs, and origins.
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(1) Raila Odinga (country of origin: Kenya)
Historical opponent, the Kenyan Raila Odinga nicknamed “Tinga” (“the tractor”) is the favorite in this election, after leading a thunderous campaign and receiving the official support of many heads of state, including its president, William Ruto.
But his age, 80, could handicap the man who has been an unsuccessful candidate for the presidency of Kenya five times and who, in an interview given to Agence France-Presse (AFP) in November 2024, left the door open to a new candidacy in 2027, while ensuring that he wanted to “focus on working for the AU”.
Acting in the early 1980s against one-party rule in Kenya, Raila Odinga was arbitrarily detained for almost eight years, without trial, between 1982 and 1991. After a brief exile in Norway, he then entered Kenyan Parliament during the first multi-party elections in 1992.
On his program, Raila Odinga recently declared that if elected, one of his first actions would be “to try to promote unity among African countries.”
“Unity is a concept prior to development. We want to be sure that African countries speak with one voice,” he said.
The Kenyan candidate also campaigned on several other themes: priority to economic development, intra-African trade and the fight against global warming.
(2) Mahamoud Ali Youssouf (country of origin: Djibouti)
Minister of Foreign Affairs of Djibouti since 2005, Mahamoud Ali Youssouf is a career diplomat, very close to President Ismaïl Omar Guelleh. This 59-year-old man, who speaks French, English and Arabic fluently, emphasized his balancing skills in a campaign conducted quietly.
“I have still been Minister of Foreign Affairs for 20 years, so I regularly encounter the mysteries of the African Union. It’s an organization that I know very well. I come from a small country, certainly, but a country at the crossroads between three continents (…). Today, the Arab world and Africa come together in Djibouti.”
During an interview with AFP in December, Mahmoud Ali Youssouf spoke of a “problem of governance” in certain African countries, referring in particular to those which have been shaken in recent years by coups d’état.
If elected, the diplomat envisages three priorities: continuing internal reforms in the African Union, peace and security on the African continent and accelerating the implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (Zlecaf).
(3) Richard Randriamandrato (country of origin: Madagascar)
The former Malagasy foreign minister led a discreet campaign after submitting his candidacy at the last minute in August 2024. Richard Randriamandrato, 55, held the post of head of diplomacy of Madagascar from March to October 2022, when he was dismissed after voting for a resolution at the UN condemning Russia’s annexations in Ukraine while Madagascar claims to be a “non-aligned country”.
Richard Randriamandrato was also Minister of Economy and Finance of the large Indian Ocean island between 2018 and 2021. Above all, the Malagasy politician highlights his experience within international organizations with a view to the AU election. He notably worked through the International Labor Organization, the World Bank and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa).
“I think the fact of not being a political party leader is an advantage. I don’t claim to have spent twenty years doing chameleon diplomacy, writing notes verbales and making speeches here and there,” Richard Randriamandrato explained to RFI. “I am a man in the field (…) I am not a sitting candidate and I think that is an advantage.”
If elected, the former Malagasy minister wants, among other measures, to also accelerate the implementation of the Zlecaf (African Continental Free Trade Area), promote peace, security and regional stability on the African continent, or even fight against global warming.
Moussa Faki Mahamat, who has been in office for 8 years, is retiring following a failed assessment!
2025 marks the end of the double mandate of Moussa Faki Mahamat, in office for eight years. The former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Chad leaves behind a mixed record, between strengthening international partnerships and crisis of African continental leadership.
Outgoing African Union President Moussa Faki Mahamat, photo November 1, 2023 (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
The mandate of Moussa Faki Mahamat is greatly marked by failures. The chairman of the commission failed to speak with a strong voice to resolve the bogged-down conflicts in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Another failure, in 2021, when despite an incriminating report on the transition in Chad, a report that he supported, Moussa Faki Mahamat was not supported by the Commission.
This world,
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