Chadian Foreign Affairs Minister, Moussa Faki Mahamat has been elected African Union chairperson replacing Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma.
Faki beat many others in the race including East Africa’s backed candidate who doubles as Kenya’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Amina Mohamed.
Others in the race where, , Abdoulaye Bathily, a Senegalese diplomat and academic, Botswana’s Foreign Minister Pelonomi Venson-Moitoi, and Mba Mokuy, a former political adviser from the ex-Spanish colony of Equatorial Guinea.
Who is Faki?
Moussa Faki Mahamat was born June 21, 1960 is a Chadian politician who was Prime Minister of Chad from June 24, 2003 to February 4, 2005. Faki, a member of the ruling Patriotic Salvation Movement (MPS), belongs to the Zaghawa ethnic group, the same group as President Idriss Déby. He was President of the Economic, Social, and Cultural Council from 2007 to 2008, and since April 2008 he has been Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Faki was born in the town of Biltine in eastern Chad. He attended university in Brazzaville in the Republic of the Congo, where he studied law. He went into exile when Hissein Habré took power on June 7, 1982 and joined the Democratic Revolutionary Council headed by Acheikh Ibn Oumar.
However, he did not return to Chad when Acheikh joined with Habré in 1988. He eventually returned on June 7, 1991, after Déby took power. He was director-general of two ministries before serving as the Director-General of the National Sugar Company (SONASUT) between 1996 and 1999
Subsequently, he served as Director of President Déby’s Cabinet from March 1999 to July 2002, and he was Déby’s campaign director for the May 2001 presidential election. Faki was then appointed as Minister of Public Works and Transport in the government of Prime Minister Haroun Kabadi, which was named on June 12, 2002. After a year in that post, he was appointed as Prime Minister by Déby on June 24, 2003, replacing Kabadi. The appointment of Faki was unusual because, with Faki being a northerner, it meant that both the President and Prime Minister would be from the north; typically the post of Prime Minister was given to a southerner in order to balance the fact that the Presidency was held by Déby, a northerner.
Faki resigned in early February 2005 amidst a civil service strike and a rumored quarrel with Déby.
Faki was nominated as a member of the Economic, Social and Cultural Council on January 19, 2007 and was then elected as the Council’s President in mid-February 2007. In the government of Prime Minister Youssouf Saleh Abbas, which was announced on April 23, 2008, he was appointed as Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Source. Wikipedia
