African Union vote boosts Canada’s bid to save the ICC

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Canada's campaign to save the International Criminal Court was given a boost on Monday when the African Union refused to give a key leadership post to a strong opponent of the controversial court.

In a close-fought election, the African Union narrowly voted to give its top official post to Chad's Foreign Minister Moussa Faki Mahamat, who has supported the war-crimes court. He defeated the foreign minister of Kenya, where the government has accused the court of being a racist puppet of imperialist powers.

Three African governments announced last year that they will quit the international court, triggering a crisis that has threatened its survival.

Canada's former foreign minister, Stéphane Dion, travelled to three African countries last year in an attempt to defend the beleaguered court. Canada was a key leader in creating the court in the late 1990s, but many African leaders have criticized it for prosecuting only Africans so far.

Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, who won election in Kenya despite facing murder charges at the international court, has alleged that the court is a "toy of declining imperial powers" that obeys the "cues of European and American governments."

It is a charge that resonates with many African countries. They complain that the court is biased because it has never attempted to prosecute Europeans or Americans.

South Africa, the biggest country to abandon the court last year, reportedly gave its support to Mr. Kenyatta's Foreign Minister, Amina Mohamed, in the final rounds of voting at the African Union summit in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. She had been widely seen as the frontrunner in the race, and Kenya had lobbied aggressively for her. But in a blow to Kenya and South Africa, she eventually lost to Mr. Faki by a 28-to-25 vote in the sixth round. He was then given a two-thirds majority in the final round when the Kenyan withdrew.

Mr. Faki, a former prime minister of Chad, had campaigned on the promise of working for an Africa where "the sound of guns will be drowned out by cultural songs and rumbling factories."

He will become chair of the African Union Commission, replacing Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, who is now a front-runner in the race to replace her ex-husband, Jacob Zuma, as leader of South Africa's ruling party.

Analysts said Ms. Mohamed was hurt by a backlash against the aggressive Kenyan campaign. Many African countries, including key powers such as Nigeria and Senegal, were unwilling to support a full-scale African withdrawal from the international court.

But the election of Mr. Faki could be a setback for democratic reforms in Africa, since Chad is run by an authoritarian regime that has been widely criticized for human-rights abuses.

"You can't see him going around Africa calling for elections and human rights," said Liesl Louw-Vaudran, an AU expert at the Institute for Security Studies in Pretoria.

In another key decision on Monday, the AU voted to allow Morocco to become a member. Morocco, the only African country that did not belong to the AU, had quit the its predecessor organization in 1984 to protest its decision to recognize the independence of Western Sahara, which Morocco considers to be part of its territory.

In her final speech as AU commission chair, Ms. Dlamini-Zuma warned that U.S. President Donald Trump was causing "turbulent times" for Africa.

She was reacting to Mr. Trump's order that halted travel to the United States by citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries, including three African nations – Somalia, Sudan and Libya.

"The very country to which many of our people were taken as slaves during the transatlantic slave trade has now decided to ban refugees from some of our countries," she told the AU summit. "This is one of the greatest challenges to our unity and solidarity."