Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo has endorsed Kenyan politician Raila Odinga’s bid for the next chairmanship of the African Union Commission.

The Ghanaian leader’s support for Odinga, a former prime minister of Kenya, follows the endorsement by Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame, Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni, Tanzania’s Samia Suluhu and South Sudan’s Salva Kiir as well as Kenya’s William Ruto.

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Elections for the new AU Commission chairperson to replace incumbent Chadian politician Moussa Faki Mahamat, are scheduled for February 2025. Mahamat, who was first elected in 2017, is serving a second term he won in 2021.

The 78-year-old politician, who leads Kenya’s opposition coalition Azimio, announced his candidacy for the AU top job in February, saying his earlier experience as an envoy of the continental body proved his fitness for the top job.

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A mechanical engineer by training, Odinga was AU High Representative for Infrastructure Development, a position he held from 2018 to 2023.

The chairperson of the AU Commission is elected by the continental body’s general assembly, for a four-year term, renewed once.

Under the rotational rules drawn in 2018, the Eastern Africa region should be the next to produce the AU Commission chairperson. But the rules of elections allow as many candidates to come from the same region.

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Odinga is one of the two politicians, who have expressed interest in the AU top job. His challenger is Somalia’s former foreign minister Fawzia Yusuf Adam, who also announced her bid for the AU Commission chairmanship in February.

Adam is seeking to become the second woman to head the continental body after South Africa’s Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma.

Odinga has been active in Kenyan politics since the 1970s. He served as Kenya’s prime minister from 2008 to 2013.

The son of Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, the first vice president of independent Kenya, lost his fifth bid at the presidency in 2022, after William Ruto won.

Odinga has also run for president in 1997, 2007, 2013 and 2017.