Dakar - Senegalese diplomat Professor Abdoulaye Bathily has revealed that the President of his country, Macky Sall, intervened on his behalf to delay the election of a new chair for the African Union (AU) Commission so that he could participate.
"He made sure that the election at the AU Summit in Kigali in July 2016 was postponed so I could be a candidate in the upcoming election," said Bathily on Wednesday at the official launch of his candidature for the coveted position which will be contested in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
The election of the new chair to replace South African incumbent Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, scheduled for July, was postponed to January after the candidates failed to garner the required votes.
At the summit in Rwanda there were three candidates vying for the position - former Ugandan vice president Specioza Wandira Kazibwe, Botswana Foreign Minister Pelonomi Venson Moitoi, and Equatorial Guinea Foreign Minister Agapito Mba Mokuy.
Moitoi is still in the running along with Kenyan Foreign Affairs Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohamed.
Speaking at the launch in Dakar, Bathily said: "My candidacy is the culmination of an entire academic, political and diplomatic life at the service of pan-Africanism".
African News Agency