Harare - Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe believes the African Union is kowtowing to the West and if he takes over leadership of the organisation, he wants to make it a leader on the global stage, his spokesman said on Thursday.
Mugabe, who turns 91 next month, is widely expected to be appointed to chair the 54-member union when it begins a two-day summit on Friday.
“The president has for a very long time been complaining about the trajectory of the AU,” Mugabe's spokesman George Charamba told the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation's main television news bulletin.
“He thinks we've been trying to, as it were, bend our policies so as to win the goodwill of the West.
“What the president visualises is a leadership that recognises the strategic advantage of Africa and then translates that advantage into a leadership... on the global stage.
“That's the change that you're likely to see when the president takes over, or if the president takes over, which we hope he will,” Charamba added.
The ageing Mugabe, who is dogged by allegations of rights abuses at home, is a controversial choice for chairman of the AU.
Even though the position is largely ceremonial, critics say Mugabe's elevation will do Africa no favours.
“How will he superintend free and fair elections in other African nations when he has failed in that regard himself?” the private NewsDay paper asked in its editorial comment on Thursday.
Sapa