Morocco Doesn’t Need Membership in a Dysfunctional African Union

Washington DC — Morocco does not need the blessing of the military junta in Algiers or the dictatorship in Harare to feel African.

Its history and its commitments, past and present, determine the Africanisms of Morocco. Neither the incapacitated Bouteflika nor dictator want-to-be Zuma will ever decide the future of the Kingdom in Africa. Actually, Morocco expanded its relations with African nations since it left the Organization of African Union (OAU) in 1984.

Morocco’s recent accusations of mismanagement against African Union (AU) Chief Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma reinforces the image of a failing leadership at the Pan-African organization. Since its creation from the ashes of the OAU, the AU had betrayed its core mission. It was supposed to step in wherever there is a conflict in Africa, and yet it has widely failed to act when it mattered. So why Morocco want to rejoin such discredited organization?

Dlamini-Zuma’s reign as Chairperson of the African Union has been a disaster. She was unable to resolve major African predicaments, address the need of the African people or reform the pan-African organization. Africa still relies on some of its former colonial powers and the United Nations to tackle its internal conflicts and keep peace in the many hot spots around the continent.

Dlamini-Zuma’s performance at the AU is as poor as her record as a health minister under President Nelson Mandela. A relic of the cold war, she is a highly demagogue bureaucrat who has refused to change her ways to keep her organizations vigorous and relevant to today’s realities.

She has been a bad administrator and an ineffective leader. The AU is more irrelevant today as it ever was. The UN hardly considers the African positions when deliberating key political and military topics. In fact, the AU is as dysfunctional as its predecessor ever was, and it will continue to be so.

Morocco “will live” without joining a disillusioned AU incapable to address the basic political, economic and social needs of Africans .Since its creation the AU has failed to resolve crises in Mali, Ivory Coast, Democratic Republic of Congo, Libya and the Central African Republic.

On the Western Sahara conflict, the positions of the AU, which admitted the Self-proclaimed Sahara Republic, are immaterial to the United Nations (UN). Sadly for Africa, the UN-AU relations have reached a low point under the incompetent chairmanship of Dlamini-Zuma.

It is true that King Mohammed VI, who is widely popular in Africa, wants to see his nation regain its palace within the African Union. However, this well intended gesture opened the door to an enraged Algerian diplomatic offensive.

Algeria’s Foreign Minister who has been unable to contain or counter the Moroccan Monarch diplomatic and economic successes in the continent, made stopping Morocco’s re-admittance to the AU as his country’s top political priority. For this desperate attempt, he drafted the help of the two most unpopular African leaders today, Zuma and Mugabe.

The Kingdom has always been proud of its African heritage. King Mohammed and the Moroccan business community will continue their expansion in the continent bringing investments and creating jobs, while Zuma, Mugabe and Bouteflika continue their disruptive maneuvers producing no change but persistent poverty and instability.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent any institution or entity.