It's going to be a grueling battle to take control of Africa's most-crucial economic-political bloc when the continent's heads of state and governments meet in Malawi in June 2012 to elect the chair of the African Union Commission.

The commission is essentially the engine of the AU as far as policy implementation and coordination of the AU activities. With 10 members, including the chairperson and his or her deputy, it is not difficult to see that being in the chairperson's seat gives one sufficient clout to give direction to the commission.

June decider

The June ballot is a follow-up to the deadlock January vote between the incumbent Dr. Jean Ping from Gabon over the formidable challenger, South Africa's Home Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma. Although Jean Ping fought hard in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to ward off the challenge from Dlamini-Zuma, he failed to muster the two-thirds majority required to retain the seat.

Jean Ping's failure to recapture another term exposed the deep-seated suspicions that some states have over his leadership. It may as well be a manifestation of the ever-simmering colonial divide between Francophone Africa and Anglophone Africa.

Dlamini-Zuma had carried out her campaign all over the continent as she planned to take over leadership of the continental body. Those who know her cite her reform credentials in South Africa's Ministry of Home Affairs as enough evidence of what to expect should she clinch the influential position.

No doubt, her candidature would also signal to the world that the continent was not just paying lip service to gender equality and women empowerment.

The deputy AU Commission chief, Kenya's Erastus Mwencha, will serve as the executive council's chair until the June polls.

SA dominance?

Geoffrey Dennis Mauya, a distinguished scholar and an alumnus of the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London, describes the deadlock over the choice of a new AU Commission chief as "something that was expected."

Mauya said there's fear especially in Francophone Africa and in some parts of the North that South Africa was "becoming too powerful" geopolitically, and that handing it the AU Commission leadership was likely to make the nation "manipulate the weak ones."

Mauya told ChinAfrica that the deadlock was a sign that some countries, especially those in the 15-member Southern Africa Development Community (SADC), wanted "one of their own" at the helm of the crucial organ of the AU.

So why then did some delegates boycott the vote in the final round with only Jean Ping in the running?

"It is a statement of their lack of faith in the work that Jean Ping has done at the AU. Under his tenure, he has failed to make the AU a dog that barks and bites. He could not stop NATO from going into Libya to oust Muammar Gaddaffi; he wasn't able to persuade [former Ivorian President Laurent] Gbagbo to step down, and instead, left it to the French, the former colonizers of Cote d'Ivoire," Mauya said.

Jean Ping's history as a diplomat and politician, especially in his home country of Gabon, plus his tenure at the AU, make him eligible for re-election. He views what critics' term as the AU's failures as "opportunities."

The dicey relationship between South Sudan and Sudan, the Eastern Africa security threat that is the lawless Somalia, and the popular uprisings in North Africa, are, to Jean Ping, a "confirmation of political and economic renewal of the continent."

In his address to the heads of state and governments in Addis Ababa, Jean Ping was categorical that even though the African Union may have been napping as these crises unfolded, it was "able to maintain its leadership in the management of the crises."

It is admissions such as this that make Mauya and other critics label the AU as a "moribund organ" in dire need of "fresh blood and fresh ideas."

Javas Bigambo, a Kenyan political analyst, however, told ChinAfrica he does not see Dlamini-Zuma as one who would add value to the African Union "just because she comes from South Africa."