Chad’s former prime minister Moussa Faki Mahamat on Saturday won a second term as head of the African Union’s executive body at the opening of a two-day virtual summit expected to focus on the continent’s pandemic response.
Faki, who ran unopposed, received support from 51 of 55 member states in the secret ballot, officials said.
“Deeply humbled by the overwhelming and historic vote of confidence,” Faki tweeted. He also congratulated Monique Nsanzabaganwa, deputy governor of the National Bank of Rwanda, on her election as his deputy.
The AU summit comes almost exactly one year after Egypt recorded the first coronavirus case in Africa, prompting widespread fears that member states’ weak health systems would quickly be overwhelmed.
But despite early doomsday predictions, the continent has been hit less hard than other regions so far, recording 3.5 percent of virus cases and four percent of deaths worldwide, according to the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.
However many African countries are battling damaging second waves while straining to procure sufficient vaccine doses.
