Hon. Chief Fortune Zephania Charumbira has been re-elected as President of the Pan-African Parliament (PAP) at the recently concluded Extraordinary Session of the Sixth Parliament. He garnered 127 votes after running as the sole candidate from the Southern African Region.
Hon. Chief Charumbira returns to the position he previously held between June 2022 and August 2023 before the post became vacant when he left to participate in the General Elections in Zimbabwe to renew his term of office as Senator.
Under the current PAP Rules of Procedures, a parliamentarian's term corresponds to his or her own national parliament term or to that of any other deliberative body that elected or designated the parliamentarian.
In his address to members of the Continental Parliament following his re-election, Hon. Chief Charumbira pledged to continue where he left off, with his mission to “Revive, Renew, Reposition, and Reinvigorate the Pan-African Parliament.”
Hon. Prof. Massouda Mohamed Laghdaf (Mauritania) was also re-elected as the First Vice President of the PAP on the occasion of the by-elections. She fills the position reserved for the Northern Africa Caucus after receiving 149 of the votes.
Finally, Hon. Djidda Mamar Mahamat (Chad) has joined the Bureau as the Fourth Vice President after amassing 153 votes to represent the Central African Region.
The main business on the agenda of the just-concluded Extraordinary Session was the election for vacant positions in the PAP Bureau after the positions of President, First Vice President, and Fourth Vice President of the Bureau had remained vacant following elections and unconstitutional changes of government in some African Union Member States."
The election process was overseen by the African Union Commission in accordance with the deliberations of the 44th Ordinary Session of the Executive Council, held in Addis Ababa from 14th to 15th February 2024, concerning the situation at the Pan-African Parliament. The 44th Ordinary Session of Africa’s Ministers of Foreign Affairs further tasked the Office of the Legal Counsel of the Union with developing guidelines for the by-elections to ensure transparency and independence”.
The fully reconstituted Bureau of the PAP is composed as follows:
President: H.E. Hon. Chief Fortune Zephania Charumbira (Zimbabwe) - Southern Africa
1st Vice President: Hon. Prof. Massouda Mohamed Laghdaf (Mauritania) - Northern Africa
2nd Vice President: Hon. Dr. Ashebir Woldegiorgis Gayo (Ethiopia) - Eastern Africa
3rd Vice President: Hon. Lucia Dos Passos (Cabo Verde) - Western Africa
4th Vice President: Hon. Djidda Mamar Mahamat (Chad) - Central Africa
