African press review 24 January 2017

Who is going to get the top jobs at the African Union? Is there any hope of an end to the hospital doctors' strike in Kenya? South African opposition figure Julius Malema tells Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe that it's time to go.

The battle to decide who will be the next chairperson of the African Union Commission gets the front-page treatment in regional daily the East African.

The paper says the winner will be decided on the floor of the AU assembly on 30 January because lobbying across the continent over the past six months has failed to produce a frontrunner.

Diplomatic sources in Addis Ababa told the East African that the outcome will depend on how the presidents of the five countries that have presented candidates   Kenya, Chad, Senegal, Botswana and Equatorial Guinea   engage their counterparts at the summit to be held in Addis next week.

The winning candidate must garner two-thirds of votes, that's the support of 37 of the 54 members.

Lobbying and horse-trading among the five states has been complicated by the fact that Guinean President Alpha Condé is the likely to be next chair of the African Union, taking over from Chad’s Idriss Deby.

The common practice is that the key posts of the AU chair, the commission chair and deputy, and the head of the Peace and Security Council cannot come from the same region.

Hospital doctors still on strike in Kenya

There's still no sign of an end to the hospital doctors strike in Kenya.

With the striking doctors expecting to receive official letters dimissing them from their posts this week and with their union leaders facing jail for contempt of court, the strikers are now calling for the immediate resignation or sacking of senior officials in the Health Ministry.

According to the Nairobi-based Daily Nation, the doctors yesterday said their strike had dragged on because Cabinet Secretary Cleopa Mailu and Principal Secretary Nicholas Muraguri did not have the interests of poor Kenyans at heart.

Striking medical staff are demanding pay increases and improved conditions, in line with the 2013 collective bargaining agreement signed by the government.

On 12 January, the Industrial Court gave the union 14 days to call off the strike. The deadline is 26 January, just two days away.

Pay talks resume as the deadline nears

Sister paper the Standard is taking a more positive view of the situation, reporting that Health Cabinet Secretary Mailu is expected to meet representatives of the striking doctors this morning in the hope that the stalemate will finally be resolved.

Dr Mailu yesterday confirmed the meeting, which comes one day before the deadline the court gave Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union officials to sort the matter out or face jail.

The strike has now lasted 50 days.

Malema tells Mugabe it's time to go

South African opposition politician Julius Malema, of the Economic Freedom Fighters, has called on Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe to step down, today's Sowetan reports.

Speaking at his party's headquarters in Johannesburg, Malema yesterday said that Mugabe is frail and should relinquish power.

"Grandpa, let go," was Malema's message to the 92-year-old Mugabe, who is the oldest serving president in the world.

Malema said that Mugabe should not worry about the land redistribution question, promising that his Economic Freedom Fighters will continue the fight to give land back to black farmers. The South African opposition lerader also said that Mugabe is destroying his own legacy by hanging on to power.

Will Trump abandon the Africa-US trade pact?

And there's a danger that the Agoa trade pact between African countries and the United States could be repealed by the Trump administration.

The Africa Growth and Opportunity Act was introduced in 2000 by the Bill Clinton administration and allows 39 sub-Saharan African countries to export certain goods to the US market duty-free. It was renewed in September 2015 by then president Barack Obama and is due to expire in 2025.

Newly installed president Donald Trump has said the agreement benefits only the corrupt and should be abolished.

The East African says African interest in Agoa has been low, with just seven of 39 eligible countries - most of them oil producers - taking advantage of the act.