You cannot have moral authority with 91-year-old president-for-life Robert Mugabe at the helm, says Justice Malala as leaders meet in South Africa

The African Union claims to promote peace, security and stability, but as its leaders continue their usual prevarication on recent upheavals and conflicts across the continent, these values seem forgotten.

Take Burundi, for example. As president Pierre Nkurunziza defies the country’s constitution and clings to power, the African Union (AU) has largely remained quiet or flip-flopped on the issue, even as the country plummeted into chaos as a result, leaving more than 20 people dead and scores of others injured and displaced.

The AU’s limp-wristed response to Nkurunziza’s actions may be because it lacks the moral authority to act given that in January it appointed 91-year-old ruler of Zimbabwe Robert Mugabe to lead it.

Mugabe, who has ruled his country for more than 35 years shows no signs of stepping down, as evidenced by an incident captured by mobile phone footage in Nigeria last week.

At the new Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari’s inauguration, Mugabe was confronted by journalist Adeola Fayehun about his plans to hand over the reins to younger blood. But he was promptly ushered away by his security personnel to the sounds of Fayehun calling after him: “Are you going to step down, sir?”

Later, she heckled him again, asking: “Mr President, don’t you think that it’s time you step down, so you can rest? When will there be change in Zimbabwe, sir? Is there democracy in Zimbabwe?” The clip went viral across the continent.

Presidential sell-by dates

This weekend, Mugabe is in South Africa for the bi-annual AU summit. Of the many thorny issues on his plate, the problem of Burundi’s president will feature prominently.

Nkurunziza announced in April that he would run for a third term in elections that were due on 26 June. Burundians took to the streets in protests which were met by a ruthless crackdown. A military coup attempted while Nkurunziza was out of the country held for just a day, before it was quashed.

In Zimbabwe, Mugabe is the only president the country has known since it gained independence in 1980. Is he the right person to lead other African leaders in convincing Nkurunziza a third term is unwise?

Military coups are no longer de rigueur, as the South Africa-based Institute for Security Studies’s recent report shows: it found 16 African leaders tried to remain in power by changing their countries’ constitutions to remove presidential term limits between 2000 and 2015. The fact that 10 of them succeeded will surely bring some comfort (and inspiration) to Nkurunziza.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Demonstrators opposed to a third term for President Nkurunziza march before army soldiers shot in the air to disperse the protest, in the rural area of Mugongomanga, east of the capital Bujumbura, in Burundi on Wednesday. Photograph: Berthier Mugiraneza/AP

A look at the AU leaders who preceded Mugabe doesn’t paint a promising picture, either: the late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was the union’s chairperson in 2009. He had been in power in Libya for an astonishing 40 years. In 2011 the union was led by Teodoro Obiang Nguema, the leader of Equatorial Guinea who has been in power since 1979.

What has the AU done about any of these leaders? What did it do when Mugabe went on an orgy of torture after he lost the parliamentary elections in Zimbabwe in 2008? Nothing.

Africa rising?

This track record raises the question: what is the AU really for?

At its inauguration in 2002, the AU was led by a cohort of leaders – among them Nigeria’s former military leader Olusegun Obasanjo, South Africa’s Thabo Mbeki and Senegal’s Abdoulaye Wade – who declared a commitment to ending wars, promoting democracy and driving economic transformation on the continent.

They were not angels, but the “Africa rising” narrative is partly a result of their drive to show that peace and democracy can lead lead to greater economic activity and prosperity. This was done by example: South Africa and Nigeria grew phenomenally in the 2000s following the restoration of democracy in both countries, a message the countries’ leaders emphasised regularly.

Nkurunziza will join other leaders who continue to warm their presidential seats well beyond their sell-by dates

But since Nkurunziza quashed the military coup at home there isn’t a single AU member country calling clearly for him to stand down at the end of his second term. Although at first South Africa and a few West African leaders at first condemned his actions, they’ve all since back-tracked.

The organisation is unlikely to take a clear stance as it meets this weekend, and Nkurunziza will comfortably join other leaders who continue to warm their presidential seats well beyond their sell-by dates.

Beyond leaders overstaying their welcome, there are other pressing issues on the union’s agenda: a call will be made for a permanent seat for Africa on the UN Security Council; there might be some movement on building a continental “intervention” force; and there will be declarations on fighting islamist groups like Boko Haram in Nigeria and al-Shabaab in Somalia.

In Burundi, however – and for many of us on the continent who are footing the bill for the AU’s expensive jamboree – the question remains: what is the point of the AU when it loses its backbone at the first sight of a dictator?