Mutharika meets Zambia’s new leader Lungu in Addis

Malawi President Peter Mutharika met new President of neighbouring Zambia, Edgar Lungu in Addis Abbaba on Thursday during the African Union Heads of State Summit.

Lungu was inaugurated last week after being elected as Zambia’s sixth Head of State. The Malawi leader did not attend the inauguration in Lusaka.

The Zambian leader and Malawi’s President were among the elite of African politics and are expected to hold a number of bilateral talks with several other leaders.

Like Lungu, Mutharika is attending the AU Summit for the first time as Head of State after the May 2014 Tripartite Elections in which he emerged the winner.

The Summit is supposed to pay more focus on decision making and that the July meeting of the AU Member States would concentrate on monitoring and evaluation of the January decisions.

While the official theme of the African Union meeting is the women’s empowerment, leaders from the 54-member bloc will once again be beset by a string of crises across the continent.

African leaders are expected to elect Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe to the organisation’s one-year rotating chair, replacing Mauritania’s President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz.

Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, who last month celebrated the dropping of crimes against humanity charges against him at The Hague-based ICC, will again be lobbying other leaders to push for an alternative African court that will rival what he has branded the anti-African ICC.

African leaders will also discuss the economic recovery of countries affected by the Ebola virus, setting up a “solidarity fund” and planning a proposed African Centre for Disease Control.

Minister of Gender, Women and Children’s Affairs Patricia Kaliati is leading a team of women attending the Summit from Malawi.

President Mutharika is expected after fulfilling a number of engagements in Addis Ababa leave for Malawi on 1st February 2015.