On Saturday, Djibouti’s Foreign Minister Mahmoud Ali Youssouf was elected as the new Chairperson of the African Union (AU) Commission. At the 38th Ordinary Session of the AU Assembly of Heads of State and Government, Youssouf received the required 33 votes in the seventh and final round of voting, defeating Raila Odinga, the former Prime Minister of Kenya. On 15 March, he will take over the leadership of the AU Commission for the next four years, succeeding Moussa Faki Mahamat (Chad), who led the Commission for two terms, totalling eight years. Algeria’s Selma Malika Haddadi, who was also elected for a four-year term, will become the Commission’s Vice-Chairperson. Meanwhile, Angola’s President João Lourenço took over the AU’s rotating chairmanship from Mauritania’s President Mohamed Ould Cheikh El Ghazouani for the year 2025 and launched this year’s AU priority theme of “Justice for Africans and People of African Descent Through Reparations”.