The African Union has been set up but sceptics are doubtful if it presages a new dawn for the continent, reports Patrick Laurence from Johannesburg
The African Union was set up formally yesterday with the solemn assurance from its founding chairman, President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, that its birth was "a moment of hope for the continent and its peoples".
The formation was presented as the start of an odyssey for the continent away from war, poverty and dictatorship and towards peace, prosperity and democracy.
But it is debatable whether the AU represents a beginning to a greater and more benign future or simply a newer and more elaborate version of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) that it has replaced.
President Mbeki - who played a seminal role in forming the AU - was vocal on the need for Africa to establish itself in the new era as a continent characterised by "democracy and good governance".
But, measured by those laudable aims, the AU has not started well. One of the heads of state who was honoured was President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, whose love of power exceeds his respect for democracy.
His refusal to allow the notion of "good governance" to prevent him from dismissing judges who do not endorse his decisions, or from expropriating land from farmers his Zanu-PF government encouraged to buy and farm in happier days, is hardly auspicious for the AU.
Another man who had not been excluded from those judged fit to lead Africa into a brighter future is the "Brother Leader" of Libya, Moamer Gadafy. He has ruled Libya since he seized power more than 30 years ago. He has won notoriety in the developed word as a sponsor of international terrorism. It is not coincidental that he should be at the founding ceremony with President Mugabe: he has saved Mr Mugabe from the folly of his own disastrous policies by providing him with funds and petroleum.
If President Robert Mugabe and Brother Leader Gadafy are qualified to tutor AU members in democracy and good governance, the AU might as well invoke the ghost of Mobutu Sese Seko, the kleptocrat who ruled Zaire for 30 years, as a guiding spirit for honest government in the new era.
The AU is modelled on the EU and is designed to achieve for Africa what the EU has done for Europe, from the formation of a powerful European free trade area to the establishment of a single currency. But, unlike the EU, the AU has not grown organically from the bottom upwards, the EU having begun life as a tri-national steel and coal community.
Instead the AU has begun with grandiose plans for institutions which evolved over time in the EU: a Pan-African Parliament, a Pan-African Court of Justice, an African Central Bank and an Economic, Social and Cultural Council. It resembles the metaphorical house of cards. Its foundations may be as fragile.