Agricultural engineer and former minister Josefa Leonel Correia Sacko, current Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Economy, will seek re-election at the next African Union summit, which is not yet scheduled, but is expected to take place in February.
In the future commission, the portfolio will have, besides Agriculture and Rural Economy, Blue Economy and Environment.
According to the final list of pre-qualified candidates, to which the Lusa agency had access, the Angolan candidate is the best evaluated among the four candidates, with a score of 81.65 percent.
Sacko's opponents in the race are representatives from Gambia, Uganda and Morocco.
The new commission, the first to be elected after the AU reform process begun in 2016 under Rwandan President Paul Kagamé, will have fewer commissioners and be elected through a new merit-based system.
The African Union's leadership structure will consist of eight members, including a president, a vice president and six commissioners, two fewer seats than the previous commission.
The organization launched an appeal to the 55 member states, including Lusophone Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Equatorial Guinea, Mozambique and Sao Tome and Principe, to nominate candidates to fill the disputed seats.
In addition to merit, applications would have to gather the support of the regions from which they come, and the selection criteria should respect regional representativeness and gender equality, as well as rotation between regions and countries in alphabetical order.
Posts would be distributed equally between men and women.
A panel of experts reviewed a list of 89 candidates, having pre-qualified 25 candidates who will now have to be elected by the Executive Council of the African Union, composed of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the member states of the organization.
For the commission's leadership, Chad's current president and former foreign minister, Moussa Faki Mahamat, is running for re-election without opposition, but he needs to get two-thirds of the countries' votes to remain in office.
If the election of Moussa Faki Mahamat is confirmed, the vice-presidency should be occupied by a woman.
In the run-up to this post are representatives from Djibouti, Uganda, Rwanda, Ghana and the Gambia.
In the new commission, Political Affairs and Peace and Security will be merged into a single department, a post considered crucial in the structure of the organization.
The Political Affairs portfolio has been occupied by women since 2003, while for Peace and Security a man has always been chosen.
The mandate of the current Commissioner for Peace and Security, Smaїl Chergui, from Algeria, is coming to an end, after two terms beginning in 2013.
Among the four pre-qualified candidates for the post is Burkina Faso diplomat Minate Samate, the current commissioner for political affairs, who will seek reelection after achieving a score of 86.73 percent in the pre-selection.
The best ranked for this position, however, was the Nigerian diplomat Bankole Adegboyega Adeoye, Nigeria's ambassador to Ethiopia and the African Union.
Candidates from South Africa and Tanzania were also shortlisted for this position.
Among the initial 15 nominations for the post was that of Mozambican diplomat and politician Maria Manuela dos Santos Lucas.
Zambian Albert Muchanga is also seeking re-election as Commissioner for Economic Development, Trade, Industry, and Mining, with representatives from Sierra Leone, Uganda, Mauritius, and Tanzania competing.
Also in the race for re-election as commissioner for Infrastructure and Energy is Egyptian Amani Abou-Zeid, who is competing with candidates from Zimbabwe, Kenya, and Rwanda.
The Education, Science, Technology and Innovation portfolio, currently occupied by Cameroonian Sarah Mbi Enow Anyang, will be contested between candidates from South Africa, Ethiopia, Mauritius, Zimbabwe and Uganda.
As commissioner of Health, Humanitarian Affairs and Social Development, candidates from Ivory Coast, Kenya and Mauritania will be presented.
According to an analysis by the European Centre for Development Policy Management (ECDPM), an independent 'think thank' on relations between Europe and Africa, despite the requirement for gender parity in the electoral process, only 29 percent of the 89 candidates nominated for commission positions are women and only eight are on the final list of 25 pre-qualified candidates.
The eight members of the new commission will be elected at the 34th Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the African Union, expected in February 2021, in a vote that will include for the first time all 55 member states since the readmission of Morocco.
The members of the commission are elected for a four-year term renewable once.
The last election, held in January 2017, appointed Moussa Mahamat Faki of Chad as President and Thomas Kwesi Quartey of Ghana as Vice-President.
In 2020, the rotating presidency of the African Union was held by South Africa, moving next year to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
