MIDRAND, SOUTH AFRICA – The Pan-African Parliament (PAP) today swore in new members of the continental legislative body during the official opening of the Sitting of Permanent Committees and related meetings of the 6th Parliament of the Pan-African Parliament running under the African Union’s Theme of the Year 2025: “Justice for Africans and People of African Descent through Reparations.”
In welcoming the new members, the PAP Third Vice President, Hon. Lucia Dos Passos, said the legislators have a specific mandate to be the voice of the African people.
“To be that voice, we need to be able to work. And this year in particular, where we are going to talk about the reparative justice for Africans and their descendants, we need to bring the parliament closer to our diaspora, to our sixth region.
“The next one to come will have to hear a word about the National Parliament. And this word, if it’s interesting, will come out of this house for all the visitors that we have in the country, for our communities, and our population. We need to work to promote human rights. We need to work to promote peace, we need to work to be together with the nations that suffer, especially the nations in the countries where they have an unconstitutional government. We need to leave these considerations to the other side. We need to be at the forefront of everything, independent of the conditions that the country is going through at the moment,” Hon Passos said.
She expressed concern about the conflict in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and emphasised the need to work closely with African commissions on human rights and gender.
In his welcome speech, the PAP’s Second Vice President, Hon. Dr. Ashebir Woldegiorgis Gayo said to address the budget problem and align programs, the rules of procedures, and PAP protocols, there is a need to work closely with the African Union.
“As the Pan-African Parliament, we should stay united. We have to work together in the best interest of the continent, as we don’t have a choice.
It’s not a choice. We need to work together. Yes, we might have problems. Those problems should be sorted. We can always, as parliamentarians, as a politician, we can discuss, we can talk, we can negotiate, we can give and take. That’s the way forward, as a politician. I hope we will live up to the expectations of the people of Africa. I hope we will have fruitful negotiations,” Hon Gayo said.
New members were drawn from Botswana, Cameroon, Chad, Liberia, Nigeria, Mozambique, Senegal, and South Africa.
Below, Spiked Online Media shares the list of the newly-sworn in members:
PAP newly sworn-in members
The Membership in the Pan-African Parliament is comprised of representatives from 47 of the 55 African Union member states. Each member state is entitled to send a delegation of five parliamentarians, with at least one woman representative. These representatives are selected by their respective national legislatures.
