Morocco's 33-year breakup with African Union could end Monday

The African Union will mull a divisive bid by Morocco to rejoin the bloc at a summit next week in Addis Ababa.

The AU's 54 member states will gather on Monday for a packed two-day meeting in which they will also have to elect a new chairperson - after failing to do so at a summit six months ago.

Analysts say the election is likely to be complicated by fractures over key issues such as membership of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and whether Morocco should be allowed back in the club.

Morocco quit the bloc 33 years ago in protest at its decision to accept Western Sahara as a member, but announced its intention to rejoin last July. King Mohammed VI has since been criss-crossing the continent lobbying for support.

"Morocco's economic expansion on the continent is important for it... the AU has become more and more relevant so Morocco realises it cannot drive an agenda on the continent without being in the AU," said Liesl Louw-Vaudran, a consultant with the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) in Addis Ababa.

The membership of affluent Morocco could also be a boon for the AU, which lost a key financer in late Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi and has long sought financial independence. Currently foreign donors account for some 70 percent of its budget, according to the ISS.

However Louw-Vaudran highlights that "it is still not a done deal", with heavyweights such as Algeria and South Africa lobbying hard against the move. 

Both have long supported the fight for self-determination by Western Sahara's Polisario independence movement. Morocco maintains that the former Spanish colony, which it annexed in 1975, is an integral part of the kingdom.

"The question now is whether Morocco's reintegration means Western Sahara will now be excluded. This is where there are very clear divisions in the AU," said Senegal-based political analyst Gilles Yabi.

The question now is whether Morocco's reintegration means Western Sahara will now be excluded. This is where there are very clear divisions in the AU. - Gilles Yabi

Last month, Morocco accused the AU commission's chairperson, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma of South Africa, of blocking Rabat's efforts to rejoin the AU and lacking neutrality.

Dlamini-Zuma is "trying to thwart Morocco's decision to regain its natural and legitimate place within its pan-African institutional family", the foreign ministry said in a statement.

She was "keeping up her obstruction by improvising a new procedural demand, previously unheard of and unfounded... to arbitrarily reject the letters of support from AU member states", it said, without giving details.

The ministry also accused Dlamini-Zuma of acting "contrary to her obligation of neutrality, of AU rules and norms, and of the will of its member states".

Meanwhile, several AU members have voiced support for Morocco to rejoin the bloc.

The members include Cape Verde, the Central African Republic, Burundi, and Kenya, which said it supported the return of Morocco "without conditions".

The summit comes after several shake-ups on the international stage: the election of US President Donald Trump and a new head of the UN, Antonio Guterres, who will be at the summit.

Louw-Vaudran said even though it wasn't an official agenda item, the Trump presidency - whose vow to put America first has raised fears of how it will approach its relationship with Africa - will be a hot topic at the summit.

The US is one of the main contributors to the fight against Shabaab in Somalia, and the AU Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) has already been hit by funding cuts from the EU.

Agencies contributed to this report.