Ethiopia’s ruling junta, EPRDF (a coalition composed of TPLF, OPDO, ANDM, and SEPDM), is engulfed in leadership crisis after it failed to agree on a new chairman in the wake of Meles Zenawi’s death.
Meles died without putting in place a succession plan, and as a result the ruling junta is facing disintegration, according to observers.
OPDO, ANDM and SEPDM are backing the current acting prime minister Hailemariam Desalegn to assume both the chairmanship of EPRDF and the prime minister’s position, but the TPLF seems to be having a second thought.
The junta has scheduled another executive committee meeting for next week, allowing TPLF time to elect a new chairman. TPLF leaders are hoping that their new chairman will also become the EPRDF chairman.
The state-run ETV reported (watch below) that the EPRDF meeting focused on the regime’s “growth and transformation plan” (GTP), but what really happened in the meeting was a heated debate on the late dictator’s replacement. It is OPDO-ANDM-SEPDM vs. TPLF, but there seems to be a disagreement even among the TPLF, with Berhane Gebrekristos and Tedros Adhanom leaning toward Hailemariam.
Propaganda chief Bereket Simon and ANDM member, who is now the most senior member of the junta, appears to be playing a dominant role in the EPRDF. He is also fully backing Hailemariam.
The Ethiopian ruling party EPRDF that is made up of 4 organizations held its executive committee meeting on Tuesday, but the meeting was adjourned after the 35 participants failed to agree on a number of issues.
The TPLF was represented by 8 individuals (minus Meles Zenawi), while the other parties, OPDO, SEPDM, and ANDM were represented by 9 members each.
The now leaderless TPLF tried to add a new member in place of Meles, but the other parties, who are becoming increasingly assertive, refused saying that the TPLF must conduct a new election to replace Meles according to the rules.
Hailemariam Desalegn’s appointment as prime minister was not raised at yesterday’s meeting, according to Ethiopian Review sources, but he is said to have the strong backing of OPDO, SEPDM and ANDM.
Yesterday is said to be the first time that the other 3 parties challenged TPLF on any issue. Even though TPLF is not in control of the EPRDF any more, it still controls the security apparatus and the military. The trouble for the TPLF is that those who are in control of the security apparatus such as DebreTsion Gebremichael are more technocrats than politicians who lack the political maneuvering skills that Meles had.
The state-run ETV lied, as expected, that the EPRDF meeting discussed the Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP).
Author and journalist Tesfaye Gebreab has more details on the meeting. read here.
In a further sign of division, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, has now started to address Hailemariam Desalegn as ‘acting prime minister,’ while other ministries continue to refer to him as deputy prime minister. See a screen shot of the MOA website below [click on the image to enlarge].
Ethiopian superstar athlete Haile Gebreselassie had been observed squeezing tears from his eyes on the day dictator Meles Zenawi’s death was officially announced on August 21. We all understood that Haile was faking it, and we suspected the reason. Did he really feel sorry for the death of the monster? We believe otherwise, because we have been getting information over the past few years that Haile has been trying to expand his business empire in Ethiopia, but he was facing obstacles from the ruling junta, until he showed up at the EPRDF conference 2 years ago and gave his endorsement. Suddenly, all his problems started to go away, and he completed his resort hotel in Awasa without a hitch.
Haile did not stop there. Recently, he has received 1,500 hectares of forest land (1/10th the size of Washington DC) from the Woyanne junta to grow tea in Sheka Zone, south-western Ethiopia over the objection of local residents.
The local community is terribly saddened by Haile’s plan to convert the forest into a tea plantation, which they believe will cause great harm to the local environment. After quietly, but unsuccessfully, trying to convince Haile to withdraw his plan, representatives of the local population contacted Ethiopian Review with a plea to voice their concern to the people of Ethiopia and the international community. The following is one of the letters they sent to Haile Gebreselassie:
Dear Haile,
We […] received a head-knocking telephone call from Sheka Zone with a disheartening news that you have leased 1500ha of forest land for coffee and tea plantation. The location of your project is Sheka Zone, Yapo Kebele Peasant association, where the mentioned land has never been touched for generations. It is one of few areas that escaped the catastrophe of extinction for centuries. Having been devastated with what we heard and read, we made a call to the mentioned Kebele (Yapo), and one of us were able to speak to one of the community members over the telephone. The community member told us that you have been handed-over a total area of 1500 hectares of land and that you were planning to start the project soon. He also shared with us the reaction of the community. The community clearly told you that they do not want the project and neither are happy with your approach. They refuted the economic benefit of the planned 14 kilometer road and two bridges proposed in your investment project.
Dear Haile,
We are in total disbelief that you plan to cut down our forest for a short term economic benefit. We hope you will take more time and think seriously about the matter. Please do not cause misery and despair for the people of Sheka Zone. […]
Ethiopia’s ruling junta is expected to make acting prime minister Hailemariam Desalegn’s fate official today, Tuesday, when EPRDF, the umbrella group led by Tigrean People Liberation Front (TPLF) convenes, according to Ethiopian Review sources.
It is reported that TPLF has already settled on keeping Hailemariam as acting prime minister, while firmly holding on to most of the levers of power. But that is easier wished than done, since, with serpent’s head cut off, the puppet parties in the EPRDF are showing signs of independence and may not rubber-stamp TPLF’s decisions any more.
Ever since Meles disappeared from the scene, a powerful group led by TPLF founder and former chairman Sebhat Nega has been fighting to block Hailamariam’s confirmation as prime minister. Sebhat and many in the TPLF argue that the prime minister’s position should be reserved for the TPLF. However, they seemed to have backed off for now after being pressured by the U.S. Government with an implicit threat of travel ban and other sanctions.
In the mean time, Sebhat is also out to get his nemesis Azeb Mesfin, widow of the later dictator, who pushed him out of the TPLF politburo 2 years ago. In one recent TPLF meeting, Sebhat referred to her as “who is that woman?” She responded by calling him “wodi shermuta,” and stormed out of the meeting, according to Ethiopian Review sources. “Shermuta” was Azeb’s favorite name for her late husband also.
Beyond the pathetic and at times ridiculous theatrics of Ethiopians ordered not only to mourn but also to show visible signs of a boundless grief over the death of Meles Zenawi, henceforth advertised as a great and beloved Ethiopian leader, I hear a murmur that increasingly sounds like a condescending laughter. Who is laughing? Perhaps history is laughing at the extraordinary reversal of Meles and the TPLF. When the guerrilla troops of the TPLF marched on Addis Ababa in 1991 and their leaders seized power, they promised freedom and democracy for all the peoples of Ethiopia. After 20 years of total rule, what we observe is people mourning a leader in the North Korean style, that is, the reality of a government that feels entitled to order its people even how to feel.
This is a new landmark: already whatever Ethiopians used to have belongs to the government, including their house, their land, and the schools to which they send their children, just as they are told to which ethnic bantustan they belong and which party they should follow under pain of being demoted to second or even third rate citizens. I would hardly be surprised if the government soon orders Ethiopians who to marry and which religion to adopt. The totalitarian strangle is tightening every day to the point of utter suffocation of what makes their humanity, namely, their ability to govern themselves.
The recent drama of a prolonged and effusive official mourning is deliberately staged to achieve two interrelated results. On the one hand, by demanding that Ethiopians show an outpouring grief over the death of Meles, his successors and followers want to further humiliate them so as to erase any temptation of protest, obvious as it is that a humiliated, broken people is unable to stand up for itself. On the other hand, the submission of the people to the point of manifesting grief over the demise of their oppressor provides his successors with a semblance of legitimacy. The more Meles is glorified and his successors swear to continue his “great” work, the more they acquire the mantle of legitimacy by presenting themselves as his trusted heirs. This borrowed legitimacy is necessary to find some form of acceptance among party members, the military establishment, and the troops.
It should be noted that the strategy could backfire. Indeed, the more Meles is exalted, the less his successors appear as able people. The excessive exaltation of Meles leaves the impression that he did everything by himself, that he was the only decider, planner, and executor. His stature is now so high that his successors look like dwarfs licking his boots. This confirms what Sebhat Nega supposedly said, to wit, that “in his death, Meles took with him the TPLF as well.” Meles’s glory is obtained at the expense of the TPLF and, as repeatedly confirmed by history, the rise of a dictator always undermines his followers. Even though dictatorship was thought necessary to impose the interests of the party, the first loser is always the party in that it creates a force that it can no longer control.
The most stunning reversal is however the fuss aimed at presenting Meles as a great Ethiopian nationalist leader. Meles, who all along ridiculed Ethiopian nationalism, landlocked Ethiopia, fragmented the country into ethnic states, officially and repeatedly stigmatized Ethiopian legacy, even went to the extent of defending the secession of Tigray, is now exalted as a staunch Ethiopian nationalist. What is more, he who defined himself so pompously as a Tigrean nationalist, wanted his funeral ceremony and his burial to take place in Addis Ababa, as though he had nothing to do with Tigray. That the once vehement Tigrean nationalist suddenly found Tigray too small for him represents the apex of paradox. There is after all a winner in the 20 years of wasted rule and it is Ethiopia. The fact that Meles’s body did not even touch the soil of Tigray is his mea culpa and final tribute to Ethiopian nationhood.
Lastly, I have a free advice for Meles’s successors. Instead of trying to find the legitimacy that they lack by hiding behind the ghost of Meles, they should seriously consider the only path that provides them with their own legitimacy. The resolution to continue Meles’s policy is a deadlock and ultimately dangerous for their own survival and interests. To continue the same policy without Meles would require them to be more repressive and totalitarian than Meles ever was, the outcome of which can only be the exasperation of popular unrests. Even if we assume that the EPRDF has the ability to become more repressive, the implementation of the policy will necessitate another “strong man.” And this means back to square one, that is, back to one-man dictatorship with all its risks and restrictions on the ruling party itself. Notably, the rise of such a dictator, assuming it is possible, would come at the cost of the unity of the EPRDF and even of the TPLF.
The only viable path is to correct Meles’s mistake by opening up the political space to opposition forces and by lifting all the restrictions on freedom of speech and organization as well as by liberating all political prisoners. To do so would confer a new legitimacy on Meles’s successors while at the same time removing the possibility of another round of dictatorial rule and reaffirming the unity of the EPRDF and of the various parties that compose it. In other words, both the EPRDF and the TPLF need the participation of opposition forces to regain an internally working democratic condition and preserve their unity.
As things stand now, I see no better way to move in a different direction than to confirm Haile Mariam Desalegn as the new prime minister. More than his status as deputy prime minister, what militates in favor of his confirmation is that he represents the southern peoples and, as such, can intercede between the big competing forces within the EPRDF. This gives him the strategic position to preserve the unity of the party and opens up a space for the participation of the opposition. Let there be no misunderstanding: I am not saying that Haile Mariam is the right person. Some such conclusion would be utterly premature and unfounded on any reliable proof. Rather, I am suggesting that he should be given the benefit of the doubt, given his strategic position. At any rate, we will soon know whether he can take advantage of his position and initiate a new direction.
Ambassador Susan Rice, who led the U.S. delegation to Ethiopian dictator Meles Zenawi’s funeral on Sunday, has said this:
Of course he had little patience for fools, or idiots, as he liked to call them.”
There is no doubt that she was referring to Meles’s opponents, the opposition groups.
Susan Rice, you are the one who is idiot to have been fooled by a riffraff, tinpot dictator like Meles Zenawi. May be you have not been fooled at all. May be you wanted to be fooled, as the great Ana Gomez, member of the European Parliament, and a true champion of freedom, has described individuals like you who promote dictators around the world. You are a lost case, so there is no need to try to educate you about who Meles was. But your bosses at the State Department and the While House might want to know. Here it is:
1. Meles was leader of a rebel group, TPLF, that used to kidnap foreigners for ransom. In the definition of the U.S. Government, that would make him a terrorist. [read]
2. Meles was engaged in a war of mass terror and genocide in Gambela and Ogaden. This makes him a genocidal dictator. [read here, here, and here]
3. Meles ordered his security forces to shoot and kill pro-democracy protestors in 2005. This makes him a mass murderer. [read here]
We can list thousands of similar crimes that have been committed by Meles Zenawi, but the above 3 alone would have been enough to bring him to justice. It is this dictator whose hands are soaked with the blood of hundreds of thousands of Ethiopians that Susan Rice referred to us a dear friend.
Shame on President Obama for sending this morally bankrupt person to represent the United States of America and insult the people of Ethiopia. You can stop counting on the 50,000+ Ethiopian votes in Virginia, which is one of the must-win states for you.
