ADDIS ABABA (Bloomberg) — Ethiopia’s ruling party, EPRDF, confirmed acting Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn as the successor to the late Prime Minister Meles Zenawi.
Meles, who led Ethiopia for 21 years and who oversaw one of Africa’s fastest-growing economies, died on Aug. 20 from an infection contracted while he was recovering from an undisclosed illness. Hailemariam, Meles’s deputy in the Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front and a former foreign minister, took over in an acting capacity the next day.
“Out of three candidates, Hailemariam has got the unanimous vote of council members and will serve as chairman of EPRDF and Demeke Mekonen will serve as well as deputy chairperson of EPRDF,” Communications Minister Bereket Simon said in the capital, Addis Ababa. “Whoever’s elected as chair and deputy chair of party will automatically be the nominees for the premiership and deputy premiership. So both Mr. Hailemariam and Mr. Demeke will represent the party and be candidates and be presented to parliament for approval when it starts its formal session in early October.”
Ethiopia, the continent’s second-most populous nation, is a key U.S. ally in its battle against al-Qaeda in the region. Ethiopian troops in December invaded Somalia for the second time in four years to join the battle against al-Shabaab, al-Qaeda’s Somalia affiliate.
The federal parliament, which has only one opposition lawmaker out of 547, is expected to swear in Hailemariam on Oct. 8, Bereket said.
At Meles’s funeral on Sept. 2, Hailemariam vowed to continue with his state-led development model that channeled loans, aid, investment and domestic revenue into infrastructure, industry and public services. The result was growth that averaged 10 percent in the past eight years, according to the government.
Human-rights groups criticized the government for cracking down on civil liberties and introducing anti-terrorism laws in 2009 that have been used to jail opposition politicians and journalists.
The EPRDF is a coalition of four parties representing the Amhara people, the Oromo, the Tigray and a collection of southern groups. Meles was leader of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, which led the ouster of a military junta in 1991, while Hailemariam hails from the southern bloc. His deputy is from the Amhara National Democratic Movement.
The EPRDF’s council, which has 45 representatives from each bloc, chose Meles’s successor from the 36-member executive committee of the party. Ethiopia’s next parliamentary elections are scheduled for 2015.
Ethiopia’s ruling junta, EPRDF, convened today to choose a successor to the late dictator Meles Zenawi. Today’s meeting has just ended, but there is no official announcement on any decision yet. The meeting was chaired by acting prime minister Hailemariam Desalegn. The following is the only official news so far:
A two-day EPRDF Council meeting began today (September 14th) here in Addis Ababa. The EPRDF secretariat announced that the 180 member council will agree on a chairman and deputy-chairman for the Front following the death of Prime Minster Meles Zenawi It is also expected to decide on a number of related matters.
In the Ethiopian New Year, Ethiopian National Transitional Council (ENTC), in collaboration with Tinsae Ethiopia, has intensified its call to the people of Ethiopia to get organized and liberate ourselves from the TPLF regime.
During the past week, Tinsae Ethiopia members in Addis Ababa and other cities have been working closely with the ENTC to distribute pamphlets (see below) and writing on walls to call for regime change.
Because of the extremely tight security we did not want to endanger our members by asking them to take photos of all their activities, but they were able to send us some photos, including the following two.
SVT can now reveal that the videos that the Ethiopian government used as evidence of the arrest of the Swedish journalists is staged. Our sources even claim that the video was shot two days after Johan Persson and Martin Schibbye were arrested.
During the trial of Johan Persson and Martin Schibbye autumn 2011 showed prosecutor videos that he meant clearly proven Swedes crimes. Even then questioned a video sequence and the prosecutor was forced to admit that the sound of gunfire was applied retrospectively. But the prosecutor insisted that the films showed the arrest of one authentic way.
Välregisserat acting
SVT has now taken some of the unedited raw material. Prosecutor film gives the impression that there is heavy fighting when two rebels from the ONLF guerrillas arrested. But in the original material can be clearly seen that the “rebels” are acting as if they were extras in a movie and laugh between scenes. When SVT examines more sequences, it becomes even clearer that it is a välregisserat acting.
-They were just an actor and had never even met Martin Schibbye and Johan Persson said Abdulahi Hussein, who provided material to SVT and now living under death threats. Despite this, he chooses to come forward with his name.
False evidence
At trial, also testified two soldiers from the special border police force that a large number of ONLF rebels killed when Swedish journalists were arrested. To prove this is a dead rebel in the prosecutor’s movie. The man alleged to have killed a few minutes earlier, and the sequence is taken from a distance. The original materials are close-ups of the corpse but SVT’s sources say that it is an old corpse. Bullet holes are dry and portions of the face is bluish.
-The military gave Johan and Martin left in the jungle for several days. The reason for it was to find time to record the movie. When the film was finished, they were taken to the capital Addis Ababa to the embassy could meet them, said Abdulahi Hussein.
Smuggled out
The film material is smuggled out in stages from Ethiopia by sources who are now living under the threat of death. Abdulahi Hussein previously worked within the Ethiopian administration in the Ogaden but has now fled the country. He was responsible for the collection of the filmed material used in the Ethiopian video and it was he who approved the result.
-The purpose of the video was to prosecute them and get them sentenced to a long prison term.
A delegation of the ruling junta in Ethiopia, Tigray People Liberation Front (TPLF), has secretly met with acting prime minister Hailemariam Desalegn over the weekend in Addis Ababa to negotiate TPLF’s role in the new regime.
It is not known yet what was exactly discussed at the meeting, but observers speculate that the TPLF is trying to pressure Hailemariam into agreeing with their demand to keep the current government structure intact, or else stand down and help pave the way for the new TPLF leader to become prime minister.
Abay Tsehay, Arkebe Ekubay and Debretsion Gebremichael are in the short list of candidates for the TPLF chairmanship, Ethiopian Review sources reported.
The TPLF leadership decided to start negotiating with Hailemariam to avoid confrontation with the ANDM, OPDO and SEPDM (member organizations of the ruling coalition, the EPRDF) before the 180-member EPRDF council meets next weekend.
Bereket Simon did not accompany Hailemariam during the negotiation with TPLF leaders. He was busy meeting with ANDM members over the weekend.
Former chairman and co-founder of TPLF Sebhat Nega is taking an extremely hardline position. It is reported that the 81-year-old Sebhat is prepared to call for the nuclear option (Article 39) if necessary and declare Tigray an independent country if TPLF fails to secure the premiership. Sebhat believes that TPLF will be back to square one — back to where they started — if power slips from their hands. TPLF members inside the country and abroad are expressing the same concern.
Major, potentially explosive, development is expected between now and next Sunday.
RIYADH (SPA) — The Interior Ministry has warned citizens against traveling to Ethiopia.
The warning came after a cable from the Saudi Embassy in Addis Ababa about the tense situation currently prevailing in Ethiopia, including violence against Muslims and the arrests made by the federal police on a daily basis. Some Saudi citizens were among those arrested.
The warning will be in effect until the situation calms down, the ministry said.
