EDITOR’S NOTE
The following partially accurate analysis by Reuters is just one more evidence that Kinijit needs a change of leadership fast. Ato Hailu Shawel is not only leading the party, he is working currently against it.
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By Katie Nguyen
NAIROBI, Oct 17 (Reuters) – When Ethiopian opposition leader Hailu Shawel was freed from jail, hordes of relatives and supporters swarmed his gated mansion in Addis Ababa to raise a dram of whisky to his liberty.
Such was the euphoria at his release — and that of 37 other opposition figures — after almost two years in a maximum security prison for allegedly inciting their followers to riot in protest at a disputed 2005 election.
Western donors hailed the release as a sign Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s government would revive its push to foster democracy in Ethiopia, the dominant power in the explosive Horn of Africa and a top ally in Washington’s war on terrorism.
But three months on, the opposition Coalition of Unity and Democracy (CUD) is divided and demoralised. Its battle for change is being fought, instead, by members of the U.S. Congress who passed a law linking democratic reform to future security aid.
“Prison didn’t weaken CUD, they weakened themselves. The CUD was an amalgamation of different groups, different ideas and different personalities so it was weak by its very nature,” said Yoseph Tesfaye, an international relations teacher.
“It lacks party discipline, it lacks programmes, it lacks leadership and it doesn’t represent Ethiopia as it claims to.”
POWER STRUGGLE
Experts are asking whether the coalition can knock itself into shape to contest local elections expected early next year.
Most CUD officials, including chairman Hailu and Addis Ababa’s former mayor-elect Berhanu Nega, have left Ethiopia to rally rich backers in the diaspora, and in Nega’s case, brief U.S. lawmakers on Ethiopia’s human rights record.
Almost as soon as they left, Ethiopian newspapers reported a damaging rift between Hailu, a hardliner who served under the dreaded Derg, and the younger Nega, whose doctoral degree in economics gave the CUD its “intellectual” credentials.
Commentators are wondering if other CUD officials will quit politics, citing age and ill health, or even seek exile.
In the meantime, the CUD complains of restrictions on its activities, saying its local offices remain closed.
There is no doubt the group still commands strong support in the capital, where its huge gains in the 2005 vote delivered a bloody nose to an over-confident ruling party.
“We have an alternative now. There are many educated people in the party and this is what the country needs,” said Mikias Makonnen, a 31-year-old communications consultant.
“Meles’ EPRDF should not hold power for 20 or 30 years. How can we know there is a democracy without change?”
‘LONG LEASH’
Other experts say the CUD is biding its time, waiting for progress to be made on planned talks with Meles’ Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Front, and to see how far it can go.
They have reason to be cautious.
The government appeared to have trumped the CUD by circulating a letter they signed admitting responsibility for the 2005 violence that killed 199 civilians and police.
On their release, Meles said all civic rights were to be restored to the freed CUD officials — including their right to stand in elections — and that he welcomed the prospect of a vibrant opposition.
But he equally warned them against any “unconstitutional” action that would send them back to their prison cells.
“Meles will probably give opposition leaders a reasonably long leash,” said one political analyst.
“But if he felt their actions and words risked inciting or galvanising the population, especially in Addis, to take to the streets, they might clamp down again.”
Experts say the message reflects Meles’ determination to control the opening up of democratic space in a country that lived through almost 20 years of totalitarianism under Marxist military dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam.
The EPRDF was applauded for organising Ethiopia’s freest-ever polls in 2005. Experts say Meles was burnt once by his experiment with democracy and won’t be betrayed again.
(Additional reporting by Barry Malone in Addis Ababa).