Category Archives: Ethiopia

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15 in 2015: Fifteen world elections to watch in 2015

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2015Photo credit to letyg84 / 123RF.

Over the past 12 months, the world witnessed a pivotal general election in India, presidential elections in Indonesia, congressional midterm elections in the United States, European parliamentary elections and elections (of varying competitiveness) in over a dozen of additional countries in the world, all pivotal in their own ways — Colombia, Brazil, Bolivia, South Africa, Japan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Egypt, Tunisia, Turkey, Serbia, Ukraine, Bosnia, Belgium, Sweden and independence referenda in Scotland and Catalunya.

After such a crowded 2014 calendar, it’s not surprising that 2015 will not bring the same volume of electoral activity. But there’s still plenty at stake, especially as volatile oil prices, Chinese economic slowdown and the return of recession in Europe and Japan could stifle global economic potential. The most important of those elections that will determine policy that affects the lives of billions of people worldwide.

Without further ado, here is Suffragio‘s guide to the top 15 elections to watch as 2015 unfolds — beginning in Greece, where the government fell earlier this week.  Continue reading 15 in 2015: Fifteen world elections to watch in 2015 →

Egypt, Ethiopia

Will Egypt and Ethiopia come to blows over the Renaissance Dam and water politics?

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Though you might think of the Nile as a primarily Egyptian river in Africa, its roots go much deeper.  The White Nile originates far within sub-Saharan Africa at Lake Victoria, winding up through Juba, the capital of the newly-minted country of South Sudan, and the Blue Nile originates at Lake Tana in northeastern Ethiopia, and it joins the While Nile near Khartoum, the capital of (north) Sudan. egypt_flag_newethiopia_640

But the rights to the water originating from the Blue Nile have become the subject of an increasingly tense showdown between Egypt and Ethiopia, with Ethiopia moving forward to bring its long-planned Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam into operating, sparking a diplomatic showdown between the two countries and a crisis between two relatively new leaders, both of whom took office in summer 2012 — Ethiopian prime minister Hailemariam Desalegn and Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi.

The Renaissance Dam and the politics of the Nile were no less fraught between former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and the late Ethiopian prime minister Meles Zenawi.  But with the project moving forward, Hailemariam and Morsi are locked in a diplomatic tussle that could escalate into something much worse.  Morsi has recently warned Ethiopia that ‘all options are open,’ which conceivably includes an Egyptian air attack to bomb the Renaissance Dam, which would initiate military confrontation between the second-most and third-most populous countries on the continent of Africa.

The Renaissance Dam is Meles’s legacy project and, with a price tag of between $4 billion and $5 billion, it’s embedded with an atypical amount of Ethiopian national pride.  When it is completed, the dam will make Ethiopia a huge hydroelectric producer, perhaps Africa’s largest energy producer, with an estimated generation of 6,000 megawatts of electricity.  To put that in perspective, the Hoover Dam in the southwestern United States has a maximum generation of around 2,100 megawatts and Egypt’s own Aswan High Dam has a maximum of around 2,500 megawatta, while China’s Three Gorges Dam has a maximum capacity of 22,500 megawatts.

Egypt’s chief concern is that the dam will reduce the amount of water that currently flows from the Blue Nile to the Nile Delta, and Ethiopia has already started to divert the course of the Blue Nile to start filling the Renaissance Dam’s reservoir (see below a map of the Nile and its tributaries).  While that process is expected to temporarily reduce the amount of water that flows to Sudan and to Egypt for up to three years, Egyptian officials have voiced concerns that the Renaissance Dam might permanently reduce the flow of the Nile through Egypt, despite technical reassurances to the contrary.  Moreover, Egyptian officials point to colonial-era treaties with the United Kingdom from 1929 and 1959 that purported to divide the Nile’s riparian rights solely as between Egypt and the Sudan, without regard for Ethiopian, Ugandan, Tanzanian or other upriver national claims.  Ethiopian anger at exclusion from the 1959 Nile basin negotiations led, in part, to the decision by Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie I to claim the independence of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church from the Coptic Orthodox Church based in Alexandria, Egypt.

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It’s clear however, where Ethiopia’s Nile neighbors stand on the issue — the leaders of South Sudan and Uganda have voiced their approval for the project, and even Sudan, which will also mark some reduction in Nile water while the dam is constructed, is inclined to support it, which will result in a wider source of crucial electricity throughout the Horn of Africa, east Africa and beyond.  Ironically, it could even be Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir, currently under indictment by the International Criminal Court for atrocities stemming from the Darfur humanitarian crisis in the mid-2000s, who has the regional credibility with both Cairo and Addis Ababa to diffuse the crisis.  Continue reading Will Egypt and Ethiopia come to blows over the Renaissance Dam and water politics? →

Brazil, Canada, China, Ethiopia, European Union, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, Pakistan, United Kingdom

13 in ’13: Thirteen up-and-coming world politicians to watch in 2013

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Earlier today, Suffragio kicked off its 2013 coverage of world politics with a look at 13 key elections to watch in 2013.

While we’ll watch as new leaders, from Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi to French president François Hollande to South Korean president Park Geun-hye begin their first full years of power, we’ll also watch for comebacks by former presidents — former Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will make a decision about running for a third term in the 2014 Brazilian presidential election and former Chilean president Michelle Bachelet is the odds-on frontrunner to win a new term in Chile’s December 2013 election.

In addition, however, here are 13 up-and-coming politicians and other public figures who will figure prominently in the next 12 months — either because they are likely to come to power themselves in 2013 or because this year will will likely be a make-or-break year for them to achieve power beyond 2013. Continue reading 13 in ’13: Thirteen up-and-coming world politicians to watch in 2013 →

Ethiopia

Can Hailemariam retain power in Ethiopia?

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Hailemariam Desalegn was always a curious leader to succeed former Ethiopian prime minister Meles Zenawi after Meles’s death late in August.

He’s from the south when Meles himself came from the far northern Tigray ethnic group (Meles’s rule was itself a derogation from hundreds of years of Amharic emperors in Ethiopia).  Hailermariam hails not even from among the largest southern ethnic group, the Oromo, but the much smaller Wolyata group, which represents just under 2.5% of Ethiopian’s population.

Hailemariam is also somewhat new to the highest echelons of Ethiopian power — he became deputy prime minister and foreign minister under Meles only in October 2010 after serving as president of the Southern Nations, Nationalities and People’s Region from 2001 to 2006.

As a southerner, however, Hailemariam was thought after Meles’s death to have less-than-firm control over the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF, or የኢትዮጵያ ሕዝቦች አብዮታዊ ዲሞክራሲያዊ ግንባር) as an outsider from the dominant faction of the EPRDM, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (the TPLF, ሕዝባዊ ወያኔ ሓርነት ትግራይ,), which retains control over Ethiopia’s security apparatus.  Hailemariam’s support base lies not among the Tigray ethnic group of the far north of Ethiopia or the previously dominant Amharic ethnic group of the broad north-central highlands, but in the historically less-than-powerful south.

As such, when Hailemariam assumed power as interim prime minister in August, few people believed he would last.

But he was elected as prime minister formally in September, perhaps precisely because he’s associated with none of the various Tigray factions, which means that he should have some time until the next elections in 2015 to consolidate the office and his power base as Ethiopia’s new prime minister, even as Ethiopia continues to mourn Meles.

His first major step, in what appears to be a power-balancing cabinet reshuffle on November 29, was to appoint two additional deputy prime ministers — Debretsion Gebremichael, from the TPLF, is also minister of information technology, and Muktar Kedir, from the Oromo faction within the EPRDF, have joined Demeke Mekonnen, Hailemariam’s first deputy prime minister, who is from the Amhara faction of the EPRDM and minister of education.

Hailemariam also promoted Ethiopia’s minister of health Tedros Adhanom to become Ethiopia’s foreign minister.  Also a top Tigray official, Tedros has served as minister of health since 2005 and spent part of his childhood and undergraduate studies in Asmara, the capital of Eritrea.  He’s attracted international praise for his work as health minister — for example, he won the 2011 Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Humanitarian Award for his work to reduce HIV/AIDS and malaria in Ethiopia.  Despite his obvious qualifications, Tedros is close to Meles’s widow, Azeb Mesfin, who is also a member of the nine-person executive committee of the EPRDF, and is thought to have designs on winning power in her own right.

It’s worth noting that this is only the third transfer of power in Ethiopia in the past century — the country’s last emperor, Haile Selassie, came to power in 1928, was deposed in a military-led coup in 1974 and ultimately died in captivity in 1975.  The Derg, the Soviet-style commission that ruled until 1991, with often disastrous result, was overthrown by Meles and the TPLF, which eventually morphed into a government dominated by Tigray officials.

So the apparent seamlessness of the post-Meles transition (so far, at least), and the lack of any political violence or upheaval marks somewhat of a success for Ethiopia.  But the fundamental question remains whether Hailemariam will be able to govern in his own right:

[The succession] raises questions about how far any new prime minister can reshape the political landscape and has led to open speculation that Hailemariam’s appointment is a calculated political move by and for the TPLF, allowing them to maintain de facto political authority behind a cloak of ethnic pluralism.

Meles’ death exposes the dangers of a state built around one man, but he also leaves behind a formidable political machine. For Hailemariam the challenge is whether and how he can manage the machine. Members of competing elites may fight for control of this machine and ethnic movements on the periphery could be emboldened to exploit a perceived power vacuum.

As for Ethiopia, its government will face any number of political and economic tasks in the coming years. Continue reading Can Hailemariam retain power in Ethiopia? →

Ethiopia, Personal

Some thoughts on Meles Zenawi’s legacy in Ethiopia

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Although Meles Zenawi died in mid-August, he’s still very much an active presence in Ethiopia — so much that he still eclipses his successor, prime minister Hailemariam Desalegn.

Not to be flip, but I know a personality cult when I see one — and no matter where you go in Ethiopia, Meles follows.

He looks down from large signs, not just in the capital of Addis Ababa, but far beyond throughout the Amharic and Tigray hinterlands of northern Ethiopia as well.  He’s also on dashboards of vehicles, and he graces storefronts, the stalls in labyrinthine markets and insurance companies, not to mention government offices and museums..  In downtown Addis, near the Hilton, there’s an entire wall featuring a dozen or so larger-than life panels picturing Meles.

You’d be forgiven if you thought Meles was actually still in charge, although there are more than enough memorial displays, too, to let you know Ethiopia’s still in a sort of mourning:

In the ten days I spent in northern and central Ethiopia, I found much in the country — 85 million people and growing fast — and its people to give me hope about the country’s future, but I also saw a lot of room for institutional improvement — in education and literacy, in transportation and infrastructure, in providing services to improve health and lessen poverty, and also in building more robust democratic institutions and better regional relations.

In the same way, I found that if you dig underneath the surface of it all, many Ethiopians have an equally conflicted view of Meles’s legacy. Continue reading Some thoughts on Meles Zenawi’s legacy in Ethiopia →

Ethiopia, Personal

Off to Ethiopia

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I will be traveling to Ethiopia over the next week, so posting will be relatively lighter (although that’s probably to be expected given that it’s a serious holiday week in the United States).  We’ll be traipsing through the northern, so-called ‘historical circuit’ for most of next week, bookended with some time in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital.

Along the way, I hope to put together some thoughts about Ethiopia’s current transition following the death of longtime president Meles Zenawi earlier this summer, so be sure to check in.

Of course, December will be a busy month for world elections, and I look forward to the inauguration of Enrique Peña Nieto as Mexico’s new president, snap elections in Japan, a presidential election in South Korea, presidential and parliamentary elections in Ghana and parliamentary elections in Romania.

Ethiopia

Ethiopia’s Meles Zenawi has died

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The prime minister of Ethiopia, Meles Zenawi, has died after a long illness. He was 57.  Deputy prime minister Haile-Mariam Desalegne will be sworn in as acting prime minister.

Since taking power in 1991, Ethiopia really hasn’t known a leader in the post-Cold War era other than Meles.  He inherited a country decimated from a grinding famine in the 1980s and a war with Eritrea (that resulted in Eritrea’s independence in 1991) and transformed it into a stable regional power in a country that’s relatively untouched by the colonial experience, but which is the second-most populous African nation after Nigeria.

Meles’s death comes just days after the death of the patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox church, Abune Paulos, at age 77, who was himself appointed by Meles.

Meles came to power after participating in the coup that removed Mengistu Haile Mariam, a leader of the Derg that governed Ethiopia from 1974 to 1987 — Mengistu ruled in his own right through 1991. He presided over the writing of a new federalism-based constitution for Ethiopia in 1994, and he kind of opened Ethiopia to the ritual of regular elections, however rigged in favor of Meles.

In his last election in 2010, Meles and his Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF, or የኢትዮጵያ ሕዝቦች አብዮታዊ ዲሞክራሲያዊ ግንባር) won the majority in the Ethiopian parliament, despite widespread allegations of fraud.  His victory in the relatively fairer 2005 election was met with massive — and sometimes violent — protest, which Meles met with a general crackdown on political dissidents.  For all the stability that Meles brought to Ethiopia, democratic norms and institutions were not among his chief reforms.  For example, opposition leader Birtukan Medeksa was imprisoned from 2007 to 2010.

But Meles can certainly be credited with taking steps to strengthen Ethiopia’s economy — it has grown fantastically since Meles came to power, but for two blips in 1998 and in 2003.  Last year saw the lowest GDP growth since 2004, but it still managed to top 7%.  Ethiopia’s significant growth belies its horrific starting point as one of the poorest countries on the planet — its GDP per capita is just barely over $1,000. Continue reading Ethiopia’s Meles Zenawi has died →