Tag Archives: eritrea

14 potential game-changers for world politics in 2014

2014crystalball

Though I rang in the new year with a list of 14 world elections to watch in the coming year (and 14 more honorable mentions to keep an eye on), I wanted to showcase a few more thoughts about what to watch for in world politics and foreign affairs in 2014.

Accordingly, here are 14 possible game-changers — they’re not predictions per se, but neither are they as far-fetched as they might seem.  No one can say with certainty that they will come to pass in 2014.  Instead, consider these something between rote predictions (e.g., that violence in Iraq is getting worse) and outrageous fat-tail risks (e.g., the impending breakup of the United States).

There’s an old album of small pieces conducted by the late English conductor Sir Thomas Beecham, a delightfully playful album entitled Lollipops that contains some of the old master’s favorite, most lively short pieces.

Think of these as Suffragio‘s 14 world politics lollipops to watch in 2014.

We start in France… Continue reading 14 potential game-changers for world politics in 2014

Can Hailemariam retain power in Ethiopia?

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?

Some thoughts on Meles Zenawi’s legacy in Ethiopia

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’s Meles Zenawi has died

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