René Lefort

(http://www.opendemocracy.net)

When Meles Zenawi, the omnipotent Prime Minister of Ethiopia’ last appeared in public on 19 June, he looked pale, thin and gaunt.

It took the government a month to break the silence. Meles Zenawi is “recovering health-wise,” and, above all, “he’s not staying out of duties as Prime Minister”. On 1 August, a senior spokesman issued another statement about the elusive PM: “there is no change and there will be no change in the near future.” But what next? And what illness was he suffering from? Silence. Where is he? It depends whom you ask. With no sign of Meles either in person or indirectly, these statements are becoming less convincing as the days go by.

The often outrageous, even delirious counter-information, especially on internet sites run by government opponents living abroad, is no more convincing either. According to some of them, Meles is already dead, and a raging battle has started for his succession.

Yet, these hypotheses are not entirely out of the realm of possibility, especially given the history of Ethiopia, where secrecy is a cardinal virtue. Menelik, the founder of modern imperial Ethiopia, continued to “reign” for three years after he was incapacitated by a stroke. His successor finally taking power once the Shakespearian internal power struggles were over inside the Palace. Haïle Selassie was deposed in 1974 by a military junta, led by Mengistu Haile Mariam, who it is believed had Selassie suffocated to death a year later. In 1991 Mengistu fled to Zimbabwe, having been defeated by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), led by  Meles Zenawi, in a civil war that ended in Addis Ababa.

If history is anything to go by, it will be hard to find a peaceful and orderly route to succession. The Ethiopian people know this, moulded as they are by their own history. On the surface, it’s “business as usual”, the government governs and people go about their daily affairs as usual. But under the surface there is an extremely heavy atmosphere, with an overwhelming feeling that this is just the calm before the storm. The widespread conviction shared by most diplomats and experts is that, whether Meles is dead or alive, he is no longer in charge and never will be again, the candidacy for his succession is open. It is all the more difficult to speculate on what will happen when the leadership operates under a cloak of complete secrecy, almost unequalled anywhere else in the world. Whatever is happening, one thing is obvious, the succession will have to navigate a untold number of threats, unknowns and divisions.

The first of these is institutional: nothing in the Constitution says what to do if the Prime Minister dies or is incapacitated. The second is economic: inflation has reached a new high, even if it has started to come down again, and growth has come to a grinding halt having been exceptional up until now (officially 11% a year for the past eight years). The third is political: the internal crisis of the TPLF in 2001 ended with the expulsion of part of the “old guard”. The opposition pulled off a triumphal surge in the 2005 elections, but never really regained momentum, and “Ethiopia has definitely fallen back into the camp of authoritarian regime’ as it is  ‘de facto ruled by a ‘monolithic party-state’”. The Front is now facing a third major challenge that could prove disastrous. The Muslim community – officially 34% of the population, but in reality more – has been moderate and tolerant for centuries, but now it is being caught up in government manoeuvres to forcefully enlist followers for the obscure branch of Islam – al-Ahbash – in a bid to counteract the growth of Wahabism, another Muslim sect which the regime thinks is growing too strong in Ethiopia.  Specialists on the subject play this down and think that the regime’s actions are likely to have the opposite effect on the Muslim community. In the meantime, the mass demonstrations and arrests continue.

Read more here

René Lefort

(http://www.opendemocracy.net)

When Meles Zenawi, the omnipotent Prime Minister of Ethiopia’ last appeared in public on 19 June, he looked pale, thin and gaunt.

It took the government a month to break the silence. Meles Zenawi is “recovering health-wise,” and, above all, “he’s not staying out of duties as Prime Minister”. On 1 August, a senior spokesman issued another statement about the elusive PM: “there is no change and there will be no change in the near future.” But what next? And what illness was he suffering from? Silence. Where is he? It depends whom you ask. With no sign of Meles either in person or indirectly, these statements are becoming less convincing as the days go by.

The often outrageous, even delirious counter-information, especially on internet sites run by government opponents living abroad, is no more convincing either. According to some of them, Meles is already dead, and a raging battle has started for his succession.

Yet, these hypotheses are not entirely out of the realm of possibility, especially given the history of Ethiopia, where secrecy is a cardinal virtue. Menelik, the founder of modern imperial Ethiopia, continued to “reign” for three years after he was incapacitated by a stroke. His successor finally taking power once the Shakespearian internal power struggles were over inside the Palace. Haïle Selassie was deposed in 1974 by a military junta, led by Mengistu Haile Mariam, who it is believed had Selassie suffocated to death a year later. In 1991 Mengistu fled to Zimbabwe, having been defeated by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), led by  Meles Zenawi, in a civil war that ended in Addis Ababa.

If history is anything to go by, it will be hard to find a peaceful and orderly route to succession. The Ethiopian people know this, moulded as they are by their own history. On the surface, it’s “business as usual”, the government governs and people go about their daily affairs as usual. But under the surface there is an extremely heavy atmosphere, with an overwhelming feeling that this is just the calm before the storm. The widespread conviction shared by most diplomats and experts is that, whether Meles is dead or alive, he is no longer in charge and never will be again, the candidacy for his succession is open. It is all the more difficult to speculate on what will happen when the leadership operates under a cloak of complete secrecy, almost unequalled anywhere else in the world. Whatever is happening, one thing is obvious, the succession will have to navigate a untold number of threats, unknowns and divisions.

The first of these is institutional: nothing in the Constitution says what to do if the Prime Minister dies or is incapacitated. The second is economic: inflation has reached a new high, even if it has started to come down again, and growth has come to a grinding halt having been exceptional up until now (officially 11% a year for the past eight years). The third is political: the internal crisis of the TPLF in 2001 ended with the expulsion of part of the “old guard”. The opposition pulled off a triumphal surge in the 2005 elections, but never really regained momentum, and “Ethiopia has definitely fallen back into the camp of authoritarian regime’ as it is  ‘de facto ruled by a ‘monolithic party-state’”. The Front is now facing a third major challenge that could prove disastrous. The Muslim community – officially 34% of the population, but in reality more – has been moderate and tolerant for centuries, but now it is being caught up in government manoeuvres to forcefully enlist followers for the obscure branch of Islam – al-Ahbash – in a bid to counteract the growth of Wahabism, another Muslim sect which the regime thinks is growing too strong in Ethiopia.  Specialists on the subject play this down and think that the regime’s actions are likely to have the opposite effect on the Muslim community. In the meantime, the mass demonstrations and arrests continue.

Read more here