Hailemariam Desalegn, Ethiopia’s beleaguered prime minister and chairman of the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) that has governed Ethiopia with an autocratic grip since it first seized power in 1991, said on February 15th that he was stepping down after more than two years of anti-regime protests. He said he did so to be part of the solution.
Mr Hailemariam has been prime minister since the death in 2012 of long-time strongman Meles Zenawi. He would stay in office until a successor is found (no successor has yet been announced).
At the start of this year the EPRDF, which controls all the seats in parliament, announced that it would release and pardon many of the thousands of political prisoners, including opposition politicians, and promised further reforms.
The government has released more than 6,000 prisoners since early January. This is tacit recognition that repression has failed to quell nearly three years of anti-government protests.
The next day after the announcement of Mr Hailemariam’s departure, the EPRDF imposed a state of emergency, which includes a ban on protests and publications, in a bid to contain the unrest. This is the second state of emergency since protests began in Oromia – home to the Oromo, the nation’s most populous ethnic group – in November 2015 in opposition to government plans to expand the capital Addis Ababa into the federal state, which soon escalated into a broader anti-government movement and spread into Amhara state as discontent rose.
The government responded harshly, sending troops and police to break up protests. Many foreign-owned facilities were targeted in a wave of social unrest, because they were seen as a source of legitimacy for the authoritarian government. A state of emergency was imposed in October 2016 and lasted to August 2017. Hundreds of demonstrators – demanding greater political freedom, adherence to the rule of law and an end to ethnic marginalisation by the ruling Tigrayan elite – in the restive Oromia and Amhara regions, which account for some 60 per cent of Ethiopia’s 105m population, were killed and tens of thousands detained.
The EPRDF is a coalition of four ethnically-based parties with Marxist roots that has long been dominated by the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which wields influence disproportionate to the number of Tigrayans, who are about 6 per cent of the population.
The ruling coalition is bitterly at odds over the succession. The Oromo People’s Democratic Organisation, which is part of the ruling authoritarian government, wants to take the helm. Together with the Amhara National Democratic Movement, another junior party in the EPRDF, they have begun calling for greater democracy.
The economy of Ethiopia, an important US ally in the fight against terrorism, has been one of the fastest growing in sub-Saharan Africa over the past decade, recording average annual double-digit growth in the period, as the EPRDF attracted billions of dollars in foreign investment, mostly from China, by positioning the impoverished nation as a big global centre of low-cost manufacturing, especially for the garment industry. The benefits of growth, however, have failed to trickle down to ordinary people.
The regime’s development model mirrors China, which has prioritised state-led development over democracy.
Photo: Photo: International Hydropower Association
