Envisioning
Ethiopia’s Future
Professor
Desta, Asayehgn
It
is interesting to note that when the late Prime
Minister Meles Zenawi (hereafter referred as
Meles) was born, his mother, Woizero Alemash Gebre
Leul, named him Negasi—“The Future King” in
Tigrigna. Ironically, in opposition to his mother
whose desire was to see Negasi as the future king
of Ethiopia, in 1975, Negassi (also known as
Legesse) joined the Tigrai People’s Liberation
Front (TPLF) under a pseudo name or nom de guerre,
Meles (a nod to Ethiopia’s most vocal student
leader, Meles Tekle, who was slaughtered by the
Derg in 1974), to fight against Ethiopia’s
military government, or Derg.
In
1991, when Ethiopia’s military junta, or Derg,
was dismantled by Ethiopian People’s
Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), Meles
assumed the presidency during the transitional
period (1991-94).
In 1975, however, when the Ethiopian House
of Representatives unanimously elected Meles, he
became the Prime Minister of the Federal
Democratic Republic of Ethiopia until his death in
2012.
When
Dr. Abiy (or abbiyot, the Derg’s favorite slogan
for the revolution it usurped from the Ethiopia
university students) assumed the Chairmanship of
the EPRDF that eventually led him to become Prime
Minister of the Federal Democratic Republic of
Ethiopia on April 2, 2018, he stood at a
crossroad. Prime Minister Abiy (hereafter referred
as Abiy) could never have reconciled his
premiership with the title of future king, a title
planted in his mind by his mother, Woizero Tezeta
Wolde, when he was seven years old. Had he become
king, as his mother had wished, Abiy would have
followed the footsteps of Emperor Tewedros,
Yohannes, Menelik, Lij Eyasu ?, Empress Zeweditu,
and Emperor Haile Selassie.
As
stated above, the late Meles and the current Abiy
were expected to be kings of Ethiopia by their
mothers—though both ended up as Prime Ministers.
Considering Meles’ tenure of 21 years in
relation to with Abiy’s mere five months in
office, the purpose of this short easy is to
compare Meles’ vision and accomplishment with
Abiy’s vision. Understanding Meles’ history
can provide lessons and help guide Abiy’s
future.
Highlights
of Prime Minister Meles’ Vision and
Accomplishment
During
seventeen years of military rule (1974-1991),
Ethiopia came close to disintegration. When the
late Prime Minister Meles assumed power, Ethiopia
was ravaged by famine and insidious civil wars. As
17 ethnic-based armed groups fought against the
Derg, the country was crumbling to pieces (Forum
of Federation, 2010). To maintain its existence,
the despotic military junta relied heavily upon
borrowed funds from the Soviet Union and other
western multi-lateral institutions. For example,
in 1991, Ethiopia’s external debt amounted to
over 50 percent of the country’s Gross National
Product (Desta, 2014). As the EPRDF came to power
in 1991, Ethiopia experienced poverty, poor
education, and deteriorating healthcare programs.
Realizing Ethiopia’s tremendous burden,
Mengistu, then head of the Derg, fled the country
and sought asylum in Zimbabwe.
As
the wave of the future, Meles advocated for the
developmental state model—i.e., the state
controls the entire economy—as practiced by
South Korea. Meles’ ruling party envisioned that
Ethiopia’s renaissance would eliminate poverty,
accommodate Ethiopia’s inherent ethnic and
religious diversity, and elevate the country to
sustained inclusive middle-income status by 2022.
To
advance the democratization process and improve
the effectiveness of the state and local
administration in Ethiopia, the EPRDF endorsed a
federal government structure that entitled the
Nations, Nationalities and peoples of Ethiopia to
self-government. Stressing self-determination, it
gave the nations, nationalities and peoples of
Ethiopia further rights to secession. To
accommodate ethnic and religious diversity and
raise ethnic self-awareness of the Ethiopian
masses, the EPRDF established an ethnic map. That
is, it categorized the country into nine
ethno-linguistic regional states. Furthermore, the
newly designed autonomous regional states were
encouraged to practice local administration and to
use their local languages and culture to serve as
mediums for communication and instruction.
Entitled
to self-rule in their languages and cultures at
the grassroots, the late Prime Minister Meles
believed that all peoples of Ethiopia would
eventually participate on equal footing in all
affairs. As enshrined in the Federal Constitution,
the new Ethiopia—composed of mosaic of cultures
and languages—would a) be decentralized, b)
entitle local inhabitants to manage their local
affairs in an autonomous fashion, c) effectively
utilize its own languages, d) develop its own
culture, and e) participate on an equal basis in
the country’s
common federal political activities (Forum
of Federation, 2010; de Waal, 2018).
Rather
than follow the Washington Consensus program or
the neo-liberal model, Meles assiduously focused
on the East Asian model of developmental state,
tailored to invigorate Ethiopia’s economy.
During his tenure, Meles enabled Ethiopia to
rebound and: a)
achieve a steady economic growth for more than
fifteen years, b) revitalize its health care
services and other related social development
projects, c) reengineer and rejuvenate the
structure developments of modern roads, railways,
hydro dams (such as the construction of
Ethiopia’s Grand Millennium Dam Project), air
transport, state housing,
and telecommunications
services, d) galvanize universal primary and
higher education, e) launch the
Growth and Transformation Plans (GTP) to
minimize poverty, and f)
attain the Millennium Development Goals set
by the United Nations. Today, the late Meles is
still recognized an effective leader for his
pivotal domestic and international roles.
Based
on the above achievements and for laying down the
threshold conditions necessary for Ethiopia’s
development, optimists still consider the late
Meles a visionary, charismatic, compassionate, and
highly transformational leader. However,
leadership cannot be based on a zero-sum game.
Some political opponents blame Meles for not being
a good listener, depicting him as an attention
seeker. Furthermore, during Meles’ time,
horrendous human rights violations and massive
land grapping from the poor reportedly took place.
Also, as claimed in the Ethiopian Constitution,
the Ethiopian government structure was never
collectively ruled. Others claim that Meles
purposely designed the executive branch of
government to increase his own power to control
the local inhabitants (the Africa Development
Bank, 2009).
Moreover,
the Meles’ critiques claim he single-handedly
inserted the Leninist idea of self-determination
to be Article 39 of the Ethiopian Constitution
though self-determination was never tolerated in
the Soviet Union. Similarly, the idea of
self-determination including cession was dropped
from China’s Constitution in 1975 because it
instigated unnecessary tension among the Chinese
people (Desta, 2017). Nowadays, critics insist
that Article 39 should be scrapped from the
Ethiopian Constitution.
Abiy’s
Vision for Ethiopia: The Way Forward
During
the EPRDF’s last three years of laziness and
ineptitude, the restless Querro, Fano, and Zerma
youth nearly took over Ethiopia’s political
landscape. This disorder created a golden
opportunity for Abiy, the leader of the Oromo
People’s Democratic Organization (OPDO), to
assume the chairmanship of the EPRDF and emerge as
Prime Minister of Ethiopia on April 2, 2018.
As
an outspoken and persuasive preacher with the
courage to lecture human physiology to his senior
ministers, Abiy tentatively articulated the
following vision for Ethiopia: If Ethiopians heal
their wounds, forgive, love, trust one another,
and remain united (ENDEMER), Ethiopia would
prevail.
A
few months weeks after the populist Abiy assumed
the premiership, he labored intensely to capture
the attention of the disaffected youth, touring
the country to examine the pulse of the Ethiopian
people. He a) lifted the country’s state of
emergency, b) condemned
the brutal treatment of prisoners, c)
released all political prisoners and convicted
criminals from Ethiopian jails, d) amended
anti-terrorism law, e) unlocked a number radios
and websites, f) reunited the Ethiopian Orthodox
Tewahedo Church, g) attempted to create peace with
opposing Islamic adherents, h) welcomed opposing
forces and certain disgruntled Diasporas to their
country, i) reshuffled Ethiopia’s defense and
national security leadership, j) stood against the
sanctioning of forces to fight demonstrations in
Ethiopia; and k) reviewed the divisive nature of
ethnic federalism
(see for example, Metho, April 7, 2018).
However,
Abiy is showing an ideological shift and bypassing
some important deliberation with EPRDF members. As
result, Abiy’s actions appear to suffer from
“fundamental leadership deficit” (Wikipedia,
2018). For
instance, the EPRDF’s policy dictates
state-owned enterprises. However, without
conducting well-designed studies to investigate
whether domestic businesses or the diaspora can
afford to participate, in the name of increasing
Ethiopia’s dwindling foreign-exchange reserves,
Abiy is attempting to liberalize the economy and
semi privatize the most lucrative state-owned mega
companies, such as Ethiopian Airlines,
Ethio-telecom, and electrical power within both
domestic and foreign companies.
Delighted with Abiy’s new economic
direction, it is not surprising that the World
Bank has promised to give $1 billion in direct
budget support to Ethiopia in the next few months.
Meanwhile,
Abiy’s tactical moves to lure Saudi Arabia and
other African countries have earned him much
praise for his foreign policy initiatives.
For example, when Abiy visited Saudi Arabia
in June 2018, he managed to secure the release of
more than 1000 Ethiopian prisoners from Saudi
Arabia’s prisons. To help Ethiopia with its
foreign exchange shortage, Abiy’s diplomacy has
helped him to convince the United Arab Emiratis to
deposit $1 billion in Ethiopia’s central bank in
order to increase Ethiopia’s foreign exchange
reserve from less than two months’ worth of
imports to a three-month reserve required by the
International Monetary Fund (IMF).
In June 2018, Abiy orchestrated peace
meeting between the president of South Sudan and
his rival, Rieck Machar, in Addis Ababa. In May
2018, Ethiopia signed an agreement with the
government of Djibouti to secure an equity stake
in the Port of Djibouti. Similarly, Abiy and the
President of Kenya signed an agreement to
construct logistic facility at Lamu Port. In June
2018, bypassing preconditions Ethiopia has
insisted on for years, and by caring less to
involve the affected local people, Abiy
single-handedly decided to implement the 2000
Algiers Agreement, concomitant with the decisions
of the international boundary commission. After
twenty years, diplomatic relations between
Ethiopia and Eritrea are finally in full swing.
Summary
and Conclusions
Based
on the South Korean developmental model, Meles
established a vision for Ethiopia designed to
eliminate poverty, accommodate diversity on equal
footing, and attain inclusive middle-class status
by 2022. According to World Bank, since Ethiopia
has achieved sustained economic growth averaging
10.9% per annum for the last fifteen years, and
Ethiopian poverty has declined by 33%. More
particularly, undernourishment fell from 75% to
less than 50%. Meanwhile, households with improved
living standards measured by electricity, and
running water doubled from 2000 to 2011.
Finally, Ethiopia progressed towards the
attainment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG)
in the areas of education, child morality,
HIV/AIDS, and Malaria (World Bank, 2015).
In
contrast to the Derg era that attempted to
socialize all Ethiopians into one culture,
language, and value system, Meles created a
self-governed federal system that attempted to
maintain equality of all nations, nationalities
and peoples of Ethiopia.
On
the other hand, Abiy has candidly asserted that
Ethiopia’s development would be based on the
willingness of the Ethiopian people to aggregate (ENDEMER),
heal their wounds, love each other, forgive each
other, and trust each other. While both Meles and
Abiy have set the direction and the road map for
Ethiopia’s future, Meles’ vision seems to be
specific, purpose driven, directional, and future
oriented.
On
the other hand, Abiy’s vision seems populist,
evangelical and non-operational. Abiy’s concept
of “Medemer” is too vague and his concept of
MEDEMAR has become a laughable concept. Opposing
his own party, the OPDO, Abiy seems to be
entertaining the formation of a centralized
Federal system in Ethiopia. For example, he
intervened to dismantle the leadership structures
of the autonomous regional Ethiopian Somaliland
and the Southern region rather than allowing them
to solve their domestic problems.
Except
for the early honeymoon days of Abiy’s reign,
the political upheavals in Ethiopia have yet to
subside. Ongoing problems include:
1) conflicts over boundaries between
regions (Amhara and Tigray, Somali and Oromo); 2)
conflicts over rights of residence in localities
that have demanded to be divided and possibly
create new states (southern region); 3) conflicts
over the status of indigenous peoples and settlers
such as in Gambella and Beni Shangule; and 4)
inter-communal violence (de Waal 2018). It is sad
to notice that while the Federal Government looks
on, a number of innocent Tigriganes have become
victims of mass atrocities.
Economically,
Abiy tends to embrace the neo-liberal
developmental model over the developmental model
initiated by his party, the EPRDF, which created
unprecedented economic growth in Ethiopia.
Under Abiy’s strategy, Ethiopians can
expect economic dependency, and a few billions of
dollars from the United Arab Emirates or the World
Bank won’t begin to solve Ethiopia’s remaining
issues.
Instead,
the Abiy’s government must create a shared
vision with visionary leadership that encouragers
the participation of Ethiopia’s unemployed
youth. If Ethiopia’s youth (Querro, Fano, and
Zerma ) continue to feel economically
marginalized, Abiy’s slogan of MEDEMAR, or any
measure of tough federal response, won’t save
Ethiopia, but spark social and political upheaval
similar to the “Arab Spring” in 2010.
Therefore, as suggested in my book, Re-Thinking
Ethiopia’s Ethnic Federalism, Abiy’s
government must design a comprehensive
sustainability program to shift modern capitalist
economies toward a sustainable employer of last
resort (Desta, 2017).
References:
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A. (2014). From
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Metho,
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