Africa News blog

Ethiopia Elections: Will the West be watching?

When you work for a news organisation in a country like Ethiopia, people  often tell you “nobody cares” about the stories you report. What they mean, of  course, is that nobody in the West cares. Most of the time, they’re right.

But with Ethiopians about to hold national elections for the first time since a 2005 poll ended with a disputed result, about 200 protestors killed in the  streets by police and soldiers and opposition leaders jailed after Prime Minister Meles Zenawi accused them of trying to stage a revolution, there’s every reason for the public in the West to take notice.

Their governments have been meddling in Ethiopia for a long time now – but quietly – and with an attitude that has angered some here. Western powers are engaged for sound foreign policy reasons, and although most in the West are unaware of it, for the people of this country it’s a constant coffee house topic.

Ethiopia is often referred to as the “key U.S. ally” in the Horn of Africa – a dodgy neighbourhood by any standards. It’s the West’s friend here because – despite its population being almost 50 percent Muslim – they are overwhelmingly moderate and the government is avowedly secular.

The U.S., Britain and others see Ethiopia, with the biggest army in East Africa, as a bulwark against the rise of Islamic extremism in the Horn. Meles, with tacit U.S. backing, entered Somalia in 2006 and routed an Islamist group who had taken control of capital Mogadishu. He now keeps a close eye over the border as militants surge against Somalia’s weak government again.

Cash, as ever, is also a factor. This country is huge – its 80 million people making it sub Saharan Africa’s second most populous nation. And most of those teeming, aspirational masses don’t yet have mobile phones or bank accounts.

What now for Ethiopia’s “Aung San Suu Kyi”?

The first time I interviewed Birtukan Mideksa I was struck by how careful she was not to say the wrong thing. It was 2007 and we were standing in the garden of a community centre in the part of Addis Ababa where she was raised. She had just been released from prison and the locals — many of whom struggle to feed themselves — had each given about a dollar to throw her the party-cum-political rally we had just attended and to buy her an old Toyota Corolla car to help her back on her feet again.

Such was her care when talking to me that, after less than five minutes, I discreetly switched off my recorder knowing the interview would never make a story, and continued the conversation only out of politeness and professional interest in Ethiopian politics.

It seems her caution was well-placed. The 36-year-old opposition leader and mother of one is back behind bars, accused by the government of speaking out of turn. It has been almost exactly one year since a group of policemen snatched her as she walked to her car with  political ally Mesfin Woldemariam. Mesfin — a large, grey-haired man in his 70s — was bitten by a police officer in a scuffle when he tried to intervene.

Now her supporters in the Horn of Africa country are calling her “Ethiopia’s Aung San Suu Kyi” in what analysts see as a move aimed at attracting international attention to her detention. Government officials often smirk when when what they see as an overblown comparison is made.

Party colleagues say she was jailed because the government feared her heading an opposition coalition in national elections set for May and rights group Amnesty International calls her a “prisoner of conscience”.

To her champions, Birtukan is the great hope for reconciliation in Ethiopia’s often bitter political landscape. To her detractors, she has been made a romantic figure by her jailing and doesn’t have the intellectual muscle or strategic nous to lead the huge country.

Some Ethiopians see sinister shading in the lack of international attention, claiming western powers are happy to see Prime Minister Meles Zenawi — in power for almost 20 years — stay on as long as he liberalises the country’s potentially huge economy and remains a loyal U.S. ally in a volatile neighbourhood that includes shambolic Somalia.

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Will Ethiopia’s PM step down?

They say that the foundation of a good retirement is planning. By that measure, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi should have his rest period well laid out. The rebel-turned-leader has been saying he wants to step aside for almost two years now.

But after 18 years at the helm of one of the world’s poorest countries the 54-year-old is still in power and says he is trapped by the wishes of his ruling party. They will discuss his desire to retire at an executive committee meeting next month and a September congress would give him the opportunity to ask the party for his twilight years.

Some analysts say his repeated hope for freedom – with the condition of party acceptance – is a ruse to make Meles appear more democratic than he is, while others say he feels he has taken the country as far as he can and covets a high-profile international position in the United Nations or the African Union.

The problem is that many in the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) do not want to see their internationally recognisable leader go and may question his loyalty in an attempt to keep him in the driving seat as Ethiopia heads into an uncertain political and economic landscape ahead of its June 2010 national elections.

The father of two – who has a fascination with economics and represented Africa at the G20 summit – has presided over years of double-digit growth for the desperately poor country but has watched the global recession undo much of that progress.

And analysts and diplomats are divided on how next year’s elections will turn out.

A 2005 poll, touted as Ethiopia’s first truly democratic elections, ended in brutality when the government declared victory and the opposition said the result was fixed.

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“So, how’s that ear coming along?”

Journalists covering African countries rarely get involved in the sort of celebrity circus so common for those working elsewhere. But the Ethiopian presspack got a window into a different world when boxing legend Evander Holyfield rolled into Addis Ababa.

Decked out in a green safari suit and propping up the bar in one of the city’s plusher hotels the four-time heavyweight world champion happily posed for photos with locals and was the focus of attention for a gaggle of Ethiopia’s famously beautiful women.

The 46-year-old – who recently came out of retirement amid rumours of financial trouble – says he’s in Africa to fight a benefit bout to raise money for HIV/AIDS charities.

“If we don’t find a cure to this, we’ll be extinct,” he said.

Holyfield — remembered for having part of his ear bitten off in a 1997 fight with Mike Tyson — also told us he was planning yet another shot at the world title in September.

His opponent, little-known Ethiopian-born American Sammy Retta, stayed silent for most of the press conference but compared the fight to the famous 1974 “Rumble in the Jungle” between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman.

The comparison seems a bit of a stretch. This match won’t even be on television and instead will only be available online. 

What is the truth behind Ethiopia’s “coup” plot?

A plot is defined as “a plan made in secret”, but even by the usual shadowy nature of such matters around Africa, the recent conspiracy to overthrow the Ethiopian government has been hard to see clearly.

The story broke two weeks ago when the government of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said 40 men had been arrested for planning a coup after police found guns, bombs and “written strategies” at their homes. But a few days later the government communication office was asking journalists not to use the word coup anymore. The “desperados”, they said, had planned to “overthrow” the government by using assassinations and bombings to create enough chaos to get supporters on the streets to topple the government.

The sensitivity surrounding the language and the details of what was actually going on highlight the caution that still exists in sub-Saharan Africa’s second most populous country after a disputed 2005 election ended with police and soldiers killing about 200 opposition street protesters who were marching on government buildings.

Understandably, many Ethiopians are sceptical that people would take to the streets again. And others question whether the will is still there to march against a government that most analysts consider the most effective the desperately poor nation Horn of Africa has ever had.

The suspected involvement of an Ethiopian-American university professor was a detail that caught the interest of the international media. Berhanu Nega, who called the accusation “baseless”, was elected mayor of Addis Ababa after the 2005 poll but was imprisoned along with about 100 other opposition members when the government accused them of orchestrating the street protests.

He was released in 2007 after a pardon deal and soon fled to America, where he teaches economics at Bucknell University in Philadelphia. Another leader released as part of that pardon, 36-year-old former judge Birtukan Mideksa, was rearrested last year after the government said she violated the terms of the pardon. She remains in prison.

Ethiopians love to talk politics in the bars and cafes of capital Addis Ababa — often in very hushed tones, which is perhaps a hangover from 17 years of brutally repressive communist rule that ended when the rebel group led by Meles came to power in 1991.