In choosing a 42-year-old Former army Lieutenant-Colonel Abiye Ahmed as prime minister, Ethiopia’s ruling coalition is trying to ease ethnic tensions and appeal to the legions of disaffected youth in the country.
Mr. Ahmed was selected for the job on Tuesday, succeeding Hailemariam Desalegn who quit to clear the way for reforms.
Ahmed, who speaks three Ethiopian languages, is a member of Ethiopia’s largest ethnic group, the Oromo. They make up up roughly a third of the 100 million population. However many Oromo youth are angry and feel their people are locked out of Ethiopia’s political and economic power structures. Abiye’s Oromo heritage appears to be a calculated attempt to soothe this anger. But his broader room for maneuver may be hemmed in by the strictures of the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), the rebel coalition that took over from the Derg military regime in 1991 – the coalition of which Ahmed is a part.
Dissident politicians say the EPRDF, which holds all 547 seats in parliament, is not yet ready to allow more freedom in what remains one of Africa’s most tightly controlled states.
“Attempts to enact change will depend on the coalition’s readiness,” said Merera Gudina, an Oromo opposition leader and former parliamentarian who spent a year in jail on charges of inciting unrest. “Some of its leaders may still be thinking within their own box and seek cosmetic changes that will not take the country forward.”
Abiye Ahmed’s rise to lead the coalition was challenged by members of the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), a party from the northern Tigray region which dominates the coalition.
The TPLF is often at odds within the coalition with Abiye’s Oromo People’s Democratic Organisation (OPDO), with both parties accusing the other of interference.
“Abiye is part of the system. But it is change in the sense that the OPDO had to fight the TPLF and the system to get where they are now,” an EPRDF member who spoke on condition of anonymity told Reuters.
Street protests in the Oromiya region, which surrounds Addis Ababa, began three years ago over land rights and grew into calls for broader political and personal freedoms.
Security forces killed hundreds of people and arrested tens of thousands in what has become the biggest threat to the EPRDF since it seized power. The unrest has also deepened tensions between Ethiopia’s main ethnic groups.
Around 10,000 mainly Oromos crossed into Kenya earlier this month, according to the Kenyan Red Cross Society, after several civilians were killed in what the Ethiopian military said was a botched security operation targeting militants.
Shortly before the announcement, Oromo refugees at a camp in the Kenyan town of Moyale said a prime minister from their own community might change things.
The violence and internal EPRDF disagreements over the pace of political reforms were reasons for Hailemariam’s abrupt resignation last month.
The new prime minister’s background as a party insider could allow him to push reforms.
“Abiye has an opportunity to enact change from within as it is a closed system where the line between the civilian and security components is blurred,” said political analyst Berouk Mesfin.
He also faces the task of further democratizng a country long accused by rights groups of clamping down on dissent.
Since January, the government has released thousands of dissidents to placate simmering anger, but it re-introduced a state of emergency the day after Hailemariam resigned. Laws curbing civil society and the press remain.
The new Ethiopian prime minister must also grapple with unemployment in a country where at least 70 percent of the population is below the age of 30.
Ahmed Abiye will become Africa’s youngest leader, half the age of Cameroon’s Paul Biya, who is 85, and much younger than East Africa leaders such as Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, who is 73.
