Ethiopia’s PM says ready to stand down
June 25, 2009 (ADDIS ABABA) — After staying to nearly two decades in power, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi is preparing to step down.
“My personal position is that I had enough. I am not a lone gunman. I have from time to time been out voted even while I was a prime minister and I have done things I do not like, don’t agree but implemented party positions particularly during war with Eritrea,” Meles said.
He hinted that the rest of his generation fellow leaders would follow him through the exit door saying he wants to see a new generation of leadership in the post.
“My party is and will be discussing not only about stepping down to Meles but also about the old generation which came to the leader ship along with the armed struggle,” Prime Minister Meles said.
“The party needs to have new leadership that does not have the experience of the armed struggle”
Prime Minister Meles Zenawi-led ruling party, EPRDF (Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Democratic Front), on a meeting of his executive committee next month is due to debate whether he is to step down or not.
In a recent statement, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said that though he is personally willing to leave office ahead of the next year national elections. He had also said that the final decisions would be up his party, EPRDF
What if members of his party did not back Meles’s plan to stand down?
“There would be two options. I could go on in the hope of convincing them at some time in future or I could resign” Meles said, adding “My hope and expectation is that we will reach some kind of compromise position because the margin of difference is not all that big”
Even if he stand down the 54-year-old Ethiopian Prime Minister and Africa’s more prominent leaders on the world stage, says he will keep his party membership.
Now being in power since 1991 the ruling EPRDF party has nearly 5 million members across the country.
During 18 years in power Meles has skillfully leveraged Ethiopia’s strategic position in the Horn of Africa, forging strong ties with successive administrations in the US, Britain and other European countries, while fending off criticism of his human rights record and resisting their efforts to use aid to influence economic policy.
He has also steadily strengthened commercial relations with China, which has project and other loans to Ethiopia worth more than $4bn , and has encouraged links between the EPRDF and China’s ruling Communist party.
Ethiopia’s economy has been expanding at official growth rates of above 10 per cent in recent years, evidence, Mr Meles argues, that the government’s interventionist policies are working.
Ethiopia’s constitution allows the prime minister to stay in power indefinitely.
(ST)