By T Tolera | August 20, 2013
The Head of State, the presidential post in Ethiopia, has been a compensating excuse left to satisfy or neutralise an ethnic question for power. It has been dramatized, romanticized and traditional left for Oromo to scramble. It all started out with now a fierce critic of and prominent opposition to TPLF-led regime Dr. Negasso Gidada. Dr. Nagaso resisted a top-down command over his little constitutional power and revolted and broke away from Meles Zenawi, the late PM. Then comes Obbo Girma Woldegorgis, a personality of tabloids and popular jokes. I think Obbo Girma has exceeded the expectations of TPLF. The closest he appeared to have a power was when he wrote ‘shimigilina’ letter to the former pope of Ethiopian Orthodox Church in exile to mediate his restoration following the death of Abuno Paulo [the tyrant pop]. But then TPLF ordered him to denying he wrote the letter to VOA. Obbo Girma takes refuge in others’ idea and channels the will and orders of his masters. He proved to be a reliable partner and subordinate to TPLF through his unquestionable skill of obeying commands. I think we need to give him a credit for that. Nobody can do that good!
Why they do have to put a limit on the terms of the President anyway? You don’t need limit if there is nothing to check or balance, to misuse or abuse. But to his displeasure, Obbo Girma has to depart from his beloved presidential palace because the constitution [article 70] does not allow third term. Well, now he owns plenty of time to walk around, sit upright and probably plant some trees in the new wave of fashionable Meles Foundation Parks.
So gossips are circulating who is being groomed to become another symbolic figure officially and constitutionally castrated only to shake the hands of Ambassadors and smile on camera. It is interesting how TPLF is moulding public opinion; how it glorifies or kills characters in to the run-up.
Increasingly frustrated on the individuals that have made the list so far, TPLF is trying to widen its alternatives through a media campaign. Recently, through its print and audio-visual media outlets, it is glorifying Professor Andreas Eshete, the former President of AAU and an advisor to the PM. We see this professor up against Adde Mulu Solomon, athlete Haile Gebrislasie, and MP Dr. Asheber Weldegergis, all among president-elect to be. It is to be recalled that Obbo Bulcha Damaksa, a retired Oromo Politian with immense popular support not only from Oromos but also many Ethiopians, is off the list as TPLF found promoting him risks its grip on power.
The famous athlete, an Olympic gold medallist and disputably the king of track race, Hiale Gebresilasie, is intending to enter politics. TPLF seems to like his move. Hiale has endorsed TPLF on several occasions. He has given moral and financial support during the 2010 election campaign. He has recently publicly praised TPLF and all the evils it does against the Muslims, the Oromos and other nations and nationalities. He is believed to be very close to the inner circle of TPLF-led regime and enjoys favouritism. He has loads of experience in business but he is not much of an academic, or even curious, who would question or think a head of TPLF’s complex set of traps. Although he is criticized for his increasingly monopolistic approach to business, he sought to tap in to his popularity to drive public support for political career.
Adde Mulu Solomon, the head of Ethiopian Chamber of Commerce, and a poet, is another widely rumoured candidate. She is an iconic figure in entrepreneurship, leadership and management who has come to be among top business personalities in Ethiopia. She is a conscious Oromo that also strives to develop Oromo art and Oromo language; she seems not to know much of Qubee herself though. She is an advocate of free market, microbusiness, and works to advance liberalization. In support to TPLF-led regime, she has kept silent as the economy is increasingly manipulated and skewed to few individuals and few companies under the colonial monopoly of small group of thugs.
The lone independent MP among the two non-EPRDF MPs in the 547 seat national parliament, Dr. Ashebir Weldegorgis, is a self-motivated contestant widely supported by the TPLF to be named the next president. He is a dentist who has found his way to politics because, he says, lack of justice and equality in the Kaffa region of his birth place has worsened. But most believe his political career may have been triggered during the row between FIFA and Ethiopian Football Federation [EFF] in 2009 where Dr. Ashebir was illegally, probably politically motivated, replaced by Ahmed Yasin as a chairman of EFF, who later in turn was dismissed from his post in election carried out at the presence of CAF and FIFA. Contrary to this, Dr. Ashebir has been rather silent in the parliament only to be a staunch supporter of TPLF.
Professor Andreas Eshete is amongst the brightest academics in Ethiopia. He has received the highest quality education and served as academics both in the USA and Ethiopia. He has led Addis Ababa University almost for 10 years in to excellence. He is an autocrat of high calibre. As an actively involved in drafting the constitution and the entire formation of government during the transitional government, he is quite a guy for the post. Although his push for constitutional court during the transitional period had put him at odds with Meles, he has come to win the late PM’s trust to become the member of the inner circle to continuity. He is very loyal to TPLF and its policies. During his time as the president of AAU, he has invited, on multiple occasions, the infamous federal police and the cruel Agazi militia to crackdown on Oromo students. Just to recount some; in January 2003, on April 23, 2007 and on May 1, 2010, Professor Endreas called the security to disperse and abduct a number of Oromo AAU students. Some of the students died, some disappeared, and others are still languishing detention without trial under inhuman conditions. Many believe this is a crime that he committed awaiting a fair trial.
What kind of qualities does TPLF look to ‘unanimously’ vote to sworn in a puppet president? The best candidate for the position, according to TPLF’s checklist, is one that has combination of: 1) an Oromo fairly detached from Oromummaa 2) leverage individual drenched in corruption and potentially crimes 3) individual of highest loyalty to TPLF and 4) financially poor, political dormant and morally dull individual.
For TPLF, it is important that the choices are widely spread both within the house and outside far from party politics. Within the house, TPLF has independent MP Dr. Ashebir; the rest of the candidates being non-MPs with no affiliation to any party. In this regard, the obvious favourite choice would be Dr. Ashebir. He is loyal to TPLF and he is believed to be involved in heinous corruption with medical equipment import for his chain of dental clinics and urban land grab. He is from relatively small nation in the southern Ethiopia, the Kaffa nation, which shares a lot with the Oromo nation in that both suffered from century long ruthless naftenya monarchy and military regimes. In the new fashionable tactics of giving power to the ‘small’ nations, TPLF would definitely play this card.
TPLF can also play the famous face card. Being the most famous face among the candidates, even though, it seems, TPLF would have some reservation on Haile’s stand on ‘Ethiopiawinet’, which appears to be fundamentally ‘Amhara-byssinian’, TPLF can definitely go with Haile as a last resort. Haile’s uncontrolled thirst for more wealth to advance his empire makes it easy for TPLF to effectively manipulate him according to its will. Yet Haile is known to deposit money oversea and TPLF can do little about that.
Slogans are heard TPLF tries to display passion to give power to women to play the ‘gender’ card. This brings in Adde Mulu Solomon. With some caution, TPLF might be happy with Adde Mulu. The dilemma ofcourse is that Adde Mulu is becoming a conscious Oromo that is going quickly up in the ladder of business and getting in the hearts of Oromos. If she continues to hear Oromos, it is likely that she will understand the repression of Oromos and that is the last thing TPLF wants to see. Just like it does to Abba Dula or Muktar, TPLF would definitely try to corrupt her in to submission.
Despite its pre-set checklist, TPLF would be very delighted to see Professor Andreas Eshete in the presidential palace. Prof. Andreas is praised to be the guardian of Federalism and an advocate of equality of nations and nationalities. Just like TPLF, he is just saying and writing on paper with no known example whatsoever. Just like TPLF, he has cited the constitution to call the military upon Oromo students and watched them beaten, killed and detained. As such, TPLF knows the professor is very much involved in party politics and many would oppose his nomination to the position. So this is a ‘high risk high reward’ card that if TPLF plays and succeeds means the Head of State and Head of the Government are both member of TPLF-EPRDF.
With Adde Mulu leading, nobody among the candidates meets the entire pre-set TPLF’s checklist; and this would only leave us for a surprise candidate who we might know little about. The election of Obbo Girma was a complete surprise indeed.
The idea for this project was first suggested to Mohammed Hassen by Lily Marcos-Birra , the devoted wife and the best friend of Ali Birra probably about a year ago. What was planned at that stage was to prepare a short biographical information about the legendary Oromo singer for his Golden Jubilee anniversary celebration on musical stage. That event, which will mark Ali Birra’s 50th anniversary celebration since he started singing in 1963, will be held in Minneapolis on July 4, 2013. Although the plan for the project had a gestation period of several months, the work on the project commenced with earnestness only in May 2013. With Dr. Gemechu Megerssa’s contribution and two additional previously published articles, and two short reviews of Ali Birra’s music by Rick Sanders and Blogfoolk magazine. The project expanded beyond brief biographical information. The project now has five short chapters and two review articles. It is a very modest beginning for encouraging others to write more substantial work about Ali Birra, his long productive musical career and his huge contribution for putting Oromo music on musical map of the world. As a project which was prepared under intense pressure of time, we did not have the luxury of time for carefully proof-reading more than once all contributions. If we had an opportunity to proof-read all contributions more than once, probably we would have eliminated or reduced possible typos and other errors. We apologize if there are errors.
