As Ethiopia looks beyond strongman Meles, fears of instability (+video)

The choice of Hailemariam is strategic, also. Had Meles been replaced with another Tigrayan, who make up only 6 percent of the population of around 94 million, it could have angered the two more populous coalition partners, says David Shinn, a former US ambassador to Ethiopia.  

The key to a peaceful transition is likely to be whether influential Tigrayan politicians agree on how to perpetuate Meles's system.  Those figures include much-praised Health Minister Tedros Adhanom; Meles's widow, Azeb Mesfin; state minister of foreign affairs Berhane Gebrekristos; and one of the TPLF's founders, "Father Tigray" Sebhat Nega. Last week, the Tigrayan head of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, Abune Paulos, died, while the Internet rumor mill recently claimed that the commander of the military, Gen. Samora Yunis, also from Tigray, had been taken seriously ill.

"The succession struggle, if there is going to be any, will be largely a TPLF affair," says Jawar Mohammed, an expert on Ethiopian and Oromo affairs at Columbia University in New York. "The affiliated parties such as the Oromo People's Democratic Organization only come into the game when rival factions of Tigrean political and military elites reach out to strengthen their side."

Dissent within the TPLF previously occurred in 2001, during the fallout from the disastrous 1998 war with former province Eritrea that cost 70,000 lives and left disputes unresolved. A faction of colleagues challenged Meles for perceived weaknesses – Ethiopia's military superiority meant regime change in Eritrea was feasible – but failed to dislodge him.

Since Meles fell out of sight in July, there have been no public displays of tension within the ruling party, or other indicators of unrest, which Mr. Shinn says leads him to believe the transition is likely to be peaceful and successful. Senior party figures such as Mr. Sebhat and influential Communications Minister Bereket Simon, who during Meles's illness was evasive or misleading on his condition and refused to discuss the succession process, are adamant that there is no risk of instability.

Because Meles appears to have molded a unified TPLF leadership around him, and appointed a loyal set of cabinet ministers from across the EPRDF to serve the government, there are reasons to believe the party line. But the ruling front's secretive and disciplined operation suggests that factionalism would be hard to discern. Years of in-fighting only surfaced in 2001 when matters came to a head and Meles's opponents were purged.

If the EPRDF system does fracture, there are plenty of disgruntled groups in the nation of more than 80 ethnicities that may try to assert themselves. Newly mobilized Muslims – who constitute about one-third of the population – have been protesting what they see as government meddling in Islamic affairs in the capital, Addis Ababa, and other cities. Insurgents ineffectively fight for more autonomy in Oromia, the ethnic-Somali Ogadeni area, and other mostly peripheral locations. And violent opposition to leasing huge chunks of land for agricultural investors in Gambella, near the South Sudan border, has also broken out this year.

"If [the EPRDF] ends up in an internal power struggle," says Mr. Tronvoll, of the International Law and Policy Institute, "this may be capitalized on by other Ethiopian and regional forces, creating instability in Ethiopia and beyond. It is thus a very precarious period Ethiopia is entering, which needs to be followed closely."

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