Mar 28th 2018 (Nyamilepedia) – Ethiopia has elected, for the first time in history, its first ethnic Oromo Prime Minister. This came several weeks after the surprise resignation of Hailemariam Desalegn as the leader of the Ethiopian coalition and as the Prime Minister of the country, saying his decision was meant to help the ruling party’s effort to reform and address public grievances, without elaborating.
After several days of deliberations and closed-door meetings, the Council of the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) on Tuesday elected Abiy Ahmed, a 41 ethnic Oromo politician, as the coalition’s next leader, paving the way for him to become Ethiopia’s next and first ethnic Oromo Prime Minister.
Abiy Ahmed, a former lieutenant colonel and  intelligence officer and the leader of the Oromo People’s Democratic Organisation (OPDO), secured 108 votes of the total 175 council members in a bid to replace the outgoing party chairman and former Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn.
Ethiopia, venue of the South Sudan peace talks, will have its first ever Oromo Prime Minister for the first time in its history.
South Sudan government last week called for the change of the talks venue citing political uncertainty after the surprise resignation of Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn as both the leader of the Ethiopian Coalition (EPRDF) and the Prime minister of Ethiopia.
Ahmed now inherits a deeply fractured party and country. His popular legitimacy comes from the reforms his party – the OPDO – set in motion in Oromia. Many now hope that the young leader will take some of the lessons from Oromia and OPDO’s reform agenda to the national office. Beside this are the regional issues affecting the East African countries including the South Sudan’s civil war.
4 comments
He is half Oromo and half Amhara.
[…] March 28, 2018 Editors […]
We wish him all the best. this is a dream of my childhood
Yes, dear ones! Ethiopia would have been worse of like South Sudan but they are wiser to arrest their situation although it looks out of control for quite sometime yet they find a way to deal with it. Although I wouldn’t term it in that way, it is not that South Sudanese are of any fool and cannot solve their problem but the problem is complicated then it looks. That is why it take most of international community effort to deal with it yet wouldn’t bring it to still. As I have been saying it, it will take the whole world to participate on South Sudan issue. Yes, Ethiopia should be praised for their solution from internal crisis they were able to handle. Religion should not be the main gap in fact it should the closing. Should you work for the welfare of all your citizen. Religion for fact is a governing section of human tool factor if use the way is meant to be. So deal wisely with the situation that your processor wouldn’t handle otherwise your claim of position would be seen as another way of corrupt group.