Commentary on should PM Meles Retire?

Aside from the pitfalls that Meles had run into in the past 16 years while he has been at the top of power in Ethiopia , he has evolved as a remarkable politician who is ready to learn, to demonstrate, and to implement. Meles’s gravest shortcoming has been his dogged style in communicating his goodwill to the Ethiopian people and his silly manner of countering the irrational hatred the mostly urbanized population purveyed against him with doubled arrogance. As the Premier has been in a learning and maturing curve over the years, I hope it won’t before he leaves office that he would realize that being a leader is much more than “proving oneself” and that statesmanship is being neutral to all and impartial to none. As a leader of a country with diverse socio-ethnic-political structure, the premier should have long realized that the word “struggle” ends at the threshold of guerrilla days to be replaced by the word “compromise” during the civil administration days. As a leader of a nation, he should have been more ready to communicate his ideas and farsightedness by teaching his people on how his subjects should face the world and equip the people with the personal characters he developed when he governed such a complex country.

Meles has come to leave a legacy of “win-lose”; polarization and disorientation. With his view of partisanship to his party as well as his power base, he has faded the heavy duty of being a statesman of a country that has been at a crossroads in its history. In short Meles has been bogged down with settling scores with his enemies and showing his prowess than being a compromising and sharing leader in the eve of the 21st Century. Meles has to realize that as a statesman, he is a property of all and none: his allegiance should be to the country and nation he is going to leave behind. This statesman should define himself not with his relationship with his enemies, but with his relationship to history, his people and his country.

But one should realize that Meles has taught Ethiopians who care to learn that a person who understands his subjects could play edgy politics as long as it could be contained. He has taught us the idea of real politics and maneuvering in the ever-changing and volatile international situation, the fluid geo-political condition and the poverty-stricken national environments. Meles has defined longstanding and arguably historic phenomena in Ethiopian politics and has shown that the risks politicians take could be the ones that define their egotistic undoing.  He also realizes that the heights of May 2005 could not be retrieved and should honestly be dealt with as the point of no return has been jumped over. So Meles has a huge legacy which should be positioned in proper perspective and dealt with reconciliation and compromise. Meles has also taught us about political spinning and the power of information and misinformation.

Even for those of us who support most ideas behind the present government, the devolving power from Meles to another fresh blood is a matter of credibility and renewal of committment to the EPRDF. We have to be assured that EPRDF could handle change and continuity without having to narrowly rely on a single individual and clique. We have to realize that this talk of irreplaceability and glorifying a single individual would be harmful to the EPRDF, for which we have given our lives and everything.

So there are much we could learn and we have learned from Meles. But as one person is overwhelmed with the reality of oneness of a person, Meles’s contribution in shaping present day Ethiopia should be celebrated and, like it or not, he would be the first leader who would cede power in peace and harmony, though it be from within his party. Meles should take the road less traveled - which is always the difficult path. When new leaders come to the scene, they look out of place and fall short of expectation. On the other hand, most leaders look irreplaceable when they leave, especially in a collective psyche of the nation of Ethiopia . However, we should be ready to embrace the new and wise to celebrate the old.

Sincerely,

Belihu Ayichalim

Dec 19.2006