Ethiopia’s new Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn took the oath of office on Friday, September 21, 2012 / AFP.
October 17, 2012
ADDIS ABABA – When Ethiopia’s leader of 21 years Meles Zenawi died in August, citizens were on edge with memories of violent transfers of power.
“A lot of people expected conflict after his death was announced,” says a top young civil servant about Prime Minister Meles’s secrecy-shrouded death. His mother asked him to remain at home to stay safe as “the head of government had died, and this was Africa – and particularly Ethiopia, which has no history of peaceful transitions.”
Yet the appointment of Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn by parliament last month was conducted without arms, marking a democratic milestone and relative stability for a key partner of the West in the volatile Horn of Africa.
Read more at CS Monitor.
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