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Meles political torch Passes to a young vibrant generations

By teshome kassaye, Sept. 17, 2012

Meles was supremely intelligent and leaders like Melse are Halley's comets, they don't come often. Recently One of the famous Ethiopian singers described him, as Ethiopian Mosses, who sacrificed his blood, sweat and life for freedom and peace to the Ethiopian people since the age of 19. Meles was not only an Ethiopian leader but also an African towering figure who was a skilled and effective negotiator and spokesman of African in global affairs.

PM Melse zenawi's positive legacy was enormous and he will be remembered for setting his country's in the path of economic growth and most importantly he had contributed a significant input in re-defining the current Ethiopia. Meles and his party brought a revolutionary democracy and ethnic federalism to create a fair and inclusive political system. In Ethiopian history political power was long dominated by the Habesha, the christain highlanders of the Northen Ethiopian region but may be now the election of a leader from the souther region will definately dilute this unfortunate phenomenon. This overwhelming influence had got an end in the era of Melse zenawi's leadership and in doing so Melse ensured and made Ethiopia not just living longer but also healthier. For his good quality of leadership, Melse was widely praised by Ethiopians and for that matter worldwide both in life and death.

Following his death some scholars from the opposition’s camp and their Media out let was making a wrong analysis and was anticipating a serious leadership vacuum. Taking into consideration of political volatile horn of African, others from the western world diplomats were hesitantly telling us the increasing concern about the potential of vicious power struggle among the ruling party comrades. Ethiopia has had only three significant leaders since 1930, Emperor Haileselassie, Marxist colonel Mengistu and PM meles Zenawi. In fact the political trend of power transfer was subjected to wrestling among successors. Melse and his party came to power after a long and bitter arm struggle. The past Ethiopians political culture was at best uncivilized and at worst bad blooded. This was a great challenge of our time and we waited for years and years to see peaceful political transition.

We had a great appreciation to EPRDF and late PM Meles in particular who made easy this struggle of political power among generation by establishing an institutional mechanism to come to power. EPRDF party shifted on Saturday, Sep. 15th 2012 to a new generation of leadership and elected Hailemariam Desalegn and Demeke Mekonnen as chair man and vice chair man of the party respectively. This EPRDF decision of smooth political power transfer brought a huge historical remark among Ethiopians and could be taken as an initial step to pay in return Meles Zenawi's effort and other patriots Ethiopians who paid a heavy price to bring peace and stability in Ethiopia. As Ethiopian first editor described it, Now Melse is smiling from Heaven by the good work of His comrades. It has taken a lot of hard work to come to this historical moment and positive legacy of EPRDF party.

No One but the few hate infected Ethiopian Diasporas can resist mentioning this picture-perfect moment of EPRDF old guards passing the political torch to the inspiring young generations. This fundamental change is not welcomed among the power-thirsty opposition’s party leaders in the Diaspora for understandable reason. They are suffering from the worst form of illiteracy, political illiteracy. As Susan Rice spoke, Meles had little patience for these fools and idiots. Some of them claim to have PH.D. I cannot put it in any kind of simplistic way but let me explain to you dear readers this way, I agree they have PH.D but PH.D in stupid and stupidity. Given their multitude of serious political ignorance and arrogance, not in the distant future they will attend their own funeral. Recently I wrote enough commentary on Anna Gomez's, speech (by definition a mercenary diplomat who lived by Robotic feeding from Genibote 7 leaders) and her remark was at best disappointing and at worst inflammatory. We Ethiopians knew what is good for us, even those opposition party supporters who pleased this confused diplomat had no sufficient information. The fact that the information is coming from the 'ferenji' does not make the information any credible. This is totally ugly no matter how you look at it.

I would like to finish my writings with the following remarks, Still we need older EPRDF'S guards who can elevate and work with vibrant younger leaders and at same time time we will need younger leaders to accept EPRDF old guards as their experience peers. We also need an economy and psychology from Ethiopians and particularly from EPRDF supporters to accommodate the new leader’s longevity and completeness of the political transition.

The newly appointed EPRDF officials and the acting Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister should know that the Ethiopia people is with them in all the walks and committed than ever before. The people are grateful to stand by you, encouraged you and prayed with you. The Ethiopian people categorically said, it was benefiting from the economic development in the country and the people knew that this rapid growth came at a price hence wanted to keep its momentum. This is both an opportunity and challenge to the new leaders. The new leaders should follow the foot print of Melse and realized that our journey is long but for sure achievable. As one of my dear friend told me Ethiopia is like a flower plant, at the top there is a beautiful rose and the whole way down you see many thorns and lets walk together delicately through the thorns and catch the rose.

Happy New Year.