Can PM Hailemariam bring about change?

Now
that Ato Hailemariam Desalegn is sworn in as Prime Minster, officially confirmed
in the position of power formerly held by the late Meles Zenawi, we can finally
proclaim: “The Prime Minister is dead, long live the Prime Minister!”
But, wait. We don’t yet know the real leadership status and function of
the new PM. True, the swearing in was historic in that it represented the first
peaceful transfer of power in modern, post-revolutionary Ethiopia. But what
kind of transitional political figure is PM Hailemariam Desalegn?

Does
his appointment usher in a new age of civilian national stewardship in Ethiopia
that leaves behind the era of armed, autocratic, tagai leadership? Is he or will he be his own man politically or an
interim place-holder for the Woyanes, a Dmitry Medvedev, as it were, for their
future Vladimir Putin who would emerge from their ranks and reclaim the
position, perhaps after the 2015 election? Can we be cautiously hopeful about
the new leader’s potential as a political innovator or reformer while
still mindful of the daunting inertia of authoritarianism he faces?  

Making
democratic change “we all can believe in” is difficult in a country
such as ours steeped in autocratic political tradition. In fighting for such
change, we as a nation have shed blood, sweat, and tears, and suffered exile in
massive numbers for decades with little to show for all that struggle by way of
meaningful political progress for the Ethiopian people. Having endured an
unenlightened, reform-resistant imperial rule which remained patently
autocratic to the end, the people have put up with successive tyrannical revolutionary
regimes whose democratic self-identification has been mere rhetorical conceit, nothing
but a pretense, a lie.

And
so a question suggests itself: how does actual democratic change get made in
Ethiopia after the demise of the last authoritarian leader? Or, more
specifically, what are the possibilities and challenges of progressive
political reform under the leadership of PM Hailemariam?

The
end of the personal autocracy of Meles Zenawi appears to offer the nation yet
another historic opportunity to try and make a real democratic turn, to find a
way out from under debilitating authoritarianism. Sadly, the Woyanes have twice
squandered such a chance in the past – once when they took power after
the fall of the Derg and again in the
aftermath of the 2005 election. Can we expect anything different from them this
time around, namely, to allow Hailemariam to come into his own as PM, possibly
to lead change and reform? Or will they reduce him to their front man, ensure in
effect that he bow down to their dominance?

If
the excesses to which the TPLF-EPRDF regime went in producing, staging, and
directing the melodramatic public mourning of the death of Meles Zenawi are any
guide, the regime appears to have no inclination to make any correction to its
authoritarian course. We witnessed a politically over-orchestrated spectacle of
public grieving involving the herding of masses of people for the occasion,
many reportedly paid or compelled into displays of crying and wailing. We saw
numbing formulaic testimonials by countless individuals from all walks of life,
including members of the political elite, touting the greatness of Meles Zenawi
and expressing “their” determination to continue and complete the
work he started and to realize his vision of “democracy” and
“development” for the country.

New Possibilities and
Conditions of Change?

Still,
in times of transition and uncertainty in the affairs of states, such as what
we have in Ethiopia today, options and potentialities of change open up which
could enable new or reconstructed political leaders within (as well as outside)
such states to build on these possibilities and turn them into actual opportunities
for significant change and reform. Such chances may not always be capitalized
upon, as the failure of Kinijit
following the 2005 election sadly demonstrated. But they generally afford
leading individuals and groups openings for skillfully
navigating uncharted political waters, moving in a new, more open or even democratic
direction. Can we approach or view the shifting political terrain in Ethiopia today
with the same expectation, that is to say, does PM Hailemariam have a chance to
move ably on that terrain and lead change?

There
are many among us in the Diaspora and at home who are quite skeptical of such a
possible turn of events, some arguing that it is the height of naiveté
to expect the Woyane regime to tolerate any internal reforms that will
necessarily undo or lessen its monopoly of power. The TPLF, it is contended,
can hardly be expected to preside over the dissolution of its own dictatorial
rule. The ruling party is unwilling and unable, given its political history,
ideology, and practice, to revamp itself out of power, allow
PM Hailemariam to achieve success as a national leader by instituting much
needed political and economic reforms.

There
is some truth to this contention. But here is the thing: the matter is not all
about what the ruling clique wants, about its willingness or unwillingness to
entertain reform. It is, first, about increasing, possibly change-inducing
pressures that are, or can be brought to bear on the post-Meles EPRDF state by
opposition forces and the Ethiopian people generally; and, second, it is about
the extent to which emerging or reconstructed political actors within the
state, led by the new PM, manage to seize internal openings and spaces,
methodically developing these into opportunities for building a new national
consensus on democratic change and development.

This
means a fundamental source of political reform in Ethiopia today is the EPRDF
regime itself, as it now undergoes an uncertain transition to a post-Meles era.
Meles was not merely one among other top Woyane leaders. He was the linchpin of
the entire TPLF-EPRDF party-state apparatus, its supreme architect, ideologue
and executive, its dominant, nearly indispensable personification. He had intellectual
curiosity and technocratic competence unmatched by his TPLF peers or many of
his political opponents. Masterful in prettifying his unappealing
tribal-authoritarian rule for credulous, admiring Western audiences, he moved
deftly to transpose the terms of his autocracy into an alluring rhetoric of democracy
and development. Consequently, his death was a huge setback to the EPRDF state,
particularly to TPLF hegemony within that state.

So
we can expect the post-Meles era to open up new or wider opportunities of
movement for pro-reform forces within and outside the Woyane regime, to
embolden alternative and oppositional political forces in the country and in
the Diaspora in a way and to an extent they have not been before. The new era
is bound to invite, as it should, increasingly insistent demands from Ethiopian
patriots and progressives for transition to a new, freer and more just
political order in the country. In short, the TPLF dictatorship is vulnerable
to democratic challenge and change now more than ever.

The Personal in
Political Leadership

The
EPRDF state may have thrown up new
openings or possibilities for political change in the wake of the death of its
supreme leader, but the openings themselves are not going to spontaneously
produce the democratic change the Ethiopian people want. The possibilities have
to be developed into actual opportunities and conditions for the desired change
by potentially reform-seeking leaders within the state (as well as by
opposition groups). Here is where PM
Hailemariam Desalegn comes in. Assuming he is not reduced to a play thing of
the inner circle or a dominant faction of the TPLF and manages to establish
himself as his own man in the position of authority he occupies, how could he
proceed in leading change and reform, possibly evolving in the process into an
innovative political figure in his own right, a new type of progressive
Ethiopian leader?

This
is an involved question that requires close study and analysis of ongoing
events and developments in the country. We cannot attempt to answer it adequately
at this point.

As
is evident already, what I do here is mostly raise pertinent questions for
discussion rather than offer ready answers. Let me first say a few words
generally about individuality or the personal in political-national leadership
before talking about the possibilities and challenges of PM Hailemariam’s
stewardship.

We
evaluate a national leader first and foremost by his personal integrity or
wholeness within the political and the national, by his individual autonomy; we
ask what he does himself in thought and practice, particularly in addressing
national concerns, as distinct from simply reflecting or prioritizing the
interests, ideas, and agenda of the particular party or group to which he may
belong. A partisan hack or an ethnonationalist ideologue of a leader for
instance is often preoccupied with attempting to impose on an entire country a
predetermined political program which is not open to question or broad public
discussion and debate.

Leaders
are often assessed in terms of publicly noticeable traits and tendencies, such
as the way in which they work with ideas, people, and political others or
adversaries, their intellectual and political capabilities, their rhetorical style
and communicative skills, and their policy choices and decisions, which reflect
their priorities and values. But a leader can also be evaluated on the basis of
a rarer, publicly not readily visible, yet no less important trait, namely, his
capability to look back on himself and the conditions within which he operates,
with an eye toward achieving higher levels of autonomous agency.

Thus,
confronted with the constraints of a given political system, which can range
from an authoritarian ideological dogma to narrowly circumscribed technocratic
terms of development discourse, a leader asks questions like: “How free
or autonomous am I as a political actor to make informed public policies and
decisions? What choices are closed to me and why? What is right or wrong with
existing definitions of national problems and with the ‘solutions’
offered for them?” A leader possessed of such reflexive awareness means a
leader who has a mind open to difficult challenges, a problem-solving attitude
toward things that do not work or work poorly, and courage to embrace the new
or the innovative.

Enter Hailemariam
Desalegn

Hailemariam
was referred to in a recent commentary (Yared Ayicheh, Ecadforum) as “a new blood in the EPRDF,” with a
background as “a post-armed struggle member of EPRDF’s leadership,”
one who politically can be said to have an entirely “new mentality.”
Granted that Hailemariam’s professional training (civil engineer),
religious affiliation (Protestant), ethnic-regional origin (Wolayta, in
southern Ethiopia), and the fact that armed struggle has not been a formative
influence on his political career all mean that he is indeed a new type of
Ethiopian national leader.

That
said, questions about Hailemariam’s actual and
possible function as a political leader arise: could he have reached the
position of top national leadership that he has, shooting up through the
TPLF-dominated EPRDF party-state hierarchy, without being thoroughly
conditioned or “socialized” into the priorities, ideas, goals, and
practices of that hierarchy? If he could not have, then what is the
significance of, say, his ethnicity as such for his political orientation and
loyalty? His novelty as a political and national figure notwithstanding, is PM
Hailemariam assumed to be a passive player, entirely “guided” in
his policies and actions by his Woyane handlers? If not, how can he claim any
warrant to reform the existing political system while operating, of necessity,
within it? Or, now that he is formally installed
in the highest office in the land, could he invest himself with actual personal
autonomy as a policymaker and national leader?

It
is too early in the transition to the post-Meles era to say what kind of leader
Hailmariam Desalegn is or likely to be, whether he has the motivation or the
will to power that could drive him to impart his own intellectual, moral, and
political stewardship to the formal position of authority he occupies. We don’t
know nearly enough about the man or his leadership capabilities. But we can
point to ways in which the new PM could operate relatively effectively through
the transition and beyond, in the process growing in the position he holds,
gaining innovative leadership skills, and perhaps helping to usher in a new, more
democratic political order in Ethiopia. The challenge he faces here, should he
decide to push for meaningful political reform, is huge, though not
insurmountable. For the Woyane ruling stratum at the core of the EPRDF regime
is resistant to any change except the formal elaboration or marginal modification
of the existing pattern of partisan-tribal rule which serves its interests well.

Assuming
Hailemariam is open, at least potentially, to taking pragmatic steps to meet
the challenge of peaceful transition to a new political order, his first task
will be to build a pro-reform coalition within the state, which might
conceivably include reconstructed members of the TPLF.  He will then have to skillfully lead the
coalition in actually bringing about the much needed change. As to how exactly
PM Hailemariam proceeds in carrying out such challenging, politically risky
measures of reform, limited tactical moves suggest themselves more so than a
grand strategy. Why? What is the difference?

A
strategy is a plan or set of goals formulated and enacted by an assignable
agency – an organization, a political party, a revolutionary movement
– that is distanced from an adversary or an established political system.
It operates from a relatively secure or autonomous base, aiming to overthrow or
transform a given political order. Tactics, on the other hand, could operate within a political system without
opposing the system, its ideology and practice, explicitly or wholesale. They
come into play in response to more immediate and practical needs and issues
within a given order of things. For example, they make possible shifts in
interpretation and usage of ruling ideas in particular contexts through
extension to alternative meanings and applications. Why is this distinction
significant in the context of current Ethiopian events and political
developments?

Well,
the new PM is politically in no position to attempt a major overhaul of the
existing state even if he wants to. He has no space to operate in a strategic
mode in pursuing change. He works, of necessity, within a tightly controlled
authoritarian regime which has created him as its leader, at least formally,
and which keeps him in relative power. Tactically, however, PM Hailemariam has
some room for maneuver, should he choose to lead in paving a progressive path
of reform ahead.

There
are, undoubtedly, political risks and challenges that accompany this choice.
But tactical movements mitigate the risks involved by allowing potential
reformers to keep the ideology and policies of the state formally at play while
skillfully “working the system” to advance alternative
interpretations and applications of existing ideas, mainly “democracy”
and “development.” In this way, tactical engagements enable potential
reformers to work on the existing
political culture while at the same time operating “within” it.

Tactical
movements should not be seen simply as the initiatives of new or reconstructed
leaders within the existing stateailemariam.
They have objective conditions of possibility in that they arise in part as responses
to systemic problems and inadequacies. While the TPLF-EPRDF political system is
a repressive authoritarian machine, it is not an absolutely closed circuit in
which its ideas always carry predetermined, fully calculated and controlled meanings
and its intentions and messages are never incoherent. The ruling ideology has
to be constantly invoked, enforced, defended and rationalized in daily life,
often exposing its fundamental problems and limitations – the hollowness
of its democratic and constitutional rhetoric and the unpopularity of its
exclusive, contradictory partisan-tribal agenda. These limitations create
spaces or openings within the state which allow a pro-reform coalition led by
PM Hailemariam to rework, even reverse, existing authoritarian ideas, codes,
and practices, thereby tactically moving in the direction of a new, more open
and democratic political order in Ethiopia.

I
have here highlighted, hopefully in a reasonably optimistic, not merely wishful
tone, possibilities and challenges of Ethiopian transition to a more open and
just political order under the leadership of PM Hailemariam Desalegn. But, to
really be effective and lasting, the effort of a pro-reform coalition within
the state has to gain the active participation and support of civil society
groups and dissident parties and coalitions outside the state. While change-oriented
initiatives and movements within the state are vital, significant undertakings in
themselves, they will have at best only limited impact if they remain
unconnected to and unsupported by broader aspirations and struggles of the
Ethiopian people for democratic change.

And
this means there are some negative lessons – what not to do or how not to
exercise national stewardship – PM Hailmariam needs to learn from the
late Meles Zenawi. These lessons pertain to leadership style and substance.
While the political capabilities and technocratic skills that Meles brought to
his position as national leader cannot be gainsaid, the spirit in which he ruled
the country was deeply flawed. In large part because of decades of association
with an ethnonationalist dogma born of Leninism-Stalinism, he had difficulty
even addressing Ethiopia as one nation or one people. To him, Ethiopia meant
nothing beyond a collection of disparate “nationalities” or
“peoples.” Even as leader of the whole country, he valued strident partisanship
over political moderation and national consensus, often demanding submission
from patriotic and democratic dissidents or insisting on their exclusion from
the political process.

PM
Hailemaraim cannot rule the country in this mode if he is to be a truly
transitional political figure, a new type of progressive Ethiopian leader. He
needs to jettison Zenawi’s exclusively partisan-tribal “revolutionary”
style and clearly distance himself from his wily predecessor’s dubious
intentions for Ethiopia. He has to see and present himself as a leader of one
nation that is more than a simple aggregation of particular tribal “kilils.” And he needs to reverse
the lack of Ethiopian national sensibility or concern that marked
Zenawi’s dealings with foreign interests in the country, such as “investors”
from the Middle East and Asia. The new PM should likewise correct his
predecessor’s culturally indifferent, at once overly technocratic and exclusively
partisan vision of “development” for the country.

None
of this is going to be easy, even if PM ailemariamHhhhHailemariam sees the need for significant reform and
has the inclination and the courage to work for it. But no worthwhile undertaking
ever is. The new Ethiopian leader’s success in helping bring about meaningful
change is going to depend in part on how ably and skillfully he moves through
the shifting political terrain, articulating a persuasive vision of progressive
reform and building support for it within and outside the state.

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