Post-Meles Fragmented and Fragile Ethiopia
Ghelawdewos Araia, PhD
September 12, 2025
This brief essay explores and critically examines the current overall political reality on the ground in Ethiopia. After the departure of Meles Zenawi on August 20, 2012, and the subsequent disappearance of the EPRDF ruling party, Ethiopia’s promising progress in developmental state (DS) transforming agenda and plan of action were systematically reversed and effectively backburned. The giant industrial parks that mushroomed in major Ethiopian cities began to crumble and shut down, leaving thousands of Ethiopians unemployed. The Shiek Al Amoudi MIDROC conglomerate also encountered major hurdles to operate and some of its companies were either stalled or closed for good, and out of the fifty universities that were established during the EPRDF governance, some of them are inoperative now, and the present regime openly declared not to construct a single university, while the Ministry of Education discourages university entrants from pursuing their higher education. This kind of policy-planning spectrum, especially in education, is entirely without historical precedent, and against all powers of reason and history.
However, the most devastating and dire of all are the civil wars, or more accurately the regional wars between the Federal Government and the Oormo Liberation Army and the Amhara Fano. While these are major wars, skirmishes and tensions also abound in areas like Gambela, Beni-Shangul, and the Somali Regional State. These wars caused the death of thousands upon thousands of Ethiopians, not to mention the 800,000 to 1 million people that perished in the Tigray genocide war (2020-2022). This is the reality on the ground of the post-Meles Ethiopia.
When I analyze the Ethiopian phenomenon and reality on the ground, it should be known that I will employ a multivariate methodology by which I will reinforce my arguments by focusing on the political system or the structure (ala neorealism), rather than individual actors, and by utilizing multiple factors rather than employing a limited and linear explanatory note. In the latter context, thus, Meles happen to be a unique leader with vision to lead a nation geared toward a transformative agenda, but it is the collective EPRDF agenda that should get credit for the macroeconomic growth and development that took place in Ethiopia between 1991 and 2018, or more specifically the period of economic development between 2010 and 2018, when Ethiopia exhibited a true take-off in the building of infrastructure, manufacturing, and agrobusiness enterprises. All these are the contributions of the EPRDF via its DS, although quite obviously the ruling party’s Achilles’s heel was the absence of democracy in Ethiopia. Nevertheless, my focus on the system orstructure does not necessarily deny acknowledgment of the contribution of individual actors like Meles. As a matter of fact, Meles should be credited for conceptualizing the plan and initiating the construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD); he himself put the cornerstone for the dam and told Ethiopians that they must all put their fingerprints on this historic and symbolic dam in Benishangul Regional State. Long before the cornerstone for the GERD was laid, however, everything about the dam was kept secret by the government and a few high-level government officials knew about it as ‘Project X’ as revealed by Ethio-Forum in its August 29, 2025,editorial broadcast.
Let me for a moment digress from the main issue of this article and state some words of how I have known Meles Zenawi. When Meles enrolled at HSIU (now Addis Ababa University), in the early 1970s, I was a sophomore majoring in political science; he was freshman at premed, just arrived from Winget High School. Meles was introduced to me by Meles Tecle when the two of them came to my dorm and the original Meles said to me, “here is one militant and bright young man who came from Winget; his name is Legesse Zenawi and I want him to join your club,” and I said, “surely we need ‘bright and militant’ students and we will welcome him to our club” and following our brief conversation, at a later date, I introduced Legesse to other members of our study group. Although as we expected Legesse did not frequent the venue of our meetings, his input on the sessions he participated in was brilliant indeed.
Legesse Zenawi, Meles Tecle, and I used to eat outin one small house restaurant near Nazareth School between Seba Dereja (Seventy Steps) and Sidist Kilo campus. This tiny restaurant was owned by an elderly woman who used to sell one chicken drum with Ethiopian sauce of pepper and butter as well as Enjera (the staple Ethiopian flat moist and soft bread) for only 50 cents! It may sound incredible with respect to the price of the menu, but during those days the Ethiopian birr was strong, hence its purchasing power was strong too (the exchange rate with the dollar was $1 to 2.07 birr). Those wonderful days may never come back! At any rate, the three of us used to go to that small restaurant on Wednesdays and Fridays to avoid vegetable food that was served by the campus cafeteria (we were naïve in underestimating the nutritional value of vegetarian dishes), but the main purpose of going to that venue was to chat and discuss issues surrounding the student movement and its ideological bents. One day, however, we were in trouble, a big one! While heading from Sidist Kilo campus to the restaurant, at the confluence of Haile Selassie Hospital (now Yekatit 12 Hospital)and Yekatit 12 monument , Dean Melaku was walking by along with his wife; then all of a sudden Meles Tecle verbally attacked the Dean by extending insolence and curses; the incident turned ugly; Meles and Melaku entered into a feast fight, but luckily it was a brief violent encounter, thanks in large measure for the Dean’s wife, Legesse, and I intervention as intercessors. After the fight was over, Legesse and I criticized Meles for his adventurous acts despite his steadfast and determined behavior with respect to his advocacy of justice for Ethiopians. Meles Tecle was our idol and mentor because he was older than us and acquired a lot of experience and knowledge during his role as leader of the student movement, but he was at times emotional and temperament. Meles Tecle was our hero, but to this day I could not figure out whether his temperament was a natural disposition or a disinclination to conventional rules.
After the Ethiopian Revolution broke out on February 1974 (Yekatit 1966 EC), when I was third year senior majoring in political science and Legesse as sophomore, we witnessed the end of our education career because the university was closed, and our club members went separate ways; I joined a pan-Ethiopian organization (Ehapa); Meles joined the TPLF; Aboma Mitiku joined the OLF as one of its founders; Ayed Ahmed joined MEISONE (All Ethiopia Socialist Movement). Later, during the formative period of the Derg military government, Meles Tecle and Ayed Ahmed were shot and killed by the Derg; Obama Mitiku was killed at the initial stage of the OLF struggle; incidentally Meles Tecle, Ghidei Gebrewahid and Rezene Kidane were accused by the Derg government as agents of terror that put bombs at the Addis Ababa Municipal Building and Wabi Shebelle Hotel that exploded and killed people, and they were shot and killed by a firing squad. There is no doubt in my mind that Meles was targeted by the Derg because he insulted the Atnafu Abate-led Derg representatives who came to Arat Kilo campus to address the university students, and it is after the killing of Meles that Legesse adopted the name ‘Meles’ as his nom de guerre, and ever since he was known as Meles Zenawi.
Legesse (now Meles) and I have survived the tumultuous and turbulent Ethiopian revolution, but again we have gone separate ways; I decided to walk out of Ethiopia to Sudan and then to Italy and sought asylum and arrived at New York City as a refugee in 1981; Meles continued the struggle of the TPLF, became one of its prominent leaders, and when the TPLF, along with other Ethiopian groups, forged a union of the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) and vanquished the Derg in 1991, he became the chair of his party and assumed state power as the prime minister (initially, president) of Ethiopia.
Stolen Legacy in a Fragmented and Fragile Ethiopia
Now, back to the central theme of the essay by way of assessing some external actors and systems that contributed to the death of Meles Zenawi and the downfall of the EPRDF. As pointed out earlier, it is the collective leadership of the EPRDF that would be credited for development and economic growth gains unprecedented in Ethiopian history, but Meles should be remembered as the founding father of the GERD, and to be sure, 65-70% of the dam’s construction was completed when Meles was still alive; following the death of Meles Zenawi, however, it took another eight years to complete the 35% of the remainder of the dam; a very slow progress with some dubious performances after eliminating Engineer Simegnew Bekele, the chief architect of the dam; Simegnew and Meles are the twin architects of the dam; the difference is while Engineer Simegnew is the real architect, Meles is the metaphoric architect. Now, when Ethiopia celebrated with some fanfare the completion of the GERD, neither Meles nor Simegnew are given the deserved credit; instead the present Ethiopian officials at the top echelon of the government and some diehard and chauvinist elements would like to brush aside the initiative of Meles Zenawi; like it or not, the claim of the present regime in completing the GERD is stolen legacy, to use George G.M. James words (in fact the title of his book). James argued that Greek philosophy is stolen Egyptian philosophy.
Ethiopians must have the audacity, nerve, and temerity to celebrate Meles Zenawi’s vision and his bold initiative to translate the idea of a dam into a material and concrete force, and a historic one in the annals of modern Ethiopian history. However, this appeal to Ethiopians should not deny the contribution of Abiy Ahmed; he deserves credit because at least he exhibited interest in the completion of GERD, and he did not waver vis-à-vis the relentless opposition of the Egyptian government. Quite frankly I was concerned that the GERD, like many other projects, was going to be delayed or postponed indefinitely; now we know it was delayed but not postponed or backburned, and it is for this reason that I want to extend credit to Abiy as well.
The fragility and fragmentation of Ethiopia, however, had already begun when the new Ethiopian constitution was framed and ratified; the constitution created a new Ethiopian structure with nine autonomous regional states that were entitled to self-determination including secession, but the EPRDF was unable to foresee the consequences of the new political demarcation based on ethnicity and language, and none of the EPRDF leaders were aware of a Kissinger agenda of splitting Ethiopia via ethnic clashes (this revelation was aired by Abner.org). Moreover, the EPRDF simply and dogmatically mimicked Joseph Stalin’s Question of Nationalities; they did not attempt to critically examine the messages conveyed in Stalin’s thesis. Although Stalin was in favor of self-determination of nationalities (he was in fact its fervent advocate) including the right to secession, he nevertheless underscored that self-determination ultimately should serve a higher unity of the nationalities, which, incidentally, was not mentioned in the Ethiopian constitution, nor argued upon by EPRDF leaders elsewhere.Moreover, Stalin supported national movements insofar they fight imperialism; he had some reservations regarding self-determination, and he clearly stated that this right is not absolute.
I was seriously concerned about Article 39 of the constitution, and in 1995 in my debut book entitled Ethiopia: The Political Economy of Transition, I argued as follows: “The TGE’s policy of Kilil and self-determination is commendable, but the consequence of fragmentation as a result of new wave of ethnic political consciousness and the inability of some minority nationalities to become economically and politically viable would ultimately preoccupy Ethiopians to otherwise unforeseen problem.”1
How Ethiopians became narrow minded
Unfortunately, what I predicted on Ethiopian fragmentation thirty years ago became a reality since at least 2016 when anti-Tigray sentiments, physical assaults and killings of Tigrayans had begun in earnest. This anti-Tigray frenzy culminated into an all-out war against Tigray by the combined forces of Ethiopian National Defense Forces (ENDF), Eritrean Defense Forces (EDF) mercenaries, the Fano Militia and Amhara Special Forces, as well as the United Arab Emirates (UAE)drones. The war against Tigray was a geopolitical war and its ramifications led to the present crisis in Tigray and the rest of Ethiopia.
Long before the war on Tigray, as I have reasoned above (quote 1), once a nation is divided along ethnic lines, even if was meant for administrative purposes and also to honor the self-determination of nationalities, the people of the respective nationalities (most notably, the elite) would begin to think in terms of their local environment and develop a new culture of ethnocentric behavior and hate; and as a result, the overarching Ethiopian identity would be eroded gradually. Now, it is abundantly clear that the political landscape of Ethiopia is tainted with ethnocentric values of the Amhara, Oromo, Tigray, Qimant, Agaw, Afar, Somali, Wolaita, Sidama etc. and beyond the narrow mindset, the various nationalities and sub-nationalities that makeup Ethiopia and that lived side by side for thousands of years, have now stood at loggerheads against one another.
However, the present narrow mindset of Ethiopians is not simply a reflection of the present fragmented Ethiopian politics; it is also a manifestation of historically induced socioeconomic development. Modern Ethiopian society, for a long time, was predominantly characterized by a feudal mode of production, with negligible capitalist economy, and it is for this apparent reason that the local identity lingered and was not effectively superseded by the overarching Ethiopian identity. This problematic that Ethiopians encountered is not unique to Ethiopia; it is a universal phenomenon as explained by Emile Durkheim, the father of sociology. In extrapolating the narrow vs. broader outlooks (or the micro/macro cultures), Durkheim defines the narrow culture as mostly found at villages and small towns and called it mechanical solidarity; by contrast the broad spectrum of cultures found in urban areas and cosmopolitan cities as organic solidarity. Ethiopians, at a time when their country made a staggering transition toward modernity, gravitated toward organic solidarity, but now they have slid back to mechanical solidarity.
It is not entirely the fault of Ethiopians to regroup themselves via mechanical solidarity, because the lack thereof of the capitalist mode of production that could have shattered village-type thinking and enable Ethiopia to make a transition to a unified market economy and subsequently to organic solidarity culture, was clearly missing.
The Meles-led EPRDF government also committed egregious mistakes by exposing its ideology and policy frameworks to the rest of the world. It published a book-like pamphlet (in Amharic) entitled Ye Tehadso Mesmer ‘na Ye Ethiopia Hidase (The Line of Reform and Ethiopian Renewal). This pamphlet, apparently, was circulated among its members only, but it soon leaked out and it fell into the hands of many non-EPRDF readers, and it was no longer a secret memorandum, and it was read by friends and foes of the EPRDF.
The pamphlet thoroughly discussed the choices of neo-liberalism and the developmental state (DS) for Ethiopia as options. It was highly critical of the neo-liberalism agenda and recommended that Ethiopia and other African countries should adopt and implement the DS; the EPRDF was too open and too naïve in exposing itself (perhaps inadvertently) to its foes and in keeping potential investors at bay. On top of this, in one journal film, Meles told his colleagues and comrades that “Ethiopia should follow the Chinese path to development,” another frightening declaration that made the Western world jittery. The EPRDF’s declaration of ideology-cum-policy was tantamount to public pronouncement of war strategy by which even one’s deadly enemy is enabled to strategize accordingly and plan a preemptive strike.
There is no doubt that Meles was a brilliant leader as well as astute and sharp-witted observer of phenomena, but he had no grand plan to recruit and train young potential leaders who could have articulated his ambitious plans and his dreams of a viable and DS-oriented successful economy. He was rather encircled by fellow travelers who would simply echo verbatim his agenda and/or talking points, and would not entertain original ideas of their own, and it is no wonder that the TPLF increasingly suffered from politicized debanking policies and ‘lack of strategic leadership’ (TPLF’s own statement), a curious but honest testament of once formidable political party but now an organization that is in constant decline. History was sometimes cruel to the TPLF, but it too has made tremendous input in its own decline, affirming, in a way, the inexorable and inevitable gargantuan making of the rise and decline of political systems. In the final analysis thus, although it is the collective leadership and the political structure that play a decisive role in sociopolitical changes, the departure of an individual leader can hurt the collective. The latter rationale reminds me of an American football team that faced defeat after defeat after its quarterback left (the case of New England Patriots is a good example); it seems to me, TPLF has now become like the Patriots!
The messy politics in Tigray is also a result of fragmentation and fragility, but more specifically it is the consequence of the absence of a smart leader who could strategize, and as the African proverb aptly put it, ‘a pilot who could see from afar would not wreck his ship’. Indeed, after the pilot made a transition, the Ethiopian ship and its replica, the Tigrayan ship were wrecked. I am not sure whether the Tigray predicament2 was historically speaking inevitable or it is purely the result of a weak (or weakened by circumstances) leadership, but the current messy politics in Tigray is the outcome of the cynical politics of the federal government and the tangible product of the TPLF, because this party along with the Transitional Government of Tigray, installed by the Federal Government, were unable to iron out ideological and political differences via dialogue, a lingering effect of confrontation politics.
Confrontation politics was the political culture of Ethiopians for centuries; it was the main routine practice toward grabbing or assuming state power. For instance, if we investigate modern Ethiopian history from Emperor Tewodros to Emperor Haile Selassie (1855 to 1974), all respective monarchs captured power via the barrel of the gun; the Derg and the EPRDF also seized state power by violence and coercive force, manifested in protracted extensive wars. In this regard, Abiy Ahmed is an exception in the power-nexusprocedure. He assumed power via legislative procedure and the constitution, but the latter was surreptitiously manipulated, and although Abiycontrolled the mantle of power peacefully, he nonetheless used the gun to subdue his opponents. He continued the legacy of confrontation politics.
Incidentally, the Cyber Power Tigray (CPT) media, Tigray branch editorial of August 31, 2025, critically exposed the crisis in Raya (Southern Tigray) by referring to the Salsay Woyane party statement regarding the dangers of confrontation politics, best exemplified by the new administrator of Southern Tigray by the name Zinabu Gebremedhin. Apparently, Zinabu replaced Haftu Kiros, the former administrator of the Southern District of Tigray. Some observers say that Haftu was accused of being instrumental to the enemy; the usage of the word ‘enemy’ is almost always ill-defined in Tigray and the rest of Ethiopia, and it is used to cover up the real intent of trickly performances.
Despite the present unfavorable political climate in Ethiopia, Ethiopians as a whole must begin to think outside their respective boxes and celebrate rather a unifying and overarching motto that can counter the toxic activity of war and I encourage readers to have a look at my most recent article entitled “From Civil War to Civil Discourses”2 that I believe is relevant to this essay. War is not only destructive, but it also dehumanizes citizens who are not involved in the battlegrounds, and moreover, it serves as a major distraction from the pressing and urgent issues surrounding development and social welfare.
At this juncture of our history, emancipation of the Ethiopian spirit from the shackles of sectarian ethnic politics must be our priority to resolve. All of us must become part of the energy that creates a bright future, at least for our children and succeeding generations, and the way out of the current mess is to establish a sane political culture of dialogue. The latter is based on specific content and tone of argumentation and debate with the aim of resolving disagreements via rational method of conversation (avoid polemics and rhetoric), negotiation, agreement, and consultation. That will be the day!
Notes:
1. Ghelawdewos Araia, ETHIOPIA: The Political Economy of Transition, University Press of America, 1995, p. 166
2. Ghelawdewos Araia, Ethiopian Enigmatic Politics, Tigray Predicament, and Global Apathy, cpotm.com/Ethiopian-enigmatic-politics—tigray-predicament-and-global-apathy-ghelawdewos-araia-phd
3. Ghelawdewos Araia, “From Civil Wars to Civil Discourses”, The Ethiopian Reporter: www.thereporterethiopia.com/45327 August 31, 2025
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