OPPOSITION COALITION GETTING ORGANIZED

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 ADDIS ABABA 002511 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/16/2029 TAGS: PGOV ET SUBJECT: OPPOSITION COALITION GETTING ORGANIZED Classified By: CDA Roger A. Meece for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d) ¶1. (C) SUMMARY. Following up on its inaugural General Assembly (GA),the opposition "Forum for Democratic Dialogue" (Forum) plans in coming days to formally apply to the National Elections Board of Ethiopia (NEBE) for legal status as a coalition of political parties and to produce a series of internal committee work plans. Opposition leader Gebru Asrat insisted to emboffs on October 14 that the taking of these organizational steps does not mean the Forum, or any of its eight constituent parties, has made a firm decision to participate in the 2010 parliamentary elections or even to join negotiations ongoing among a handful of other parties, including the ruling EPRDF, aimed at producing an electoral Code of Conduct. Gebru added that Forum members continue to be discouraged by what he described as a disingenuous EPRDF offer to discuss bilaterally several issues of concern to the Forum -- including political prisoners, the administration of the elections, and the fielding of electoral observers -- only to have the ruling party refuse to engage substantively after a meeting was convoked. He said the Forum's participation decisions would be informed by EPRDF's willingness to engage on these issues henceforth and by the extent to which the government demonstrates a willingness to allow opposition party meetings to take place without preconditions, stops harassing and arresting opposition party members, and stops conducting massive arrests in Oromo areas. Although there remains serious doubt about the Forum's possible participation in the 2010 elections, these organizational steps, culminating in formal application for registration as a coalition of parties, should shift a measure of political pressure onto the NEBE. The Ethiopian Partners Group of ambassadors meets with the Forum on October ¶22. END SUMMARY. FORUM Getting Its House In Order -------------- ¶2. (SBU) Gebru Asrat, chairman of the opposition party Arena Tigray and newly elected vice chairman of the Forum's public relations committee, briefed P/E counselor and deputy counselor on October 14 on the Forum's inaugural General Assembly, held October 10, and described likely follow-on Forum steps. Characterizing the General Assembly as an occasion to take the largely ceremonial steps required to prepare the ground for the Forum to apply to the NEBE for party status, Gebru said Forum officers and committee chairs had been elected, a set of bylaws had been adopted, and the drafting of work plans had been assigned to the new committees. ¶3. (SBU Gebru noted that seven voting representatives of each of the eight parties making up the Forum attended the GA with eight officers elected from this group of 56 as follows: Chairman: Dr Merera Gudina, Oromo People's Congress (OPC) Vice Chair: Engineer Gizachew Shiferaw, Unity for Democracy and Justice (UDJ) (Elections Committee) Vice Chair: Professor Beyene Petros, United Ethiopian Democratic Forces (UEDF) (Organization/Party Committee) Vice Chair: Gebru Asrat, Arena Tigray (Public Relations Committee) Vice Chair: Bulcha Demeksa, Oromo Federalist Democratic Movement (OFDM) (Foreign Relations Committee) Vice Chair: Gu-Ush Gebreselassie, Ethiopian Democratic Union (Finance Committee) General Secretary: Tilahun Endashaw, Southern Ethiopia People's Democratic Union (SEPDU) Vice General Secretary: Boh Hussein, Somali Democratic Alliance Forces (SoDAF) The chairs will have terms of four months and will stand for election again in February, 2010 when two co-chairs will replace Merera to serve during the election season. The Executive Body will have two representatives from each party for a total of 16 members. Executive decisions will be made by consensus. ¶4. (SBU) Gebru said the five new committees -- elections, party/organization, public relations, foreign relations, and finance - are each be headed by an elected Vice Chair (indexed above) and will have an additional four to five members from different parties. Deliberation on work plans for each committee began on October 10 and is expected to take one week. The work plans will not be made public. ADDIS ABAB 00002511 002 OF 003 Registration Application to Be Submitted Soon -------------- ¶5. (SBU) The GA was observed on October 10 by Mr. Ermias, the Deputy Chief of the Secretariat of the National Election Board of Ethiopia (NEBE). The newly elected Chairperson and Vice Chairs signed the a slate of bylaws. Gebru said the Forum plans to submit the bylaws to the NEBE in the coming days as a required attachment to its formal application for legal status as a coalition of registered parties, but is concerned about a timely response. He said that according to law, if a response from the NEBE is not received within 30 days, an organization's registration is automatically affirmed, but in practice, this does not happen. Gebru noted that Merera and Bulcha's parties submitted a registration request to the NEBE for a coalition of their two parties several months ago and never received a substantive response, only interim responses that arguably tolled the 30-day clock. Their coalition is still not legally registered. Press Coverage Minimal; Small Protest by Former UDJ Leaders -------------- -------------- ¶6. (C) Gebru said that press coverage of the GA had been minimal. VOA and the German press had been invited, but did not attend. Amharic language news coverage was also generally sparse, but Gebru said his team would issue a press statement when the Forum presented its registration to the NEBE to make it a matter of public record. He also noted that there was a public protest of the GA launched by Professor Mesfin Woldemariam and other ruling members of the UDJ who had been removed from the party for disciplinary reasons. They protested outside of the meeting site and said the UDJ should not participate in the Forum. Aborted EPRDF-Forum Talks -------------- ¶7. (C) Turning to the Forum's participation in the "Joint Parliament of Political Parties" (as the talks on the Code of Conduct between the EPRDF and the opposition parties are now called),Gebru said the EPRDF had refused to engage on bilateral issues even after it had ostensibly agreed to do so. He described a September 29 letter from the Forum to EPRDF that identified several issues as "bilateral" -- including political prisoners, administration of the elections, and freedom of association - and asked that the ruling party discuss these with the Forum. A Forum-EPRDF was held on October 9 as a result but, according to Gebru, the EPRDF representatives simply dismissed the entire list as not appropriate for bilateral discussion vs. discussion in the ongoing general talks. Gebru insisted that CUDP and EDP, the two other regular participants in the Code of Conduct negotiations, would simply parrot EPRDF positions and make compromise impossible. (NOTE. We have separately been told that the EPRDF has additionally responded to the Forum by letter, reportedly to include an offer to discuss at least some of the requested issues on a bilateral basis. We have not, however, seen a copy of this letter. END NOTE.) International Election Observers Important -------------- ¶8. (C) Gebru described an overarching ability of the EPRDF to recruit new members and influence the results of elections at the local level. He said this state of affairs needs to be addressed by having foreign missions bring in elections observation teams. The EPRDF now has 5 million members, he said, a number large enough to crowd out neutral election officials or observers at the local level, so he finds the participation of international observers to be crucial. When queried on whether the Forum would participate in the elections, Gebru said it was still too early to say. He said the Code of Conduct was just a set of regulations which would be meaningless if it would not be enforced at the local level. What was more important to opposition parties, he suggested, was that government allow the opposition to conduct meetings without preconditions, stop harassing and arresting opposition party members, and stop conducting massive arrests in Oromo areas. Although the decision to participate will be taken later, it is likely opposition parties will not allow candidates to put themselves forward ADDIS ABAB 00002511 003 OF 003 if these types of government actions continue. ¶9. COMMENT. The Forum, frequently exasperating in its inability to make decisions, has at long last taken serious organizational steps. Although we have little confidence in the Forum's capacity to generate political momentum, we are reasonably certain that its taking of these steps -- holding a general assembly, electing officers, producing bylaws and a coalition manifesto -- will at least yield the further step of applying to the NEBE for formal coalition status. The NEBE could then find itself subject to EPRFD pressure to slow roll the registration process in potential violation of NEBE's own rules. Ethiopia could then have its first real campaign issue, pitting the NEBE and EPRFD against the Forum. The Democracy, Human Rights, and Good Governance subgroup of the Ethiopian Partners Group of ambassadors meets with the Forum on October 22. END COMMENT. Biographic Note -------------- ¶10. (C) Gebru Asrat was born in Mekele, Tigray region. He studied history and geography at the Addis Ababa University but after two years in late 1974 left to join the forces of the Tigrayan People's Liberation Front (TPLN). He was part of a small group of fighters, along with Prime Minster Meles, sent into the towns of Tigray. More of a political activist than a fighter within the TPLF, Gebru Asrat joined the Central Committee at the party's first congress in the Tigrayan region of Shire (after the 1976 "Fighter Congress") along with Meles Zenawi as well as with Seye Abraha, Awalom Weldu and Aregash Adane. After the July 1991 takeover by the EPRDF, the transitional parliament in 1992 redrew Ethiopia's administrative map, carving the country up on an ethno-linguistic basis into 14 regions, and later reduced it to 10. At the first regional vote held in June of that year to elect the State Councils, the highest political authority of the regional states, Gebru Asrat was elected head of the executive committee of the government of Tigray region. He won a new term in the May 1995 regional ballot. Gebru remained President of Tigray Region until his fall from grace in the spring of 2001. Gebru questioned the conduct of the TPLF group led by Meles Zenawi and accused them of being too soft on Eritrea and condemned the way the war with Eritrea ended. At first he was rather vocal and wrote critical pieces in private news papers. Following the arrest of Seye Abraha (de facto leader of the dissident group),Gebru Asrat kept a low profile until the formation of a new Tigrayan Party called Union of Tigrayans for Democracy and Sovereignty (UTDS) a few months ago. Currently Gebru Asrat is founder and Chairman of UTDS. MEECE