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Opposition in walkout as Meles appoints city caretaker authority

[Ethiopia] Ethiopian Prime Minister - Meles Zenawi. IRIN
Prime Minister Meles Zenawi.
Members of Ethiopia's main opposition party walked out of parliament on Tuesday to protest the nomination of a caretaker authority to run the capital, Addis Ababa, despite the opposition's victory in the city during elections in May 2005. Sixty legislators from the Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD) walked out after Prime Minister Meles Zenawi named an interim mayor and a nine-member, politically neutral panel to administer Addis Ababa for the next year. "The right of the people of Addis Ababa has been snatched away today," Mohamed Ali, a CUD parliamentarian, said. "This is a terrible defeat of democracy." The CUD had won 137 of the 138 seats on the city council in the election. "This will never replace the people's voice," said Temesgen Zewdie, the new chairman of the CUD. "This is not a solution - the solution is dialogue." Meles's ruling Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front won the 2005 parliamentary elections, despite massive gains by the opposition, which won 152 seats in parliament, up from just 12 in the previous house. However, the arrest and treason trial of its leaders has prevented many of those elected from taking their seats in Addis and delayed the appointment of a mayor. "We have been asking the government to seek a political solution and free our leaders in jail so that the people of the city would be governed by the people they voted for," Temesgen told reporters, adding that the walkout was a symbolic gesture and the MPs would return to their seats in the next session. Meles told parliament the CUD members elected to Addis Ababa's council did not constitute a quorum to take over the administration by an 18 April deadline set by parliament. "The deadline has been repeatedly extended," he said. "To do the same again would only drag the state of affairs further down rather than improve it." The prime minister proposed Berhanu Deressa, a former World Bank employee and United Nations diplomat, to serve as mayor. "The provisional administration must mainly focus on economical and social development issues," he said. Meles's proposal was endorsed by 300 MPs. Fifty-four were against the decision, and eight abstained. The trial of 111 CUD leaders, civil-society activists and journalists began on Monday in Kaliti, 24km south of Addis Ababa, with the prosecution presenting evidence. The defendants had been arrested following election-related clashes between protesters and security forces in June and November 2005 in which at least 80 people were killed.

This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions

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