A year after Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn came to power following the death of longtime leader Meles Zenawi in August 2012, the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) remains firmly in control. It has continued to govern through a collective leadership that includes three deputy prime ministers from the Amhara, Tigray and Oromo wings of the coalition; Hailemariam hails from the Southern People’s Party. Party discipline and coherence has held, although the lead-up to elections in 2015 may reveal destabilizing fissures. But while older opposition parties and armed movements have been marginalized, a social movement of Ethiopian Muslims [...]
During the first-ever business and commerce conference of the Indian Ocean Rim-Association for Regional Cooperation (IOR-ARC) in July, Indian Commerce Minister Anand Sharma called for an institutional mechanism to facilitate business interaction among members. Though the IOR-ARC has existed since 1995-1996, it has so far failed to emerge as a common economic platform, and India’s trade ties in the IOR region have progressed chiefly along bilateral lines. But with China’s economic overtures increasingly frequent and backed by commercial heft, India finds that it can no longer take its geo-economic position in the region for granted. To counter China’s commercial bilateralism, [...]
On Tuesday, South Sudanese President Salva Kiir dismissed his vice president and suspended the secretary-general of the ruling Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) along with all 29 Cabinet members and their deputies. The move, which was announced in a decree read on national television, comes as the newly independent country faces a host of challenges, including continuing internal violence and negotiations with Sudan, its neighbor to the north. “What we have been seeing in recent months is a more public and more tangible jockeying within the party as a prelude to the 2015 elections,” said Lesley Anne Warner, Africa analyst [...]
