Eng. Hailu Shawel resigns from AEUP’s leadership

By Tamiru Geda

The leader of the All Ethiopian Unity Party, Engineer Hailu Shawel, decides to resign from his leadership .He also asked not to be called as President of AEUP, any more but he reveals his plan to continue as member of the party.

On the weekend , Eng.Hailu ,told the Aend- Ethiopia radio host (Washington based Amharic radio ) his resignation from the leadership wont affect the on going political activities that his party fights for . “My resignation would be a talk of the town for few days nothing else. The survival of our party is not depend on the certain individuals who always appear on the media ; it is the result of the youth. I would like to see more young members in to the leadership ,” Hailu urged . thouh he declines to disclose about the potential nominees of his successors , local sources said that Major Getachew Mengistie, Dr. Tadoius Bogale, Ato Yakob Lekie( brother of the late Senaie Lekie, who lost his life during the Dergue time ), Ato Sameson Akililu, Ato Mamushit Amare and Ato Abaynhe Brehanu are believed as the main contenders for the top AEUP’s leadership.

Regarding to his political experiences, Hailu said that he has learned about meaning of TRUTH “ In politics you might presume truth would prevail , but such imagination doesn’t work at all . We are betrayled and fooled by the EPRDF .And we call for the re run . But ,as long as the current Electoral Board is in office, nothing would happen in Ethiopia , but spending public money . I thought EPRDF would learn good lesson from the controversial May 2005 election , but we witnessed that nothing has been improved in their minds .And the recent election was thoroughly pre- planned by the ruling party. Ballots boxes were filled 15 days before the actual polling day. EPRDF use the so called “5 to 1 system” ie one EPRDF’s member is responsible to persuade four other voters to vote for EPRDF. We submitted all the evidences to the EU observers’ team” Hailu said .

Eng. Hailu,74, contributed to the transformation of the All- Amahra People Organization (AAPO) in to multi-ethnic AEUP. Despite those facts, he was also subjected for several criticism in the post -2005 election .Particularly, following the division in the Coalition for Unity and Democracy(CUD) leadership ,a party comprised of four different parties :United Ethiopian Democratic Party- Medhin party, Ethiopian Democratic League, Rainbow Ethiopia :Movement for Democracy and social Justice and All Ethiopian unity party .Hailu and his party, AEUP, withdrew from the collation and decide to continue their struggle with in Ethiopia. He said:” From the beginning ,we knew that there was no democracy at all after the 2005 election and that is the main reason why we agreed to face those challenges in the May 2010 election ; otherwise, if there was democracy in Ethiopia, elderly people like me shouldn’t have come in to politics. For us, exposing the wrong doing of EPRDF is big deal.”

Many political activists and critics have been preaching about the necessity of change and reformation in the Ethiopian political leadership .It is said mainly dominated by politicians from the old generation . A recent proposals that has been delivered by most political parties , including the ruling party , to replace old politicians by new bloods and personalities , is considered vital in transforming the traditional way of politics and administration that rely on certain individuals

Special to NewsDire.com