Who will be the next resident of the Jubilee Palace?

For reasons that ought to be of no surprise, the larger public has been keen to discover who the next resident of the Jubilee Palace, on Menelik II Avenue, will be. The local media has been hard pressed to quench the information thirst, only able to provide wild speculations on individuals thought to have the charisma or background to be of the taste of the Revolutionary Democrats, gossip observed.

One such exercise was carried out by those in the social media, where more than 8,700 people cast their votes on the Facebook page – Shadow Election Ethiopia – up until noon on Saturday, gossip noticed. If it was for the wishes of virtual citizens, aka as Facebookers, Eleni Gebremedhin (PhD), an American educated economist who made a name from her years at the Ethiopian Commodities Exchange (ECX), would have passed with flying colours.

It is little surprise that Eleni received the most votes, but the large margin between her and the nearest contender, Haile Gebresellasie (Major), was astounding. While she managed to amass over 60pc of the virtual votes, Haile trailed behind with closer to 20pc, gossip noted. Eleni and Haile are among prominent Ethiopian individuals with no background in power politics; a list that also includes Girma Wake, the former CEO of the Ethiopian Airlines. He got virtual votes amassing less than 20pc, putting him in third place, alongside Bulcha Demekssa, a retired finance expert who has led an opposition party over the past 10 years.

The rank of opposition swelled in the poll, with politicians such as Negasso Gidada (PhD) of the Andinet Party, who was the candidate with the lowest votes, and Hailu Shawel (Eng) of the AEUP, fourth in the poll taking the interest of Facebookers. The odds are, of course, Asheber W. Giorgis, a current MP with no political party affiliation, and Brehane Deressa, the former mayor who led the caretaker administration of Addis Abeba in the mid 2000s. Both received less than 20pc of the votes.

Interestingly, the same number of Facebookers voted for Abadulla Gemeda, speaker of Parliament, as they did for Hailu. Abadulla’s comrades in the OPDO – Kuma Demekssa, former mayor of Addis Abeba, and Aster Mamo, government whip in Parliament – have fallen in the middle of the vote matrix.

Nonetheless, to the disappointment of those who took part in the poll, the democratic exercise of the virtual world has a resemblance neither to the real world nor the culture of the Revolutionary Democrats, who control both houses of legislation and have the power to pick the next president of the nation. Indeed, the EPRDFites are always keen on surprises, gossip observed. It is as if they like to disprove everybody else, in a process where the whole nation is left in the dark for months on who will symbolically represent them for five years, gossip claims.

Despite wild speculations, however, whoever the Revolutionary Democrats pick is scheduled to walk out of parliament on Monday afternoon and enter Hailesellasie’s Jubilee Palace at 3pm, gossip says. This event will no doubt be broadcast live.

The selection process is kept so tight-lipped and confidential, even individuals thought to be close to top echelons of the EPRDFites do not know any better than those speculating from afar, gossip observed. Yet, gossip claims that the EPRDFites have installed a headhunt committee chaired by Abadulla, which has presented its favourite candidate for the presidency at the party’s central committee meeting, held on Saturday afternoon.

Despite claims in the public sphere, the EPRDFites have little appetite to give the presidency to anyone outside of their circle, gossip heard. And the strongest candidate, with the best chance of taking up residence on Menelik II Avenue, would be Mulatu Teshome (PhD), the current ambassador to Turkey.

Mulatu was Vice Minister of Economic Development & Cooperation under Girma Biru back in the mid 1990s, before he was promoted to Minister of Agriculture in 2001, where he had a short debut. A Central Committee Member of the OPDO since its second congress in 2001, he was then made to serve as the Speaker of the House of Federation, between 2002 and 2005, disclosed gossip.

It was not clear whether the meeting held on Saturday afternoon had indeed picked Mulatu as the next president, for gossip has failed to confirm prior to going to press. If that be the case, come Monday, Ethiopia welcomes a new symbol of a nation, claims gossip.


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