Demeke Mekonnen

Demeke Mekonnen Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister gave a panicky briefing to select Western diplomats the next day a precursor to the federal forces' questionable offer of a 'humanitarian ceasefire' as it fled Tigray...

Yet this faux pas was certainly signed off by the Foreign Minister Demeke Mekonnen who is also Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's deputy...

And days after fighting began in Tigray Abiy increased the power of leading Amhara figures in government by adding the post of Foreign Minister to Deputy Prime Minister Demeke Mekonnen's portfolio moving Gedu Andargachew from foreign affairs to the post of National Security Advisor and appointing former National Security Advisor and Amhara President Temesgen Tiruneh as intelligence chief...

Abiy's plenipotentiaries to persuade neighbouring countries of the rightness of his cause include: Deputy Prime Minister Demeke Mekonnen now also Foreign Minister who has visited Uganda and Kenya; former Foreign Minister now National Security Adviser Gedu Andargachew who went to Djibouti; and President Sahle-Work Zewde herself who attempted to bring round Khartoum...

Abiy appointed Deputy Prime Minister Demeke Mekonnen foreign minister and moved Gedu Andargachew from foreign affairs to National Security Advisor...

He replaces Demeke Mekonnen the ANDM's leader who had only been in the job for six months (AC Vol 59 No 7 Abiy makes a promising start)...

An immediate rival of Abiy for the premiership Shiferaw Shigute from the south was given an expanded Agriculture Ministry while another Demeke Mekonnen from the Amhara National Democratic Movement remains Deputy Prime Minister...

What seems fairly clear is that the decision of the Deputy Prime Minister and EPRDF Deputy Chairperson Demeke Mekonnen to withdraw from the race was critical...

With the schedule unclear the EPRDF now has to choose between: Abiy; Shiferaw Shigute boss of the EPRDF Secretariat and Hailemariam's replacement as head of the multi-ethnic Southern Ethiopian People's Democratic Movement (SEPDM); and Demeke Mekonnen who is Deputy Prime Minister Deputy Chairman of the EPRDF and Chairman of the Amhara section of the Front the Amhara National Democratic Movement (ANDM)...

Deputy Prime Minister Demeke Mekonnen the head of the Amhara National Democratic Movement is a case in point: a politician who doesn't command the respect of the people and is not known as a sophisticated problem-solver (AC Vol 56 No 7 Easy on the landslide)...