US embassy cable - 05ADDISABABA3713

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 ADDIS ABABA 003713 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/26/2015 
TAGS: PGOV, PHUM, KDEM, PREL, ET, ELEC, UNREST 
SUBJECT: ETHIOPIA: OPPOSITION CUD SPLINTERING 
 
Classified By: CHARGE D'AFFAIRES VICKI HUDDLESTON.  REASON: 
1.4 (D). 
 
 
1. (C) SUMMARY.  The CUD, Ethiopia's largest opposition 
coalition, may be splintering over the question of whether or 
not to take its seats in Parliament.  As of October 25, at 
least 30 MPs-elect out of 109 had defied the party 
leadership's decision to boycott Parliament.  Lidetu Ayalew, 
one of the CUD's most charismatic young leaders, may leave 
the party within the next two days over differences with CUD 
president Hailu Shawel, though he has indicated he is 
unlikely to join Parliament immediately.  Lidetu told us that 
U.S./EU Troika-led discussions were having an impact on CUD 
hard-liners' views about joining Parliament, and should 
continue.  He also urged a high-level U.S. appeal for Hailu 
to abandon his hard-line stance.  END SUMMARY. 
 
2. (C) Opinion within the Coalition for Unity and Democracy 
Party (CUDP) on the question of whether or not to join 
Parliament has been divided for several weeks, but the 
coalition-turned-party had until recently been able to 
maintain nearly universal adherence to the party's decision 
to boycott Parliament.  In recent days, however, the party is 
grappling with two difficult developments: 1) the steady flow 
of CUD MPs-elect into Parliament in defiance of the official 
party stance; and 2) mounting tensions with Lidetu Ayalew's 
Ethiopian Democratic Party (EDP), one of the four parties 
that joined together earlier this year to establish the CUD. 
 
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Voting with their Feet:  30 CUD MPs Defy Parliamentary 
Boycott 
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3. (C) Speaker of Parliament Teshome Toga told Pol/Econ 
Counselor and EU Troika representatives on October 25 that 30 
CUD MPs-elect had registered their intention to join the 
Parliament, and 22 had already been sworn in.   Only a 
handful of CUD MPs participated in the Parliament's opening 
session on October 10, but the trickle has continued and 
accelerated somewhat in recent days.  The latest reports 
suggest that as many as 50 CUD MPs may have registered.  This 
erosion in party discipline, likely triggered by both the 
rebel MPs' desire to claim their salaries as well as concerns 
about potential GOE repression, clearly weakens the CUD's 
position in its ongoing confrontation with the EPRDF 
government.  CUD representatives have denied to emboffs that 
MPs joining Parliament are "real" CUD members, but they were 
clearly candidates who ran under the coalition's banner.  CUD 
vice president Lidetu told us that a number of those MPs who 
have entered Parliament come from his previous political 
party, the Ethiopian Democratic Union (EDP).  He added that 
he has allowed his parliamentarians-elect freedom of action. 
The GOE has so far avoided crowing over the CUD's unraveling 
boycott, probably to make it easier for more MPs to quietly 
enter the Parliament's chambers. 
 
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A Generational Battle within the Party 
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4. (C) Abdul Mohammed and Nebiyu Samuel (protect), leaders of 
a well-connected NGO called the InterAfrica Group, told 
Pol/Econ Counselor and deputy that the CUD was in danger of a 
formal split between "old guard" leaders CUD chairman Hailu 
Shawel and Central Committee member Prof. Mesfin Woldemariam 
on one hand, who seek to force the GOE out through popular 
protest, and those led by Lidetu Ayalew, who advocate a more 
patient opposition strategy in which CUD members take their 
seats in Parliament and Addis Ababa City Hall. 
 
5. (C) Nebiyu said that Hailu would likely seek to expel 
Lidetu, the former secretary-general of EDP who was elected 
vice president of the merged CUD in September.  Lidetu told 
us spearately that his party objects to the CUD's submitting 
formal merger documents requested by the National Election 
Board (NEB) at this juncture.  (NOTE: The state-run Ethiopian 
News Agency reported Oct. 24 that the NEB will not recognize 
the merger of the CUD until the four component parties turn 
in their previous party registration certificates; without 
such a document, the NEB holds that each of the four parties 
remain independent entities.  END NOTE.)  The CUD coalition 
was therefore unraveling, Nebiyu said.  He noted that 
expelling the Lidetu faction would not resolve the political 
crisis, since remaining CUD members would still be divided 
over whether to join Parliament.  Abdul added that the CUD's 
60-person Supreme Council failed to achieve a quorum during 
its October 24 meeting. 
6. (C) According to Abdul Mohammed, CUD leaders face severe 
pressure from hard-line opposition members in the Diaspora, 
who remain the most stridently opposed to joining 
Parliament.  Hailu has the strongest ties to the Diaspora, 
and thus maintains the most control over the CUD's financial 
resources and dominates CUD decision-making.  Abdul Mohammed 
pointed to Hailu's public insistence that he would not 
concede a single one of the party's eight pre-conditions for 
joining Parliament.  According to Abdul Mohammed, CUD 
moderates may be able to galvanize a simple majority of CUD 
leadership to overcome Hailu's objections if the GOE is 
willing to make some public commitments to reform restrictive 
Parliamentary rules and the NEB.  Abdul Mohammed argued that 
the only hope for preventing an implosion of the CUD was for 
the party to join Parliament, where diverse leaders and 
groups would have an opportunity to work out their 
differences and cooperate on a common agenda. 
 
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Lidetu: CUD Moderate Set to Jump Ship 
-------------------------------------- 
 
7. (C) Lidetu himself confirmed to the Charge and Pol/Econ 
Counselor October 26 that he expected the CUD executive 
council to expel him from the party that later that day.  The 
immediate cause would be his refusal -- backed by his former 
party's executive council -- to turn in the EDP's 
registration certificate to the NEB along with the CUD's 
merger approval request.  After initially arguing that the 
CUD had not advanced far enough on administratively 
integrating its four component parties, Lidetu later 
acknowledged that he was uncomfortable with the direction 
Hailu was taking the party and feared steps the GOE would 
eventually take against Hailu and the rest of the CUD 
organization. 
 
8. (C) The EDP's youthful leader said that 50 candidates from 
his organization had been elected to parliament under the 
banner of the CUD -- almost half of the 109 total seats the 
coalition was awarded.  Hailu's organization had won only 
four more than his.  Nonetheless, Lidetu indicated that he 
did not plan on leading his candidates into Parliament 
immediately, since this would make them an easy target of CUD 
hard-liners.  He alluded to attacks against him that had 
already begun appearing in Addis newspapers sympathetic to 
the opposition.  Lidetu said he would now be free to try and 
turn public opinion around on the question of entering 
Parliament, arguing that "PM Meles wants you to boycott." 
 
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Still Possible to Bring Hard-Liners Around? 
------------------------------------------- 
 
9. (C) Lidetu questioned whether Hailu and other CUD 
hard-liners were really prepared to undertake strikes and 
demonstrations.  Why hadn't they acted yet, if they were? 
Lidetu indicated that his strategy was to stake out a 
position distant from Hailu and then wait for the rest of the 
CUD to eventually come around to his view within the next two 
weeks or so.  The EDP's leader bemoaned the transformation of 
the CUD's mayor-elect for Addis Ababa, Berhanu Nega, from a 
young pragmatist into a close Hailu ally in recent weeks. 
Lidetu recalled that he had opposed Hailu and supported 
Berhanu for chairman of the CUD when the coalition was 
originally formed.   Berhanu told EU Ambassador Tim Clarke 
separately on Oct. 25 that he feared for Lidetu's life if the 
latter broke with the CUD leadership.  (Comment: the 
implication was that the threat would come from CUD 
supporters who favored a confrontational stand against the 
Government.  Berhanu may have been seeking to scare Lidetu 
into going along with the merger.  A private newspaper 
Berhanu controls published allegations that Lidetu had joined 
forces with the EPRDF.) 
 
10. (C) Lidetu urged Charge not to give up on bringing Hailu 
around, principally through making him understand the threat 
to his physical safety.  He said the GOE's threat to throw 
Hailu in jail for life if he continued to promote civil 
disobedience to oust the EPRDF had shaken Hailu.  Any 
progress the international community could achieve on 
reforming the NEB would also have an impact on CUD 
hard-liners' positions on Parliamentary participation, Lidetu 
said.  He also believed that an appeal from high-level U.S. 
officials to Hailu might also help sway the aging party 
president toward moderation. 
-------------------------------- 
Comment: Opposition on the Ropes 
-------------------------------- 
 
11. (C) Boycott-busting by a significant number of CUD MPs 
and the departure of Lidetu are seriously weakening the CUD. 
Ethiopia's largest opposition organization has appeared 
adrift for the last two weeks.  It is now even less prepared 
to undertake strikes or demonstrations successfully, or to 
withstand the GOE's likely reaction to such activity, than it 
was a month ago.  The break between the leadership of the 
other major opposition coalition, the United Ethiopian 
Democratic Forces (UEDF), and its Diaspora financial backers, 
further reduces the leverage of the opposition with a 
strengthened EPRDF.  Charge will continue to work with other 
international donors to bolster the legitimacy of the 
country's democratic institutions, with a focus on both 
Parliament and the NEB. 
HUDDLESTON