Wednesday, September 04, 2019

Addis Ababa Amhara Democratic Party Committee Condemns Personality Cult and Dictatorship in the City Administration
Amhara Democratic Party Addis Ababa chapter vows to struggle to fix social, economic as well as political challenges for the residents of the city.

A picture from the meeting of Amhara Democratic Party Addis Ababa Committee. Credit: AMMA

Borkena
September 2, 2019

Amhara Democratic Party (ADP) leaders based in Addis Ababa had two days meeting in the capital.

Based on a report by Amhara Mass Media Agency (AMMA), the two days meeting which ended on Sunday, September 1, 2019, was intended to evaluate the performance and identify strengths and weaknesses during the Ethiopian year 2011 which is concluding.

It has evaluated that numerous successes were attained in terms of putting the ongoing “change” in the right path from the point of view of making residents in the city beneficiaries from it and to ensure continuity of it.

However, the meeting also noted, according to AMMA report, that the ending year was a year during which the party experienced internal and external challenges including the killings of ADP leaders and displacement of people.

And the leaders in Addis Ababa have issued eleven-points declaration which identifies focus points for “the next level of the struggle.”

The “change”, critical political pundits tend to see it rather as a reference to the coming to power of Abiy Ahmed and his half-hearted reform measures, said ADP Addis Ababa declaration, is facing challenges from different forces (seemingly political) whose intent is to obstruct it from being institutionalized, by putting it in a negative light – among other ways, and the party vowed to struggle against it.

The Addis Ababa chapter also hopes to work relentlessly to ensure participation of residents, especially youth and women, in the development and good governance works in the Ethiopian capital, and that they are beneficiaries of it.

Ensuring peace, the rule of law and the unity of residents of Addis Ababa are other goals that the party will work on in the coming Ethiopian year, based on AMMA report.

Another perhaps more critical evaluation and declaration are in the use of mass media in the city. The party leaders in Addis Ababa believe that the media instead of exploiting it as a tool to highlight the city’s prosperity, diversity, and feelings of residents in the city, it has focused on building a personality cult. ADP says that such a practice does not just benefit anyone but it could also nurture populism and stand in the way of making sustainable development of the city and peace an inclusive agenda.

The Addis Ababa Branch of the party also condemned that dictatorship is in the making in the city as appointments for various administrative positions in the city are based on the interests and decisions of an individual rather than systemic process. Making human resource allocation based on the institutional system in all layers of the city administration is another goal that ADP leaders in Addis Ababa will struggle for.

With regards to struggling for the people of Amhara, the ADP Addis Ababa said that the narrative that targets to make ethnic Amhara vulnerable for attacks is raising its head again and attaching labels so as to make them targets of hate and the declaration warned those forces engaged in such action to refrain from it. It also called for the immediate release of those who are arrested illegally.

Abiy Ahmed’s administration has arrested members of Addis Ababa Baladera Council, a movement for Addis Ababa under the leadership of Eskinder Nega. The movement advocates that Addis Ababa belongs to its residents and no ethnic group can claim exclusive ownership. It also advocates that Addis Ababa needs to have an elected mayor, not an appointed one.

Amhara Democratic Party, too, believes that Addis Ababa belongs to all its residents.

Radical ethnic-Oromo nationalists claim exclusive ownership right over Addis Ababa. In fact a new movement that is working to establish an ethnic Oromo Orthodox church made this week a claim that all the churches in Addis Ababa should change their services to Oromo language because “Addis Ababa belongs to Oromo.”

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