By TESFALEM WALDYES
FORTUNE STAFF WRITER

The elected members of the Addis Abeba Regional Council of the CUD will establish a facilitation committee to take over the City Administration in a meeting that will be held at the conference room of the Addis Abeba City Municipality today, March 5, 2006.

The decision followed a meeting between members of the Council and officials of the National Electoral Board of Ethiopia (NEBE) on Thursday, March 2, 2006. NEBE had called elected members of the Council through the state media to meet and verify the petition that was signed two weeks ago and to discuss the takeover of the Administration. The ad hoc organizer committee of the elected members of the Addis Abeba Regional Council facilitated the signing of the petition after a meeting with ambassadors of donor countries two weeks ago.

The ad hoc committee claimed that 71 of the 138 elected members signed the petition. The number surpasses the 69 needed for the quorum in order to take over the Administration. Although NEBE shied away from the handover process after the failure of its first attempt in January 2006, it was back on track on Monday, February 27, 2006 when it met members of the ad hoc organizing committee.

NEBE originally called all members of the council for the handing over of the City Administration in January but only 54 showed up. The Board had to leave the next step to Parliament after submitting a recommendation based on its previous efforts. The number of council members that participated in the second meeting on Thursday was a smaller number than the previous one.

One of the participants of the meeting confirmed to Fortune that only 52 members attended the meeting. Kemal Bederi, chairman of the NEBE as well as Tesfaye Mengesha and Mekonnen Wondimu, deputy chief executive of the secretariat and acting registrar of political parties of the NEBE, were also present.

Sources told Fortune that the NEBE granted council elect until March 10 to organise all 71 members that had signed the petition to verify the signatures of the 19 that did not appear at Thursday’s meeting. 

The participant said that NEBE officials told the elected members that the handover of the Administration would be conducted according to the stipulations set by the Addis Abeba Charter. It states that the number of elected members should be above 50pc of the total.

The Addis Abeba Charter states that a political party occupying the majority seats in the Council should form and give leadership to the executive organ of the city. When a single party does not have the majority of seats, a coalition of political parties will form the executive organ. However, when the ad hoc organizer committee facilitated the petition, the council members signed individually.

Adugna Zelalem, member of the ad hoc organizer committee, told Fortune that the Charter clearly states that they should takeover the Administration as a party. He said that the process of establishing the CUD party (CUDP) is underway.

Another committee member said that they were given three options by NEBE when they spoke to the Board on the issue.

The member said that the first option is to establish the CUDP without the presence of UEDP-Medhin. Another is for council members that were elected representing UEDP-Medhin, but did not want to be a part of the existing party that is led by Lidetu Ayalew, to establish their own party and join the others to create a new CUDP. The last option is to collect 1,500 individual signatures, of which 40pc are gathered from Addis Abeba and the rest from four regional states. The member said that having chosen the first option, they would provide the necessary documents requested by NEBE for re-establishing the CUD as a party.

Although the four founding parties of the CUD announced their merger at the end of September, NEBE denied them recognition in October 2005, because the parties did not return the certificate of recognition that had been issued to them and did not apply for joint recognition at that time. Following the arrest of CUD leaders, and the seceding of UEDP-Medhin from the party, the process to fulfil the necessary documents to establish the CUDP was stopped.

Sources told Fortune that the process of establishing the CUDP is mainly being undertaken by the CUD caucus in parliament with officials of the three parties, such as Dr Alemayehu Areda of the Ethiopian Democratic League as well as Dr. Admasu Gebeyehu, former president of the UEDP-Medhin. Adugna said that for those who were members of UEDP-Medhin, CUD would reserve the seats that were formerly allocated for the party. He said that because the new CUDP would have the majority in the City Administration, it would work with UEDP-Medhin as a minority party.

Moshe Semu of the UEDP-Medhin has a similar opinion. He said that he would be happy if the CUD was revived again as a party and that his party would be willing to participate in the Administration as a minority. If a formal invitation was extended to them to work together with the other parties, the central committee of the UEDP-Medhin, which got a mandate from its general assembly in January 2006, will decide how to proceed, according to him.

UEDP-Medhin won 63, the largest number of seats in the council, the All Ethiopian Unity Party, the Rainbow Ethiopia Movement for Democracy and Social Justice and the Ethiopian Democratic League have a total number of 74 seats.