The death of Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi is bound to have enormous implications for security, politics and development in the wider East African region.

There is also anxiety about the stability and cohesion of the fragile nation, with its population of 85 million people of various ethnicities, following the exit of a strong man who ruled the country with an iron fist for 21 years.

Top on the agenda is regional security, particularly the efforts to stabilise Somalia. Those familiar with Ethiopia’s Somalia intervention say Meles employed multiple options to deal with Somalia in diplomatic, military and peacemaking dimensions.

“Ethiopia’s interventions in Somalia in 2006 and 2011 were driven by national security concerns due to perceptions that Eritrea was sponsoring Al Shabaab; Meles was trying to pre-empt Asmara from controlling Somalia, which he considered his backyard,” said Prof Amukowa Anangwe, a political science lecturer at the University of Dodoma, in an interview with The EastAfrican.

READ: Zenawi’s exit? Why EAC should worry

A section of civil society in Ethiopia and the diaspora have consistently argued that Meles’ policy on Somalia was driven by self-preservation rather than any desire to bring peace to Somalia.

Executive secretary of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (Igad), Mahboub Maalim, says that while the region will miss Meles for his contribution to peace in the region, the Somalia process is an Igad issue that does not depend on one individual country but is rather a collective effort.

Owing to Ethiopia’s strategic interests and historical rivalry with Somalia, experts on the region say interim Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn will continue with the policies.

Still, it is anticipated that the new leadership will be forced to give priority to domestic issues, such as possible rebellions by the Oromo and Ogaden and the increasing Muslim uprising, which would not leave much room for Ethiopia to play a critical role in Somalia.

Another question is whether Meles’s exit could see an improvement in relations between Ethiopia and Eritrea. Analysts believe that depending on how the Ethiopian succession is handled, Eritrea could take advantage of the absence of a strong man to reach out for a truce.

Eritrean issue

According to Dr Muhamed Ali, an expert on the politics of the Horn, Eritrea would be better off engaging the new leader in Addis Ababa because there is a concerted effort by the international community, especially the United States, the European Union and the United Nations to bring Eritrea back into the fold as a means of consolidating peace in Somalia.

The two countries fought a bitter two-year war between 1998 and 2000 over the border area of Badme. Till today, both continue to maintain standing armies of thousands of soldiers on both sides of the border.

One reason to hope for improved relations is that a good number of Ethiopians believe that the two-year war was mainly because of personal differences between the two former allies — Meles and Eritrean Prime Minister Isaias Afewerki — and that the situation could improve with a regime change.

After the war, the Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission, a body founded by the UN, established that Badme belongs to Eritrea, but Ethiopia has refused to hand it over.

Eritrea aside, there is also the question of what is likely to happen to regional mega-infrastructure projects Meles championed. One example is the Lamu Port-South Sudan-Ethiopia Transport Project joint project with Ethiopia and South Sudan.

Dr Mukhisa Kituyi, a director at the Kenya Institute of Governance, told The EastAfrican that, from his recent discussion with Zenawi only a few months ago touching on infrastructure development, the level to which Ethiopia had committed itself to infrastructure development in the region went beyond an individual.

“Nobody in Ethiopia will hesitate to go ahead with the project because it serves the country’s strategic interests. Indeed, Meles had expressed some frustration that he had been trying to get access to the sea through Kenya since Eritrea broke away but had been slowed down by bureaucracy in Kenya,” said Dr Kituyi.

Then there is the issue of whether Ethiopia will remain as a single entity, given that Meles was facing 12 ethnic-based armed insurgencies.
A Muslim uprising against government interference with their religious freedom is also gaining momentum.

In the past few months, Muslims, who comprise about anywhere from 45 to 51 per cent of the country’s population, have been holding street protests, accusing Meles of creating a quasi-Islamic sect that does not follow the tenets of Islam, but which is heavily funded by the state.

Experts on Ethiopia maintain that the country will remain stable so long as the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) holds together.

Additional Reporting by Argaw Ashine