Lidetu Ayalew
| Lidetu Ayalew ልደቱ አያለዉ |
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|---|---|
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In office 2005–2010 |
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| Member of Parliament for Ethiopian Democratic Party |
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| Personal details | |
| Born | 1969 Lalibela, Ethiopian Empire |
| Nationality | Ethiopian |
| Political party | Ethiopian Democratic Party |
| Profession | Politician, Ex-Opposition party President |
| Religion | Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo |
Lidetu Ayalew (Ge'ez: ልደቱ አያለዉ) is an Ethiopian opposition politician who was the President of the Ethiopian Democratic Party. He was born in 1969 in the historical town of Lasta, Lalibela, Ethiopia - also known as Bugna woreda.
Lidetu came from a modest background, working in NGOs but later to owning a profitable auto import business. Mr. Lidetu rose to political prominence by forming the Ethiopian Democratic Party (EDP) in 1992 with an initial membership of 120 men and women. He was the secretary General of the EDP until he led the forming of a new coalition called UEDP, which later join Medhin and became UEDP-Medhin. Over the years, he has been a thorn on the side of PM Meles Zenawi and the ruling EPRDF party by matching Meles' rhetoric word-to-word. He organized various demonstrations protesting some of the policies of the government, particularly alongside students. One of his achievements was his organizational role in founding the CUD (Kinijt) and bringing it to national political dominance. He was the vice chairman of this coalition party until internal issues caused the coalition to break up. The coalition Kinijit party won 109 of the 546 seats in the government, however when Mr. Ayalew's UEDP-Medhin party split from Kinijit, it took some of their seats as well. UEDP-Medhin had won the majority of seats in the Addis Ababa council at the 2005 elections.
His party is also known for starting a new movement called "the Third Way." While some Ethiopians including Berhanu Nega disapprove this concept, other state that it is a progressive and exemplary political concept.
After the elections, Lidetu authored a book called Yearem Ersha (Amharic, "The weed farm"). In his book, he detailed the foundation of his party, the issues resulting to the breakup of the Kinijit party and the general elections. He also discusses the big gap in the thinking between Ethiopian politicians from the 1970s and early 1980s as compared to politicians from 1990s and 21st century. He concluded that both the old politicians of the ruling party and various opposition parties have been clearly ineffective and inflexible. He stated that no matter how democratic they claimed to be in public, the older groups had the remnants of the old leftist Ethiopian movement as opposed to the 1990s democratic school of thought his party developed.
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