The Ethiopian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Taye Atske Selassie, was elected on Monday, October 7, by parliamentarians, the country’s president, an honorary position, replacing Sahle-Work Zewde, whose mandate expired at the end of October. In Ethiopia, although the president is officially the head of state, most of the power is in the hands of the prime minister.
Taye Atske Selassié, 68, succeeds Sahle-Work Zewde, who in 2018 became the first woman to serve as president of this East African country. She was one of only two female presidents on the African continent, along with Tanzanian Samia Suluhu Hassan.
“Taye Atske Selassie is elected new president of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia” with only five abstentions, announced the president of Parliament, Tagesse Chaffo, after the vote. Mr. Taye then took the oath of office in the presence of the Prime Minister, Abiy Ahmed, before the outgoing President handed over the Constitution to him.
Taye Atske Selassie becomes the fifth president of Ethiopia since the adoption of the 1995 Constitution. This text establishes that a president can be elected for a maximum of two six-year terms.
Mr. Taye was appointed in February 2024 as Minister of Foreign Affairs. He previously held the positions of Ethiopia’s representative to the United Nations (since 2018) and ambassador to Egypt (2017-2018). Sahle-Work Zewde, a career diplomat, took office just months after Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed came to power.
The latter received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019 after its rapprochement with Eritrea, almost two decades after a bloody war between both countries in the Horn of Africa. The country of some 120 million people then plunged into a bloody two-year war that pitted federal forces against rebels in the northern region of Tigray.
