Ethiopia Gets First Female President In Sahle-Work Zewde
Ethiopian
members of parliament have elected Sahle-Work Zewde as the country's first
female president.
Ms
Sahle-Work is an experienced diplomat who has now become Africa's only female
head of state.
Her election
to the ceremonial position comes a week after Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed
appointed a cabinet with half the posts taken up by women.
After being
sworn in, President Sahle-Work promised to work hard to make gender equality a
reality in Ethiopia.
Addressing
parliament, she also pledged to promote peace: "I urge you all, to uphold
our peace, in the name of a mother, who is the first to suffer from the absence
of peace.''
The new
president was keen to make a point about gender equality right from the start,
telling MPs that if they thought she was talking too much about women, she had
only just begun.
There may
now be male-female parity in the new cabinet but elsewhere there is still a
long way to go.
Ms
Sahle-Work's appointment has been welcomed by Ethiopians on social media with
many calling it "historic".
She has been
described as Ethiopia's first female head of state of the modern era, with some
remembering Empress Zewditu who governed the country in the early part of the
20th Century.
Ms
Sahle-Work was voted in after the unexpected resignation of her predecessor,
Mulatu Teshome.
The prime
minister's chief of staff, Fitsum Arega,
tweeted that "in a patriarchal society such as ours, the
appointment of a female head of state not only sets the standard for the future
but also normalises women as decision-makers in public life"
President
Sahle-Work has served as an ambassador for Ethiopia in Senegal and Djibouti.
She has also held a number of UN positions, including head of peace-building in
the Central African Republic (CAR).
Immediately
before becoming president, Ms Sahle-Work was the UN representative at the
African Union.
In the
Ethiopian constitution, the post of president is ceremonial with the prime
minister holding the political power.
The last
African female head of state was Mauritian President Ameenah Gurib-Fakim, who resigned
in March over an expenses scandal. She denied any wrong doing.
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