Meles Zenawi

Meles Zenawi (Legesse Zenawi Asres) was born on May 8, 1955 in the historical town of Adwa, Tigray in Northern Ethiopia. He received elementary education at the Queen of Sheba School and completed High School in 1972 at the General Wingate School in Addis Ababa. He had joined the Medical Faculty at the Addis Ababa University (former Haile Selassie University) where he studied for two years. Meles Zenawi interrupted his work in 1974 to join the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). The TPLF was one of many armed struggles against the former dictator, Colonel Lieutenant Mengistu Hailemariam. He was elected Leader of the Leadership Committee in 1979 and Leader of the Executive Committee in 1983. He is now chairperson of both the TPLF and the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) since 1989. EPRDF is an alliance of the county's 4 main political parties coming from the Amhara State, Oromo State, Southern Nations Nationalities and Peoples State and Tigray State.

Upon defeat of the Military Regime known as Derg of Mengistu Hailemariam, Meles Zenawi became the Interim President of Ethiopia from 1991 to 1995. Meles Zenawi was then elected as Prime Minister and Dr. Negasso Gidada as President of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia in 1995; following the first electionws, boycotted by opposition parties. Then Prime Minister Meles was re-elected in 2000 and 2005 as Prime Minister of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, with His Excellency, Lieutenant Girma Woldegiorgis elected as President in 2001-current; term ending in 2006.

Prime Minister Zenawi served as the Chairman of the Organization for African Unity (OAU, now the African Union - AU) from June 1995 to June 1996. Currently he is serving as co-chairman of the Global Coalition for Africa. He has also been involved to end the civil wars in Sudan and Somalia, with talks with Sudan‘s Omar Al-Bashir and Somalia‘s Interim President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed. In 2004, Prime Minister Tony Blair of the United Kingdom appointed Prime Minister Meles Zenawi as one of the Commissioners taking part in the Commission for Africa.

Prime Minister Meles acquired a First Class M.A. (Masters of Arts) in Business Administration from the Open University of the United Kingdom in 1995 and a MSc. (Masters of Science) in Economics from the Erasmus University of the Netherlands in 2004. The Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has also received many Honorary Doctorate Degrees from many different Universities across the world.

Prime Minister Meles Zenawi is married to Ms. Azeb Mesfin and is the father of three children. Azeb Mesfin is now a Member of Parliament and chair of the Social Affairs Standing Committee. His hobbies are reading, swimming and tennis.