Ethiopia's Parliament Approves Sahle-Work Zewde as First Female President

Sahle-work Zewde

Ethiopian parliament on Thursday approved Sahle-work Zewde as the country’s first woman president after Mulatu Teshome stepped down on Wednesday.

Zewde was until recently, the UN Director General at its offices in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. She is currently the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General to the African Union (AU).

Parliamentary members from the House of Peoples Representatives (HPR) & House of Federation (HoF) accepted the resignation of the former president Teshome Mulatu, before proceeding to elect Zewde to replace him.

Following her swearing-in ceremony, Zewde addressed the legislators, making a passionate appeal for peace in the country.

Zewde, also used the occasion to highlight the plight of mothers and women in Ethiopia, urging the lawmakers to work towards building a society that rejects oppression of women.

The East African nation with a population of over 100 million people, is currently plagued with bloody inter-communal disputes that have displaced 1.4 million people this year, according to the Geneva-based Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre.





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