Ex-Ethiopian Rebels Form Interim Regime

A transitional government made up of former rebel groups was formed Friday to prepare Ethiopia’s first democratic elections, but secessionist Eritrean leaders refused to join the alliance.

The government, which is dominated by guerrillas who toppled former President Mengistu Haile Mariam in late May, inherits an empty treasury, heavy debts and the problem of feeding as many as 7 million famine victims.

Established at the close of a weeklong national conference, the new government is to draft a new constitution and hold elections within two years.

The government--an 87-member Council of Representatives--is made up of 27 ethnic and political groups, and is dominated by two of the three former rebel groups that ended Mengistu’s 17-year Marxist rule and drove him into exile.

The Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front, a coalition of four parties that has acted as an interim government, received 32 seats. The smaller Oromo Liberation Front got 12. The remaining factions received between one and three seats apiece in a deal forged beforehand.

Meles Zenawi, the Revolutionary Democratic Front leader who chaired the conference, said the council of representatives would meet for the first time within a week or two.

It will choose the transitional president, who will name a prime minister, who will then select a cabinet. Meles is considered the likely choice to become the transitional president.

The Eritrean People’s Liberation Front, which fought for 30 years for the liberation of Ethiopia’s northernmost province, declined to participate in the transitional government. But its leaders attended the conference as observers.