WHO: Chief Tedros is re-elected

It’s rare for a UN official to achieve global fame. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, known as Dr. Tedros, is an exception. 1.7 million people follow the WHO Director-General on Twitter, as many as the top UN chief, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. Tedros has been a constant presence for the past two and a half years. This was mainly due to a pandemic that has claimed more than six million lives, but also because Tedros is not afraid of the spotlight.

Tedros, WHO chief since 2017, was elected to a second term in Geneva on Tuesday. The 57-year-old was the only candidate. The country representatives in the hall applauded heartily, but the representative of Tedros’ home country Ethiopia was upset. Before the election, she wanted it to be clear that the African regional group did not vote unanimously for Tedros. Ethiopia does not do this.

The fact that the Ethiopian government rejected Tedros has nothing to do with his track record as WHO chief. But because she sees him as a party in the conflict tearing apart the country on the Horn of Africa. Tedros comes from Tigray, the region that has been at war with the central government in Addis Ababa since November 2020. Tens of thousands of people have fallen victim to the war in the north-west of the country so far – a very rough approximation, because little information is coming out of the conflict area. Journalists have no access. There is currently a ceasefire, but many experts believe it is just the calm before the next storm.

Minister of Health in the Development Dictatorship

Tedros is no ordinary Tigray. For a decade and a half he was one of the main leaders of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the organization that is leading the fight against the central government and has been declared a terrorist organization by the latter. From 1991 to 2018, the TPLF had been the de facto ruling party in Ethiopia. Mass protests and the rise of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed eventually ousted the party from power and back to its region of origin. Until war broke out at the end of 2020.

Tedros, who holds a degree in immunology and a doctorate in public health, served the TPLF government as health minister from 2005 and then as foreign minister from 2012. He was one of the best-known faces of a development dictatorship that in some years had the highest growth rates in the world. Minister Tedros did a great job for his country: he built thousands of new health centers and trained 40,000 volunteers to serve as the first point of contact for health issues in the communities. Infant mortality fell by a third during Tedros’ tenure.

In January 2017, a coalition of African and Asian countries elected him WHO Director-General. He was the first African to hold the post and the first non-physician head of the World Health Organization.

A year after Tedros left Ethiopia, the TPLF lost power. After two and a half more years, war broke out. The WHO chief had meanwhile become the top pandemic manager in the world. But the war at home caught up with him again and again.

Ethiopia writes a letter of protest

Shortly after the war began, the Ethiopian government accused Tedros of using his international connections to organize weapons and diplomatic support for the TPLF. tedros defended himself like thisas he defends himself to this day: “I only stand on one side, and that is the side of peace.”

The Ethiopian government doesn’t believe him. Earlier this year, she wrote a letter to the WHO accusing Tedros of pursuing a political agenda at the expense of Ethiopia. “He disseminated harmful misinformation and threatened the reputation, independence and credibility of the WHO.”

The trigger for the protest note: The WHO chief had complained that urgently needed relief supplies for Tigray in Ethiopia were being blocked. It was an accusation that numerous observers and organizations had also expressed – and which the Ethiopian government vehemently denied.

Tedros was not intimidated. In March, he said nowhere on earth is the health of millions more at risk than in Tigray. “This siege by Eritrean and Ethiopian troops is one of the longest and worst in modern history.”

His emotional comments on Tigray have brought a lot of trouble for the WHO chief. On the change.org petition platform, more than 55 000 signersTedros should be deposed and put on trial for his TPLF connections.

Tedros’ undiplomatic statements are by no means limited to the subject of Tigray. In the same speech in which he lamented the blockade of Tigray, he asked “whether the world really pays the same attention to black and white life” with regard to the Ukraine war. Crises in Yemen, Afghanistan and Syria, and – of course – Ethiopia, receive only a fraction of the attention that Ukraine receives. Tedros rounded off his accusation of racism with a reference to George Orwell: “Some people are more equal than others.”

Congratulations from home

The director-general’s often pronounced statements matched the drama of his first term in office. Even before the Covid pandemic, Tedros had to fight an Ebola outbreak in Congo-Kinshasa. Dozens of WHO workers were later accused of having Congolese women and girls sexually abused.

As Covid-19 spread around the world in early 2020, many felt the WHO chief had helped China cover up the outbreak. US President Donald Trump suspended his country’s contribution payments, which threatened the WHO with a financial crisis.

The worst part of the pandemic now seems to be over. It is an open question whether Tedros’ second term in office will also be less dramatic. The Tigray conflict continues, and the Ethiopian government is waiting for the countryman’s next undiplomatic statement in Geneva.

There was applause from home after the re-election anyway. He came from Tigray. “Congratulations, Dr. Tedros, to a well-deserved re-election!” wrote the TPLF spokesman Twitter. “Thank you, my brother, for the support,” Tedros replied.