Blue Party expelled its leader

Ethiopia’s main opposition party expelled its leader on March 28 accusing him appropriating a large part of the party’s fund for personal uses.
Yilkal Getnet, the leader of the opposition Blue party was ousted by the party’s disciplinary committee on allegations of improperly spending and taking money from the party’s coffer, and destroying documents. The party’s Audit and Inspection committee has yet to approve the decision. An extraordinary session of the party was called last week to investigate allegations of corruption by members of the ousted president’s close circle. Four others members of the leadership, including the party’s chief financier were also dumped by the party’s disciplinary committee led by Hana Walelegn, a loyal member of the party who has been increasingly vocal about the party leader’s accountability.
Yilkal Getnet, 38, was re-elected to lead the party for a second term on August 2015, after the end of his three-year-term. He was briefly arrested in December in Addis Ababa when protesting the conduct of the 2015 elections and his passport confiscated in April 2015 when he was about to visit the United States to rally support from the large number of Ethiopian expatriates living there. Yilkal sought to be a parliamentary candidate for the party in the elections held last year but he lost out in lottery that was organized by the electoral authorities because there were so many candidates in certain constituencies.