Meles Zenawi was reelected as Ethiopian prime minister for a third five-year term on Monday by the House of People's Representatives, lower house of parliament, which opened for the first time since the May 15 parliamentary elections.

Following is a biography of the reelected prime minister.

Meles was born in 1955 in Adwa, North Ethiopia's Tigray region. He received elementary education at the Queen of Sheba Junior Secondary School in Adwa and completed high school in 1972 at General Wingate School in Addis Ababa. He then joined the Medical Faculty of the prestigious Addis Ababa University where he studied for two years.

Meles interrupted his studies in 1974 to join the Tigrai People 's Liberation Front (TPLF) in the fight against the previous Derg regime. He was elected to the leadership committee of the TPLF in 1979 and to its executive committee in 1983. He is chairman of both the TPLF and the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) since 1989. The EPRDF is a political alliance of the four main political organizations in the country.

Upon the defeat of the military junta, Meles became president of the transitional government from 1991 to 1995. He was elected prime minister in 1995 and reelected for a second term in 2000.

He served as chairman of the defunct Organization of the African Union from June 1995 until June 1996. He is serving as co- chairman of the Global Coalition for Africa. He has also been actively involved in the efforts of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development to end the conflicts in Sudan and Somalia, and Africa's initiatives to seek a solution to the crises in Burundi. In 2004, he was appointed by British Prime Minister Tony Blair as one of the commissioners taking part in the Commission for Africa.

Meles acquired a master degree in business administration from an open university in Britain in 1995. He is married and is a father of three. His hobbies are reading, swimming and tennis.

Source: Xinhua