For the past year, I have
been predicting that the 2010 Ethiopian “election” will prove to be a sham, a
travesty of democracy and a mockery and caricature of democratic elections.[2]Without my literary and rhetorical flourish,
that is now the exact conclusion of the international election observers. The
“Preliminary Statement” of the European Union Election Observation Mission-
Ethiopia 2010 stated: “The electoral process fell short of certain
international commitments, notably regarding the transparency of the process
and the lack of a level playing field for all contesting parties.” The White
House issued a statement expressing “concern that international observers found
that the elections fell short of international commitments. We are disappointed
that U.S. Embassy officials were denied accreditation and the opportunity to
travel outside of the capital on Election Day to observe the voting.” Johnnie
Carson, the Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs in the State
Department told the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee that “we note with some degree of remorse that the
elections were not up to international standards… The [Ethiopian] government
has taken clear and decisive steps that would ensure that it would garner an
electoral victory.” Even Herman Cohen, the former U.S. Assistant Secretary of
State who served as “mediator” in the so-called May 1991 London Peace Talks
which resulted in the establishment of the Zenawi regime decried the outcome:
“This time opposition media and opposition groups were not given fair time on
the media and opposition media tends to be suppressed and in that sense I don’t
think it was a fair election.”
Only the 60-person African Union (AU)
observer team led by former Botswana
president Ketumile Masire
declaredthe “elections were
free and fair and found no evidence of intimidation and misuse of state
resources for ruling party campaigns.” Masire proclaimed:
“The [elections] were largely consistent with the African
Union regulations and standards and reflect the will of the people… The AU were unable to observe the
pre-election period. The participating parties expressed dissatisfaction with
the pre-election period. They did not have freedom to campaign. We had no way of
verifying the allegations.”
With all due respect to Masire, it seems
that he made his declaration clueless of the observation standards he is
required to follow in the AU Elections Observation and Monitoring Guidelines[Guidelines][3].
If he had done so, he would have known that there is no logical, factual or
documentary basis for him to declare the “elections were largely consistent
with the African Union regulations and standards.” For instance, pursuant to
Section III 9 (e) of the
Guidelines (“MANDATES, RIGHTS AND
OBLIGATIONS OF THE OBSERVERS”), Masire’s team had a mandatory duty to “observe the political parties and groups as well as the population at
large in the exercise of their political rights, and the conditions in which
such rights are to be exercised.” Masire by his own admission made no such
observation. (“The AU were
unable to observe the pre-election period ‘s team made no
such observation.”)Under Section V
(13), the Guidelines mandate that “AU Observers should ascertain that…
(b) all competing political parties have equal access to both the print and the electronic media (radio, T.V.).” Masire said his team “had no way of
verifying” pre-election complaints, including
complaints of unequal access to state-controlled media. Under Section V
(B) (d), the AU observers had a mandatory duty to ascertain “the
campaign process is conducted in conditions of serenity, and that there are no
acts of provocation or intimidation capable of compromising.” Masire’s team
failed to make such inquiries. Under section B (24), the Guidelines mandate: “The atmosphere during the
campaign should be carefully observed, and among the factors to consider in
this regard include … (iv) persistent or reported cases of human rights violations.”
Masire’s team does not appear to be aware of such a requirement, let alone to
actually make the observation. It is truly
regrettable to say of a former African leader that he showed no evidence of
having read or understood the numerous mandatory election observation duties
set forth in minute detail in the AU Guidelines before shamelessly and
pathetically declaring the elections “were largely consistent with African
Union regulations and standards.”
Where Do the Dictators
Want to Go From Here?
In his victory speech (an event billed as a public protest against
Human Rights Watch for its critical report on the regime), dictator Meles
Zenawi boldly stated that he ain’t going nowhere. He is staying put where he
has been for the past 19 years. It will be business as usual. The political
game will be played out on the same 19 year-old zero-sum field; and his team
will always win and everybody else will always lose. But there will be a change
in style, form, appearance and public relations in the post- “election” period.
Hide the Iron Fist in a
Velvet Glove
“Hide the iron fist in a velvet glove. Speak softly
and carry a big stick.” That was the essence of Zenawi’s “victory” speech
(a/k/a demonstration against Human Rights Watch) on May 26. It was a grotesquely Churchillian speech. It was Winston Churchill
who said, “In war, resolution; in defeat,
defiance; in victory,magnanimity”.
In the “election” battle, Zenawi was resolute. For months before election day, he
had threatened to prosecute opposition leaders for their “inflammatory” and
“hateful” campaign statements calculated to “incite violence”. He even
threatened to burn them at the stake if they withdrew from the elections at the
last minute and agitated the youth to demonstrate in the streets[4]. In his defeat — that is, the complete loss of
credibility that comes from winning an election with 99.6 percent of the
votes– he was defiant. (By the way, he gave
a solemn promise to the 0.4 percent of the people who did not vote for him: “I would
like to confirm to those who did not vote for us that we will work hard to look
into your reasons for not voting for us with the view to learning from them and
correcting any shortcomings on our part. We will work day and night to obtain your
support in the next election.” In 2015, the vote will be 100 percent for Zenawi
and his party!) In his 99.6 percent electoral “victory”, he
was magnanimous – “let bygones be bygones.” (yalefew alfwal.)
The velvet glove/big stick strategy is based on a
simple idea of totally demoralizing and humiliating the opposition, hoodwinking
the Western donors and simply fooling the people. Zenawi’s velvety message was
that he “does not want to be forced to embark upon
the business of tracking down people committing crimes. I would like to appeal
to some opposition parties… not to force the Government to take measures
against them.” He is still
carrying a chip on his shoulder from the drubbing his party got in 2005. The
opposition humiliated his party in 2005 by wining
every seat in Addis Ababa,
and now it is their turn to be humiliated. “It is to be recalled that in the last election, five years ago,
we, the EPRDF lost every seat in the capital due to our failure to achieve our
goals..” Not this time. We won them all. (Hee…hee). In 2005, the opposition accused
him of rigging and stealing the election; well, let them get a load this in
2010: “We all know the destructive
role some political parties have been playing so far. [They have] attempt[ed]
to mar and discredit the polling process. They have tried to cause delay by
instructing their observers to arrive late at the polling stations. They have
tried to disrupt the queues, make all sorts of shouts and cries,…[and even]
sen[t] in their members with grenades to detonate among people queuing at
polling stations… We have also observed successful and unsuccessful attempts
by members of some of the opposition parties to snatch away ballot boxes and
burn the votes of the people.”
But there is an olive branch extended to the opposition
wrapped in condescending cordiality and paternalism. Now that the opposition has been vanquished, they will be allowed
to lick the crumbs off the table (and the shoes of the victors) as long as they
keep their tails between their legs. “We make this pledge to all the parties
who did not succeed in getting the support of the people, during this election,
that whether or not you have won seats in the parliament, as long as you
respect the will of the people and the country’s Constitution and other laws of the
land, we will work by consulting and involving you in all major national
issues. We are making this pledge not only because we believe that we should be
partners… [but also] you have the right to participate and to be heard.” In
other words, we will let you speak, if we want to; and we’ll shut you up when
we want to. Your political existence depends on our good will, whim and fancy.
Birtukan
Midekssa, the first female political party leader in Ethiopia’s recorded
history and that country’s no. 1 political prisoner had said it all before she
was re-imprisoned for life in December 2008:
The message is clear and this
message is not only for me but for all who are active in the peaceful struggle. A peaceful and law-abiding political
struggle can be conducted only within the limits the ruling party has set and not according to
what the country’s Constitution allows. And for me it is extremely difficult to accept this.”
Now
that the “election’ is over, Zenawi will probably trot out the tired old “elders” to begin reconciliation talks to help
him buy time until the dust settles around the “elections” controversy. He may
even tantalize some opposition leaders with offers of fancy appointments and positions to divide and neutralize them. He is very good at the divide-and-rule thing, which he has successfully used for the past 19 years.
Unsurprisingly, some will
fall for his tricks, as history has shown time and again. He will make promises to
democratize, uphold the rule of law and all that just to buy enough time for
the opposition and the people to fall deeper into the vortex of hopeless and
despair.
The
bottom line for Zenawi’s regime is: For the foreseeable future, the opposition
will know who the Boss is; and they have any doubts, the iron fist will be
unsheathed from the velvet glove and the big stick pulled out to drive that point home. No political prisoners will be
released, including Birtukan Midekssa. More will be added. There will be no
independent press. Civic society organizations will not be allowed to operate
freely. Judges will remain in the back pockets of the ruling regime. Justice,
and pieces of the country, will be up for sale to the highest bidder; and on
and on. Business will be conducted in the same way it has for the last 19
years!
Hoodwinking
the Donors
The contempt
and disregard Zenawi has for the Western donors is exceeded only by his utter
scorn for the opposition. He warned
the donors with diplomatic finesse: “We have seen those we believed were
friends and partners behaving like king makers and an appeal court for Ethiopia’s
politics. Our proud people would still like to extend a warm welcome of
friendship and partnership. We say to you: Please give due respect to the
decision and the sovereign power of the people to elect their own leaders.” His
strategy in dealing with the Western donors is simple: He is the only game in
town. The donors have no alternatives to him because he has wiped out the opposition. The
donors want stability above all things and will tolerate anything he does. They
don’t really believe in democracy and human rights anyway; they believe only in
advancing their national interests. They do not have the guts to take any
action against him because he will threaten to cut them off and go with the
Chinese. In any case, they have never taken any serious actions against him and
never will. He regards them as a bunch of hypocritical, forked-tongue,
double-dealing and double-talking windbags. America is not going to do anything
because of her preoccupation with terrorism in the Horn. To ease the criticism
on the donors, he will give them diplomatic
cover by touting that he has achieved “double digit economic growth”, built roads,
schools and other infrastructure. In any case, if push comes to shove, he will attack
them by claiming that they are interfering in the country’s sovereignty and affronting
the Ethiopian people.
If
truth be told, Zenawi would not be necessarily inaccurate in his view. The U.S., Britain and the
European Union have poured in tens of billions of dollars of aid to support his
regime for nearly two decades while pontificating about democracy and human
rights endlessly. They took no action when he passed a so-called press law
criminalizing free speech and the free press. They just moaned and groaned about
it a little. They took no action when he passed a so-called civic society law
that effectively banned civic organizations. They have taken no action against
him despite a nearly two decade uninterrupted record of gross human rights
violations and criminality. All they have done is dump the blame on the
opposition: “There is no viable alternative in the opposition.” They know full
well that the opposition is subjected to daily threats, intimidations,
arbitrary arrests and detentions and violence, yet they have mustered the audacity
to blame them for being “not viable”. As
I have argued previously[5], the Western donors have entered
into a conspiracy of silence to see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil of
Zenawi.
You Can Fool
All of the People All of the Time on Planet Ethiopia
It is said that “you may fool all the people some of
the time, you can even fool some of the people all of the time, but you cannot
fool all of the people all the time.” Not so for Zenawi and company on Planet Ethiopia. If
you think you have fooled the people for 20 years, you can try and fool them
for another five or more. In his speech, Zenawi told the people:
The voters have given us their support freely and
democratically. Women are the real backbone of our organization… The youth of our
country who have started to benefit from the ongoing development. We are ready to learn from [our]
mistakes…. The important point in the election process is not the result of the election.
It is not about which party won the election. It is Ethiopia’s renewal. The winner is Ethiopia’s
democracy and all Ethiopians. We say congratulations to all the electorate and
to our country’s forces of peace and democracy… The residents of Addis Ababa are fully
aware of our respect for their decision. I believe that the people of Ethiopia,
beyond recognizing the efforts of the EPRDF and voting it into power have
unequivocally sent a clear message to the opposition parties in our country…
It is all about humility and how they can learn from
their mistakes and all of the improvements they will make to earn the trust and
confidence of the people and so on. We have heard it all before. No need to
recite that litany of lies and false promises. Of course, if Zenawi wants to find out the
truth all he has to do is ask the people one simple question: Are they better off today than they were in
2005?
I have expressed my views on
the limitations of the regime on previous occasions[6]:
The
dictators of Ethiopia
are trapped in a historical time warp. They have clutched the reigns of state
for two decades and ostentatiously display the trappings of political power and
wealth. But they have not been able to transform ‘bushcraft’ into statecraft… In
their armed campaign against the Derg junta, decision-making was left in the
hands of the few. The few leaders exercised raw, brute power over their
followers and the communities they controlled. They silenced dissent and
criticism ruthlessly, and leaders who disagreed were marginalised, labeled as
traitors and removed. Everything was done in secrecy. Power was understood not
as a public duty but as a means of self-enrichment, political patronage and
intimidation. Leadership meant the cult of personality. The best they have been
able to do is to transform the ‘politics of the bush’ fighting the Derg into a
one-man, one-party state, whose guiding motto is, ‘What is good for the
TPLF/EPDRF is good for Ethiopia!’
The transition from ‘bushcraft’ to statecraft requires tectonic
transformations. Democratic statecraft requires an appreciation, understanding
and application of basic democratic principles such as the rule of law,
separation of powers, checks and balances and constitutionalism in the
governance process. The dictators have little experience with or practical understanding
of such principles… They never had free elections in the bush; and it is no
wonder that they were totally surprised when they got thumped in the 2005
elections. Upholding the rule of law is absurd to them because they believe
themselves to be THE LAW… They scoff at civil liberties and civil rights as
Western luxuries because they never lived in a system where the powers of
government are constitutionally subordinated to the rights of the individual.
In short, it is wishful thinking to expect from them the kind of statecraft
necessary for democratic governance.
Mr.
Zenawi and company need to understand a simple fact about elections:
“Politicians are like diapers. They both need changing regularly and for the
same reason.” Arrrrgh! The thought of poor Ethiopia wearing the same diapers
for another 5 years….
Free Birtukan Midekssa and all political prisoners
in Ethiopia.
