Just like the communist Party of China, EPRDF as a political machine boasts 5 million members. This is equal to about one in 7 adults. The China communist party’s membership by mid-2009 stood at 76 million, equal to about one in 12 adult Chinese. Meles Zenawi, it seems, is even outsmarting the Chinese. How then one expects to win any election in such a system? I think pretty soon even the Chinese will emulate Meles on how to stage a completely fake election and win by a landslide.
Peel the disguise of today’s EPRDF model, EPRDF looks much more communist than it does on the open road. Vladimir Lenin would have no problem recognizing the model immediately. The EPRDF Communist Party’s enduring grip on power is based on a simple formula straight out of the Leninist playbook.
This is only one side of the story. The other side which is very unnerving and frustrating is the futile exercise by the opposition parties to dislodge Meles from power by participating in a political game the rules of which is written by him alone and where the referee are not the populace but his own henchmen.
Since installing itself as the sole government authority in 1991, EPRDF and its leaders have placed its members in key positions in every arm, and at each level, of the government. The media is under the control of the communication-read as- propaganda department. To guard itself from any potential challenge, the Party has kept ample power in reserve, maintaining a tight grip on the military and the security services, the ultimate guarantors of its rule. The police forces from the Federal to the local have within them a “security/spy department,” the role of which is to protect the Party’s rule and silencing any dissent before they can gain a broad audience.
Like communism, EPRDF has eradicated or emasculated political rivals; successfully established a puppet judiciary; denigrated rival versions of nationhood; centralized political power; established extensive networks of security police capable of infiltrating any and all opposition parties; and dispatched dissidents to prison and/or abroad.
EPRDF has teetered on the verge of collapse in the aftermath of the 2005 election defeat. Yet, with brute force and ruthless tactics, it has picked itself off the ground, reconstituted its armor and reinforced its flanks. So to the disappointment of millions upon millions of Ethiopians, it has outlasted, outsmarted, outperformed or simply outlawed its critics so far.
In just 20 years, the party elite have been transformed from mere zealots of Albanian brand of communism to a wealthy, ‘business-friendly’ ruling class with a façade of democracy.
Unless and otherwise Ethiopians of all walks of life join hands regardless of political persuasion in a concerted effort to abort the EPRDF scheme to ‘rule’ Ethiopia in perpetuity, we will soon find ourselves shackled by the ever refined political machine of Meles Zenawi even after he departs the scene.
