EPRDF seems determined to dismantle and break up Medrek. As the May elections are a stone’s throw away, it appears that Medrek is still expecting a response from the EPRDF regime on its request to have a bilateral talk. Understandably, one would hope Medrek wants to include in the talks, just not the adoption of the Code of Conduct, but also confidence-building measures and quantifiable political space indicators (reconfiguring the election board to make it more independent, and the release of Birtukan and other political prisoners). If EPRDF continues to ignore Medrek’s request, then the coalition has to make plans for some serious decisions, decisions that one hopes would not perpetuate the one-party dictatorship in the guise of periodic and ritualistic elections, but decisions that might contribute to set Ethiopia on an irreversible democratic path.
Easier said than done.
Medrek is faced with a one-party dictatorship that consistently refuses to abide by its own constitution. Months after it was legally recognized, Medrek still has not been able to call even one mass gathering. Former state president and now co-leader of UDJ Negasso Gidada was a while back prevented from meeting his constituency in Wollega. Medrek’s member, UDJ, despite its recent legal request to stage a demonstration/vigil to request for the release of its leader, was refused and was forced to hold the vigil in the small compound of its cramped office. This is the dilemma for Medrek. A constitutionally given right to hold legal and peaceful demonstrations is curtailed by a new Code of Conduct article that negates it by derisively calling demonstrations “newt”.
Meanwhile, May is fast approaching. EPRDF is laying the groundwork for its victory lap by saying, among other lies and half-truths, that it has attended to urban unemployment that was neglected around 2005, and the votes from these newly-employed citizens would provide the victory it eluded it in 2005.
The election of 2005 has left a bad aftertaste in our collective mouths. In addition to the memory of our martyrs savagely slaughtered by the regime’s security forces, the opposition coalitions broke up into many parts following the election. One of the main reasons for the division was the question of entering and taking their seats in the rubberstamp parliament.
By now we have ample evidence at hand to show that opposition members of parliament have not been able to affect a single policy in the EPRDF-dominated parliament. Like a talk shop (and at times that luxury is not even afforded to opposition MPs), they have only been able to register their opposition whether on the question of the regime’s adventurous incursions into Somalia, or the adoption of the current Code of Conduct and the anti-free press and civil society laws. Nothing of substance beyond talk.
However, the question of participating in the May elections and taking up seats for the winners should not again ever divide the opposition coalition. Medrek’s unity and its staying power is of paramount importance as an opposition coalition now, and later in a post-EPRDF Ethiopia. Medrek should not allow the issue of elections and parliament be a divisive factor. Hence, fully knowing and drawing lessons from its experience that membership in the rubberstamp parliament is not the path to democratization, Medrek could decide to participate or not participate in this election. By participating and taking up their seats, Medrek members may garner some small advantages that may help in the long-haul, such as a limited legal immunity from EPRDF’s incessant harassment [although they may be stripped off that right anytime at EPRDF’s whims], and legal standing in their interactions with foreign diplomats and NGOs.
However, if we were to limit Medrek’s role here and for the leaders to just make a career or dual career out of parliament membership, we would condemn our country to a vicious circle of one-party dictatorship that gets life every 5 years from ritualistic elections and decorous protest. However hard it may be, Medrek must prepare itself to challenge EPRDF, within the bounds of the constitution, to fight along with the people for the rights in the constitution that EPRDF routinely denies the people. This requires psychological preparedness for the leaders and the people to engage EPRDF peacefully, uninterruptedly and all over the country in the streets, in the courts at schools and at work sites. This is a long term struggle that has costs. When one set of leadership is sent to jail, another should take its place to fight for their release in the courts [to appeal to those far and in between independent judges, and more importantly, to highlight and fire up the struggle] and in the streets to pressure EPRDF. The cunning EPRDF would and does undoubtedly criminalize any protest although the right to protest is enshrined in its own constitution, but this should not discourage the opposition.
It strains credulity for instance that University professors in Ethiopia, as the most enlightened in society, are not undertaking the signing and circulation of a petition demanding the release from prison of Birtukan Mideksa. It just shows a lot of work awaits and remains to be done.
It is important to recall what the late Dr. Eshetu Chole, a Marxist intellectual, said some 35 years ago in his inaugural address to university students: “I have 3 pieces of advice to you- ORGANIZE, ORGANIZE, AND ORGANIZE!”. This call still resonates and beacons.
This task requires for all the opposition forces to lend a hand. That is why we have been pleading with a sector of the opposition not yet allied with Medrek to make a common cause. The path of the Code of Conduct and the path of periodic and ritualistic elections without militant struggle for the rights of the people contained in the constitution only perpetuates EPRDF’s hated rule until one day the unorganized, tired and hungry people erupt to take matters in their own hands. And that scenario is not desirable as it is unpredictable.
Medrek and all home-based opposition are in the belly of the beast, unlike those in the Diaspora. The Diaspora’s role, although major, is limited. It is up to Medrek and others to put this country on an irreversible path of democracy and our people appear ready to pay the sacrifices. That the people have lost faith in these ritualistic elections after their vote was stolen in 2005 is signified by the recent low turnout of voters to elect local election observes [which EPRDF is again stacking with its cadres], that has forced the regime to rerun some of these elections.
The opposition should close ranks – the thing within their own control – and then prepare themselves for the militant struggle for the respect and dignity of the nation. It should be obvious by now should Medrek decide to go into the elections, going into the elections through Medrek’s strategy is starkly different than going into the election through the Code of Conduct path.
If anyone thinks that the Code of Conduct will bring relief to the nation’s malaise and may culminate in ending the one-party dictatorship, I am willing to host a beer summit, Ethiopian style, in the summer right after the election, where I will ask our untiring ethiomedia editor to moderate – a patriot who pores over and brings us on his esteemed website all these valuable essays written in Amharic, Tigrigna and English. I will admit at the summit how wrong I was and we will all click our beer glasses to democracy and Ethiopian prosperity! However, saying that the Code of Conduct path is a long-term investment and payoff may not come soon and we should be patient till kingdom come is a non-starter and a deal-breaker as it fatally sucks the hope out of our people.
On a serious note, as the late African American poet Audre Lorde said, we need to use the master’s tools to dismantle the master’s house. If her use of the word ‘dismantle’ is too radical for some, Henry Louis Gates Jr. has suggested to substitute that word with “modify”.
The next phase of the struggle must focus on forcing EPRDF to respect its own constitution by citizens who must actively and affirmatively exercise their rights contained in the constitution. One needs only to recall that although the constitution states that workers have the right to strike in Ethiopia, this right has yet to be exercised by a single trade union in the country more than a decade after the constitution was ratified. We hope a unified opposition, engaged in patient organization of its constituency will progressively lead the people to victory towards ending the one party dictatorship.
