Importance of election planning

Importance of election planning


April 12, 2014

Election is considered the crucial democratic
mechanism in all genuinely popular governments, is a system of free, fair, and
open elections. This mechanism consists of at least four essential elements.
Equal voting power for all citizens, voter’s right to access the facts, to
criticism, to competing ideas, to the view of all candidates, including the
extremists, freedom to organize for political purposes, and elections by
majorities

Short preview
of Ethiopia election history

Ethiopia
national election history   goes all the way back to prior Italian occupation
of 1931.  Emperor Haileselasse
granted the first constitution in 1931, which establishes Bi cameral parliament,
and the first parliament was established in 1936. Consequent to Haileselasse Government the Dergue
in 1975 come with an assembly of councilors. Lastly   The
Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (FDRE) come with a bi
cameral Houses. The House of People’s representative and the House of the
Federation, This year election of both houses is the fifth election after EPRDF
assumed the state power.

 The nation election History is close to a
century old but the knowledge and experience gained from history is very
limited or minimal. The nation involved in different commanded, self-serving,
nominal elections in consecutive governments. These elections have the same
goals with different names; they claim democracy as the best mechanism to
govern a complex society but not as a principle to secure liberty and equality
for all citizens of the nation.   They
also have more in commune than the package they are presented to the people.
They are clearly expressed by old saying they are “the same Wine in different
bottles.” None of these elections proves to the constituents the very four
essential elements of democratic election presented above in this article.

These
elections are determined by incumbents, our leaders assume the process without
the democratic principle because they want to look more popular government than
they are in reality. They tell as the vast majority of the people don’t know
what they want; they claim there is no centralized public interest.  They consider they know better to the public interest
than the public and they take a side that places authority in their own hands
and their stooge experts or  advisors. They don’t realize the
reality, as Aristotle one of the greatest Greek philosopher argued by saying “Also
an expert cook knows better than the non expert how
to bake a cake, the person who eats it is the better judge of whether it tastes
good. “or as A.D Lindsay put it “The average voter may
not know how government can stop his shoe from pinching, but he does know
whether it pinches or not.” 

The focus
of this article is not to argue why our consecutive governments’ prefers to
attach their   name with democracy as popular political means
rather than a principle, which stands for the benefit of all the people, or to
discuss the visibility   or invisibility
of the election politics in the current situation in Ethiopia. Regarding this
aspect several authors, political parties and professionals’ cloth to the
subject wrote their opinion the existence of very limited possibility or total
in possibility, of fair election.  Opposition
parties Base their struggle strategy by the party’s interpretation of the
political atmosphere, in the country and parties opted different struggle strategy.
This strategy is clearly divided based on their understanding and
interpretation of the EPRDF created situation. The writer of this article is
not trying either to prove or dis- proves the argument the narrow political
field in the country allows or not a democratic election.

In this
article the author main objective is to contribute same off the tools, which
must be used to wage a successful peaceful election. Remind the opposition to
learn from the factors of failure of 2007 national election, and plan for
successful election.   The author also  want    reminding
 the opposition who opt a peaceful
struggle to face the challenges is time to start thinking big and bold plan and
act proactively rather than reactively, in the coming 5th House of
Representatives and Regional State Council election.

Is obvious
each opposition party has its own strategy and tactic how to prepare for the
coming election;   it is understandable also
they are the one who directly feels the heat and they will get prepared to
protect or to mitigate the heat, but there is one reality which needs to be
told repeatedly. That is setting their goal, big, bold, and challenging   but practically achievable. Prepare, or make
a road map to achieve these goals, timely, with less sacrifice through
meticulously planning, managing and monitoring the election as a project and
apply successful management methodology of project management, walk to walk not
to be counted only as part of the walk. As Confucius Chinese most famous
philosopher once said” ultimate success comes from opportunistic bold and
planed move “(planed is added by the outer). Those who believe and stand
against seemingly in possible peacefully political struggle in always
diminishing political space in the country need to move with a road map in
their hand, holding neck to neck with the incumbent  Government needs a planned move.

In the coming
election the opposition must take in to consideration the existing political atmosphere
and plan proactively, see all the scenarios of election based on goals set by
the party, and plan appropriately. Plan not only the election also the risk
involved in the election and set mitigating solutions. The goal may be
challenging and requires uphill struggle but must be achievable. Considering
election as a project and managing it as a project avoids one of the main
failure factor registered in 1997 election, unplanned, spontaneous, and
majority vote decision actions.

Fortunately,
defying an election as a project simplifies the establishment of a road map
which helps as a guide for the election. It also helps to measures if the
planned goals were achieved or not to determine the election as a success or a
failure. The definition of success must be defined by the party and its
constituents in planning phase of the election project. The real test of
successful election project is whether the election is responding to the simple
equation the constituents sporting the party achieved their plan goal or not.  There are common benchmarks, which can be
considered for measuring   a success of an
election project such as-

The
achievement of the desired party  goals 

The degree
of solving or getting satisfactory answers to problems associated with the
election process and anticipated to solve.

The
accomplishment of the election project as planned

Other
indicators depending to the election  project

Every
field of end over has fundamental laws, principles, and procedures to follow in
achieving the desired goals. Election management project is not exception there
are important basic principles that can help to understand mundane practices in
successful election project management philosophy. An election project
management is accomplished through the application and integration of the project
management process of initiating, planning, executing, monitoring, controlling,
and closing

 The importance of planning in the coming House
representatives and Regional state Council election

Election
success or failure is a result of several factors, not one isolated factor.
Poor election planning takes a lion share out of these failure factors.
Election planning is a road map, which guide to arrive
the election goal successfully. Election plan sets a base for the election goal
accomplishment by defining the tasks to be covered to achieve the goal. In the
phase of election planning the essential points concerning the election gets
answered. The successful election plan summarizes what must be done, who must
do it, how will be done, what must be done, how much the election cost, and
what else needed to be done. Developing appropriate answer for these and others
election project question is half way to the election project solution. The
political power contending parties for 2014 House of representative and
Regional State Council have to evaluate their past and abandon the unplanned
election move in the form of campaign, REBEREB, and ZEMECHA, and accept an
election as a project, which needs a detail planning. Failure in detail
planning of an election project questions results in a failure and
disappointing results. James P Lewis in his book Fundamentals of project
Management emphasizes this steps of 
project Management by saying “ Good planning is essential for success
“ 

 As clearly seen understanding of what the
election  deliver, what the cost of
contending  will be, who is able to do
the work, which way the work must done, what is the expected benefit  and what the time frame to do it is determine
in  planning phase, which constituents
fever the specific party .  This helps
“to go or not to go” of to same constituencies for
the Election and redraw the election map of the party. From America election
experience is easy to observe political contenders invest more or abandon
constituents based on their information of the constituents’ inclination.  If these aspects are not clear there is not
adequate plan to achieve the election goal and this leads to the failure at the
end. Remember the saying “fail to plan is plan to fail “for poor planning which
leads to the failure of the election project.