Ethiopian

               

Ethiopian
Elections and U.S. Geopolitical

 Interests
in the Horn of Africa

By Balager
Tesfaye (February 26, 2005)

 

We have taken part of the title from USAID/Ethiopia:
Integrated Strategic Plan FY 2001-2006 of November 9, 2000.  The plan has attracted our attention since
our Ethiopia of 2005 is very much different from that of 2000, and since
Ethiopians regard 2005 as a fateful year for Ethiopia and the Horn of
Africa. 

 

Rural Ethiopia today is determined more than ever
before to privately own its farmland and stop EPRDF from making rural land a political
tool to harass, threaten and subdue rural Ethiopia to be an unquestioning
supporter  and slave of EPRDF even when
EPRDF is fully responsible for the never ending famine, wide-spread disease,
frequent inter-ethnic conflict, a senseless and costly war with Eritrea in
1998-2000 and abject poverty which is increasingly getting worse on account of
EPRDF’s stifling economic policies based on Meles Zenawi’s defunct “Revolutionary
Democracy”. 

 

Together with this powerful political development in
rural Ethiopia over the last two years, the peaceful political opposition has
become more united and immensely stronger today, and we have such potential
election winners as the Coalition for Unity and
Democracy  ( CUD), a
coalition of  home-based multi-ethnic parties, which has mass support
throughout Ethiopia under the leadership of a highly educated and experienced
professional democratic elite with strong liberal education and an
unquestionable non-ethnic and democratic orientation..  

 

CUD has the full support and active participation of
distinguished academics and researchers, former international civil servants,
patriotic Ethiopians in the Diaspora, businesses in the private sector, labor,
former diplomats, ministers, vice-ministers and bureaucrats who have never
bowed to communist pressure in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, other democratic
professionals of all calibers, ages, sexes and religious orientations, the
youth of urban Ethiopia, Ethiopian farmers all over  the country and our sturdy 
countrymen in Afar, the land of those uniquely patriotic Ethiopians who
have successfully safeguarded our Red Sea front for thousands of years,
herdsmen and residents of Beni Shangul – Gumuz, Gambela and other Ethiopians
all over the country. 

 

In spite of its highly limited resources and the
all-powerful abuses of, and criminal activities by, EPRDF in all corners of
Ethiopia, CUD is contesting some  85% of
the seats in the House of Peoples Representatives ( The Ethiopian Parliament)
in May 2005; a comparable figure stands for regional and sub-regional Councils
all over the country.

 

Today, CUD
is a very powerful coalition, with leaders and members coming from all regions,
practically all ethnic groups in the Land, and from all religions and social
strata, and that is why it has been sending shivers through EPRDF since it  has strong and wide-spread national support
which makes it even more determined to win the elections of May 2005. 

 

EPRDF’s recent single-handed blocking of CUD from
the Inter-Africa Group public political debates is a reflection of this
persistent  and nagging EPRDF concern
and a lack of confidence in itself ; lame excuses like “ too many people in
the hall are clapping for the opposition”, or “ I need to be the one to
close every debate” or “ I need much more time than any other debating
opposition party” cannot justify EPRDF’s illegal blocking of CUD from
participating in the recent Inter-Africa Group
debate on “ Urban Development: Past, Present and Future”. 

 

What was still laughable was that EPRDF had demanded
that CUD apologize to the Ethiopian people for having left the debate hall on
January 30, 2005 upon failing in its attempt to secure entry for hundreds of
invited guests to enter the debate hall; those guests, who have been invited by
Inter-Africa Group and all the debating parties,  were barred from entry because of EPRDF pressure on the
organizers of the debate. 

CUD had tried to protect the dignity and democratic
rights of all invited Ethiopians, irrespective of their political orientation,
and that required no apology, but EPRDF had committed tons of crimes over the
last 14 years, including a devastating, costly and foolish war for no purpose,
and it had not seen it fit to apologize to the Ethiopian people.

 

Why did EPRDF fail to garner support in the debate
hall and outside ?  This is a question
EPRDF is afraid of answering honestly and publicly.  The truth was that EPRDF had no worthwhile message to deliver to
the hall audience and to the Ethiopian people after 14 years of wasteful and
irresponsible governance !  Moreover,
since all debating parties had an equal number of minutes in each round during
all the debates, any clapping or show of support will end up using up the time
of the debating party that has brought on the clapping so that such a party is
the prime and only loser since it will then have less time for further
presentation, and not EPRDF or any other party.  Hence, EPRDF’s blocking of CUD had a totally different agenda !

 

Actually, EPRDF will always continue to be hopeless
and helpless even if it takes one hundred times more television or radio time,
and it has that any way on account of its monopoly of Ethiopian Radio,
Ethiopian Television and all the Government-owned papers.  What is needed to obtain the people’s
support is not the volume of aimless and empty talk, but EPRDF’s record and its
message, and EPRDF has had a dismal record of 14 years of ethnocentric rule,
deeply punctuated by famine, inter-ethnic strife, war and devastation, disease,
a stagnating economy,  an ever rising
cost of living, a staggering level of poverty and unemployment, a decaying and
corrupt system of social services, a total failure to make a dent on the
inefficient and largely backward government-owned telecommunications system,  and a private sector that is denied freedom
of operation by EPRDF business monopolies that are operate in contravention to
the Nation’s party registration law.

 

Another important coalition is the United Ethiopian Democratic Forces ( UEDF),
which is a coalition of ethnic and multi-ethnic parties that operate peacefully
in Ethiopia.  This party also has
supporters in rural and urban Ethiopia, the bulk of its support coming from
southern and central Ethiopia.

 

Thus, disregarding the many small parties that have
mushroomed over the years, CUD and UEDF make up the largest block of the
peaceful political opposition so that the competition for political power
during the national and regional elections of May 2005 will, therefore, be
among these three: CUD, UEDF and EPRDF;  
EPRDF is a coalition of only ethnic parties; CUD is a coalition of only
multi-ethnic parties, and UEDF is a combination of both ethic and multi-ethnic
parties. 

 

Hence,
Ethiopians do now have clear-cut alternatives to choose from  in May 2005 if  there is a level playing field which needs to be assured by all
means by all democratic and peace loving forces within and outside Ethiopia.

 

To advance the cause of free and fair elections, we
are obviously very much interested in the US
Geopolitical Interests in the Horn of Africa, as stated on Page 13, which has the following 3 US
priorities:

 

            “The
US country team’s FY 2000-2002 Mission Performance Plan (MPP) identifies

Regional
Stability as the overriding US national interest in the Greater Horn
of Africa.

In response to the current
drought and extended recovery period, effective
response to

the emergency
is the second priority.  The MPP notes Ethiopians see respect for
human

 rights and the rule of law, and the evolution of a federal system
of government as

essential elements of the
country’s political culture, and makes support for
democracy

and governance
its third priority…”.

 

There are two more priorities, but we have no
problem with those.  However, the first
three priorities require a reordering since they do not properly reflect US
priorities and the priorities of the people of Ethiopia which must be the same
since both want to achieve
stability and democracy in the Horn of Africa.

 

We appreciate that regional
stability is, indeed, an important priority, but how can it be realized
when the precondition for it is absent ? 
Clearly, regional stability can exist if
and only if governments in the sub-region have legitimacy, and that legitimacy
is possible only through the democratic process
which is at the heart of a democratic government, which is, in turn, a
necessary pre-condition for regional stability and
economic growth.

 

A democratic electoral process provides the
institutional means of changing rulers without bloodshed; it provides
opportunities for voters to participate in choosing their leaders, and they
also confer an obligation on citizens to obey the laws approved by those they
select.  Further, since such elections
are periodic, citizens will have the patience to sit out the term of office of
non-performing leaders instead of resorting to violent means to dismiss them
since they know they have the opportunity to push them out peacefully at the
next election if they fail to deliver.  Hence,
USAID’s third priority
needs to be upgraded since that is the only reliable insurance for regional
stability in the Horn of Africa.

 

As the distinguished and world-renowned Yale
Professor of Political Science, Robert A. Dahl has clearly stated ( polyarchy:
Participation and opposition.  New Haven: Yale University Press. 1971), democracy is all about
(1) the right to vote, (2) the right to be elected (3) the right of political
leaders to compete for support and votes, (4) free and fair elections, (5)
Freedom of association and expression, (6) Freedom of the press, and (7)
institutions for making public policies depend on votes and other expressions
of preference.

 

 Indeed,
President Bush has also placed Good Governance center stage since
November 2002 by announcing plans for the allocation of funds from the $5 billion a year Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) to third-world countries that “justly govern”,
“ invest in people”, and “promote economic freedom”.  Hence, USAID’s priorities for Ethiopia are
at considerable variance with MCA as well since democracy and good governance
have been assigned lower priority.  It
is important to note that Ethiopia has failed to win this generous grant so
far, clearly showing that the Ethiopian Government does not “govern justly”.

 

A nation with a glorious history of such
distinguished leaders as Abraham Lincoln, who has so succinctly defined Democracy as a government by the
people, of the people and for the people, and the greatest and most powerful
world democracy which rightly claims its birth from the “ Boston Tea Party” which arose from  the denial of their right of “ No taxation without
Representation”, cannot put the democratic process and democracy in the
backyard and expect regional stability to prevail in the Horn of Africa.  Ethiopians consider “Democracy” to be a number one priority since
the solutions of all other problems will then follow.

 

Democracy has to be placed center stage so that
leaders may “ govern justly”, and “promote economic freedom”
instead of denying democratic rights and stifling and monopolizing business, as
is the case with EPRDF’s  fifty-some
monopolies which have Boards of Directors chaired by such powerful TPLF leaders
as Foreign Minister Siyum Mesfin who chairs both the Government-owned cement
factory at Mugher and Mesobe, which is owned by TPLF, and has overseen, during
his chairmanship,  prices of cement
jacked up by a hefty percentage to save the sinking Mesobe cement Factory in
Tigray from bankruptcy at the cost of stifling and killing the construction
business and national development; Mugher was doing very well and it was even
expanding.

 

Another prominent example of rent-seeking by EPRDF
is the most recent appointment of Aba Dula Gemeda, the Minister of Defense, as
Chairman of the Board of the Government Housing Authority, which manages
formerly nationalized houses, when the Ministry of Defense has been one of the
most delinquent government institutions that have failed to pay rent running
into millions of Birr. His appointment appears to be designed to give him
a  free hand to close the account against
his ministry and give him a free hand to do unimpeded  rent-seeking. There are 
hundreds of  other instances of
similarly corrupt government/EPRDF practices.  The only reliable and credible solution to such EPRDF
rent-seeking is to support democratic elections in May 2005.

 

Democratic elections are all about: (1) universal
adult suffrage, (2) regular elections and limited tenure, (3) freedom to form
parties and contest elections, (4) Freedom to contest for all parliamentary,
regional and sub-regional Council seats, (5) Fair campaigns, no legal or
violent impediments,  (6) an efficient
legal body to control the legality of all election stakeholders, including that
of the election management body,  (7) a
transparent election process, with the full participation of a free press, (8)
secret and free balloting, and (9) accurate and credible vote counting and
results reporting.  We shall comment on
each of these 9 characteristics hereunder, as they apply to Ethiopia today.

 

The current electoral law is implemented by an
election management body that is recruited by EPRDF’s Chairman, Meles Zenawi,
and appointed by the EPRDF-dominated Parliament, which is some 97% EPRDF with
its satellites.  Article 102 of the
Constitution provides for the appointment of a National election Board that is
“ free from any influence”, and  Prime Minister Meles is the one responsible
for breaking it even though he is required by sub-article 13 of Article 74 to “ obey and enforce”
the Constitution.  Hence, the very
foundation for a democratic election has been absent in this country since 1995
so that none of the above 9 criteria for democratic elections is practicable
when the National Election Board is partisan, an
appendage of EPRDF and unprofessional.

 

The current electoral law, even with its partisan
and half-hearted amendments of last January 2005, does not provide for
universal adult suffrage since EPRDF’s National Election Board does not even
know the size of the population of Addis Ababa, let alone that of the Country;  the national population census is
deliberately planned by the Government for implementation after the elections
in May 2005, thereby putting the cart before the horse.  Further, voters cannot be properly
identified since residential addresses are not
required to register voters – another EPRDF 
fertile ground for election rigging. 

 

Indeed, some 400 voters have just been discovered in
a voter registration list in a constituency where notoriously famous Education
Minister Genet Zewde is competing against CUD’s Lidetu Ayalew in Addis Ababa;
all 400 are registered under the same house number, and some 1000 more
reportedly living in a nearby camp of questionable existence, and, yet, the
National Election Board has refused to make corrections !  Furthermore, no one, except the ruling party
and its registration appointees, knows how many voters’ identity cards have
been received at a registration center, how many have been spoilt, how many
have been properly used and how many are left over; transparency and
accountability are alien to the incompetent and inept National Election Board,
and it may well be that a large fraction of those registered in most
constituencies are not proper residents.

 

The freedom to form parties exists, with
considerable constitutional abuse by EPRDF, but the freedom to contest
elections is practically non-existent since there is harassment, intimidation,
beating, incarceration, kidnapping and even murdering by government armed
militia, police and desperate local government officials.   The most recent spots of such criminal acts
in 2005 are several weredas
in Gedeo zone in Dilla, wenago and Yirga Cheffe weredas,
all in southern Ethiopia, in Ankober wereda
in northern Shoa, and in eastern Gojjam in north-western Ethiopia, among
several others.  Furthermore, in a
nation of over 75 legally-registered parties, only 12, according to Article 43
of the Electoral Proclamation and its recent lame amendment, can compete in any
one constituency, and that is unconstitutional !  This is jungle law !

 

All legislative seats are not contestable on equal
terms since the Adere community can vote for seats in Harar and in their
constituency of residence in any part of the country;  some parliamentary seats are generously given by the ruling party
to some minority groups the list of which is not public knowledge even though
they pass decisions in parliament that affects all the people of Ethiopia.
Furthermore, like the Adere community, Ethiopians in the Diaspora should have
had a right to vote, but they are excluded since that brings no advantage to
EPRDF.

 

It is also equally incredible that the National
Election Board has recently ruled, against the democratic rights enshrined in
Art. 38 of the Constitution, that over 35,000 university students in all
government universities and colleges will not be allowed to vote in
constituencies of their respective institutions;  they have requested and been denied this right repeatedly, though
all of them satisfy the 6-month residence requirement for registration, just as
well as, or even better than, any city voter who may have only recently moved
into a rented house in a different constituency; this appears to be a decision
that may have most probably come from EPRDF to shut out  university students from the elections since
a preponderant majority is known to support the peaceful political opposition.
Likewise, farmers in new resettlement areas appear to be ignored since they are
suspected to be opposition supporters.

 

The current political campaigns are far from fair
since all TPLF-owned and government-owned mass media are under the full control
of the notoriously anti-Free Press Minister of Information; he allocates radio
and television time out of his own limitless generosity,
even though all public mass media are paid for by the citizens of this poor
Country. 

 

EPRDF has organized the youth and women all over the
country, as in former Marxist Ethiopia, and it is giving them office space,
financial support and more air and television time than that allocated to
the  political opposition;  most recently, these same partisan youth and
women’s organizations have even gone on to tell us that they will field “independent” election observers.

 

EPRDF-instigated violence was the rule rather than
the exception during the last two national and regional elections, and, very
much so right to this day in February 2005, in the absence of independent and
effective legal control mechanisms and an independent election management
body.  EPRDF’s covert Marxist nature is
such that it is almost certain to resort to harassment, beating, incarceration
and shooting in rural Ethiopia ( It is doing plenty of that already in southern
and northern Ethiopia) where there is no free press or an international
community to watch them while, at the same time, swearing night and day at all
levels of EPRDF’s leadership that the Government is totally committed to free
and fair elections.

 

A crucial element in the electoral process is the
absence of transparency and accountability by denying the free press from
secure, effective and unimpeded observation of the elections.  In addition, there is no independent legal
body to decide on any complaints so that EPRDF again shows up at the partisan
and inefficient courts to serve as prosecutor, judge and jury.  As repeatedly proposed since 2003, an
independent electoral court would have provided better legal control over any
wayward party behavior  – largely
attributable to EPRDF in the past – during the entire election process.  

 

During the elections in 1995, 2000, 2001 and 2004,
secret and free balloting had been largely absent in several areas since
several EPRDF officials, posing also as election officials, in rural Ethiopia
had not even bothered to prepare voting booths; others had required the voters
to go into voting booths in groups, as in Bahir Dar, so that some might spy on
others and the punishment for non-supporters of EPRDF was to confiscate their
farm plots, deny them access to fertilizers imported and retailed by EPRDF’s
business monopolies, deny them credit, 
or otherwise beat them up savagely, and throw them into prison or out of
their villages.  This is also being done
today !

 

 The last
opportunity for election rigging is in the vote counting which is going to be
handled exactly the same way as in 1995, 2000, 2001 and 2004: No one knows who
is responsible for closing and sealing boxes containing the ballots at each
polling station, and no mention of the role of party agents in the witnessing
process to ensure mutual trust and credibility; also no mention of the presence
of party agents when ballot boxes are opened for counting and no mention of who
seals the ballot boxes after counting and no mention of any roles for
party  agents as witnesses and active
participants in the sealing processes.  

 

In all past elections, ballot papers were either
counted or discarded, and none had been kept for further investigation, and all
that had been done on the basis of the decision of one all-knowing EPRDF
appointee, with no role for party agents to question any such decisions.   In
short, the current electoral law has no provision for ensuring transparency and
accountability since party agents, the best anti-rigging
control group, have had no legal role for such control; the
free press is not empowered by the law to be informed at all stages of the
election process. 

 

Hence, no competing parties and the private press
have ever known, in the past, how many ballot papers have been discarded, how
many have been contested, and of those contested, how many have been counted
after a legal review, and how many remain contested even after review, how may
ballot papers have been regarded valid, how the contested ballots have been
handled, how many have remained unused, and how the ballots and the vote counts
account for all  ballot papers received
at each polling station.  Competing
opposition parties and all concerned democratic forces in and outside Ethiopia
have to closely assist to ensure transparency and accountability at the vote
counting and results reporting stages as well. 
EPRDF has neither the will nor the democratic culture for free and fair
elections !

 

Essentially the same law of 1995 is in use today in
spite of repeated requests, particularly since 2002, from the peaceful
political opposition to update Electoral Proclamation 111/1995 to make it of
international standard;  all substantive
draft proposals from the opposition have been rejected by EPRDF which has
chosen, instead, to make some face-saving and inconsequential amendments in January
2005 to suit its own undemocratic designs.

 

Consequently, the Ethiopian electoral system suffers
from a totally partisan election management body and from an EPRDF-monopolized
public mass media; the free press is shunned by the ruling party; the election
is guided by an obsolete and sub-standard electoral law which cannot allow
universal suffrage; there is no effective oversight and party agents have no
legal oversight role;  observers from
independent CSOs and international observers are too few for effective
oversight, whereas observers recruited by the partisan National Election Board
and others coming from EPRDF-organized youth, women, labor and teachers are
highly partisan and much more numerous so that a badly rigged election is bound
to be certified “free and fair” by such partisan
observers; security is poor and even dangerous, particularly in rural Ethiopia,
since the police, armed government militia and the courts are all united to
facilitate the re-election of EPRDF at any cost, as they are so forcefully
doing today in southern and northern Ethiopia. 

 

Hence, the
upcoming elections in May 2005 cannot be free and fair without a strong and
well-designed intervention.  A committee
of competing parties, at any level, has been, and still is, helpless and
hopeless since committee decisions will not be binding on EPRDF unless a
strong  mechanism is put in place to
ensure full and unconditional EPRDF compliance.

 

The US Government can make an invaluable
contribution to the maintenance of peace and stability in the Horn of Africa if
it provides much needed timely support that ensures democratic elections in
Ethiopia in May 2005.  That will surely
go a long way toward the realization of the identical
interests of both the US and the people of Ethiopia in the Greater Horn of
Africa.  Making such
a timely contribution in a nation of Ethiopia’s size is a very small price to
pay for regional stability and democratic development in the Greater Horn of
Africa.