Today we are only a few days from the national elections in Ethiopia. In the run-up to the
election, we are witnessing the ruling party/government crying out loud about the possibility
of post election crisis (violence). The warning is too deafening. EPRDF has panicked. We
cannot be sure of what really caused this panic. The intelligence office and its foreign allies
might probably have and shared some disturbing information (evidence) in this regard. But
one thing seems to be clear to us at this stage. EPRDF is so resolute and certain that it
wins the 2010 election. So what worries them is not winning. That is dead sure, unless
miracle occurs. So what is it?
Well, for the past five years, they have been doing everything to make the
playing field like a mat for themselves and road of rocks for the opposition, the civil society,
the independent media and the Ethiopian people as a whole. They are certain that they win.
But they are overwhelmed by a sense of uncertainty about their image and legitimacy after
they won the election. This is what caused the panic.
To ‘win’ the last election, they killed hundreds of people and imprisoned tens of thousands.
Now too, they badly want to win. And they will ‘win’. But this time they want to do it with
lesser number of killings and imprisonments in the time after the election. That is the major
difference and interest involved here. This is about image and legitimacy. They want their
image to be that of “an elected government”. They believe with lesser killings comes better
image and chance for legitimizing their power after the election.
Moreover, their biggest worry is if the
international community accepts them as legitimate government. This will also be in the
best interest of the latter, for it will serve them as justification to keep doing business as
usual with EPRDF as an ‘elected government’. So the EPRDF are out now to try to clean up
their blood-washed image from the 2005 election. They want to look cleaner during and
after the 2010 elections. The problem is they have no way of knowing this for certain at this
early stage. This seems what explains their total panic and cry about post election violence
and their misbehavior in propagating terror and total fear amongst the public.
Intimidating and Harassing the Electorate before the election
Apart from its secret preparations and arrangements, the government is officially setting up
provisional security units inside the people at Kebele, school and work place levels. Ruling
party cadres at all levels are spying on residents in their respective localities. They have
orders to spy on every house hold. They go house-to-house to:
Make inquiries about which party household members are going to vote for,
Know and categorize where voters stand from EPRDF’s perspective: ‘Supporters’;
‘Opposition’ or ‘Neutral’?
Harass voters even by taking their ballot cards away and returning back after a couple
of days. God knows where they take the cards and what they do with them. But one
thing is clear. This is intimidation, sowing total fear among the electorate!
Each cadre ‘Persuading’ at least 10 people to vote for the ruling party and confirm
their pledge vote with their signature in advance.
On the polling day, these cadres also have orders to escort the same 10 voters to
polling stations, stay close with them and supervise them on site while they cast their
ballots. Adios the principles of free and fair elections and secret balloting!
These are only few examples of the lessons the tyrants in Ethiopia learned from their
‘distant’ and ‘on-the-book’ mentors like the infamous Machiavelli.
Ruling Party Members & Stooges as Election Candidates, Campaigners & Neutral
‘Observers’
Theoretically, what we call election observers in the Ethiopian context include: “public
observers”, “mass organizations” and international observers. The former are said to be
freely elected by the local public. But the truth is almost all of these are political appointees
in local government offices or ruling party local officials and cadres or their families, friends
and other supporters. The truth about “mass organizations” is no different from the “public
observers”. These are ruling party/government stooges as well.
According to an article in the Charities law, mass organizations include youth and women
associations (coalitions and forums), professional associations and trade unions. In Ethiopia
freedom of organization is practically prohibited. Most of the independent national civil
society organizations (like EHRCO, EWLA, OSJE, ETA, and Bar Association) are either
much weakened or diverted their objectives and missions or went out of action. So it would
not be difficult to know which and what kind of groups remain now to observe the 2010
election.
Other than spying and later on shadowing voters all the way to the polling stations, the so
called “mass organizations” and kebele administration offices are busy campaigning for the
ruling party publicly. EPRDF posters are everywhere, in and outside kebele buildings,
gates and fences. Members of women or youth forums of this and that sub city are all out
on the streets and roads of Ethiopian towns and villages to campaign for the EPRDF. They
hired mini buses or ISUZU trucks and cover them with EPRDF banners, posters and Meles’
photos. On the vehicles, you see local bands, all members of the forums, singing for and
praising Meles and his party. Mind you, the kebele/sub-city administrations and the “mass
organizations” were all supposed to remain neutral in the election. We know Kebele / sub
city administrations are government (not party) structures. Ethiopia’s National Election
Board (NEB) has officially recognized these “mass organizations” (Women and Youth
coalitions or forums) as ‘neutral’ election observers. Yet nobody cares and dares to stop
them from their partisan acts.
Independent Civil Society Groups and the Free Press – “Missing in Action”
But where is the place and role of independent local observers (Civil Society Groups) and
the free press in this election? In 2005 this time, the CSOs and the free press, individually
and /or in groups, had already wound up their voter education programs. They had been
educating and training millions of voters throughout the nation and boosting up their morale
for the elections. They did this for some three months time before the polling day. And on
the polling day, they observed the
entire process, including vote counting during night time. They could have accomplished
much more than they did, if it were not for the sabotage that was well designed and
orchestrated by the NEB. This was in 2005. ‘Thanks’ to those Draconian CSO and press
laws, there is no one by the side of the Ethiopian people in the 2010 election.
Instead, watch carefully what the NEB appointed local election officials, kebele
administrations, ‘mass organizations’ (GONGOs), “public observers” and government media
are doing today and will do on the poling day. Today, they are intimidating the electorate
and campaigning for the ruling party as only partisans do. On the polling day, they will
change hats (and roles); they will ‘observe’ and ‘report’ the polling and counting of votes as
neutrals do. But we all know they will be there only to ensure, fully endorse and quickly
declare EPRDF’s ‘victory’. What a pity and shameful thing for a country that claims to have
thousands of years of history as a nation state!
International Observers – Good for Nothing!
Now comes into the same picture here, the good European Election ‘Observers’ Mission.
Surely they will carefully choose few sample polling stations in the country and visit them
during the polling day. But this is Ethiopia. Ethiopia’s population size, total area and political
climate are all too large and complex to determine elections credibility using data obtained
from few sample polling stations during polling days only.
We know well that elections are not only about what happens during polling days and
stations. They are like packages integrating events and programs that cover much wider
ranges of times and places. Elections are about what take place all around and well before,
during and after polling days. So, whichever stations the EU Mission choose to appear,
Addis or Adwa or Temben, the election processes and outcomes in such handful places
don’t matter much. Whatever they find out during the polling day, can never represent and
show the whole picture of the election. This is to say that they can’t prevent the ruling party
from stealing and ‘winning’. EPRDF has been preparing for this all the last five years.
Who and what else can stop the tyrants from stealing if not democracy and rule of law
themselves? Democracy and Rule of Law were supposed to be preconditions for free and
fair elections. But they are not yet in place in Ethiopia. To saw them on the Ethiopian soil, it
takes much more than how we are fighting our fight today.
What Would these Observers Tell the World?
We can have two scenarios here. The first and the most likely one goes like this: at the end
of the day, the ‘international observers’ sit and write their preliminary report; here they will
tell the world: “except for minor irregularities, the Ethiopian elections went largely fair and
right”. Next the EU will endorse its mission’s final report and then refer the 2010 Ethiopian
elections file to archives if not closing it at all. What follows is ‘business as usual’. They
continue doing business with ‘Ethiopia’s elected government’ as before. Given what we
know about them at least in the past two decades, what else could we expect?
By the way where is the good Anna Gomez today? As a true friend of Ethiopia, no doubt
that human rights and democracy will be unfinished jobs for her too. One can foresee her
dismay and frantic anger when she learns that her successors in the EU’s observers’
mission betrayed Ethiopia and the Ethiopian people and the higher causes of human rights
and democracy too? Any ways, It feels good, at least morally (if not politically), to always
have someone, who shares your pain and airs your voice during your tough times. It’s just
that.
Another less likely scenario could go like this: suppose the observers’ mission dares to tell
the world that the balloting process in the majority of the sample polling stations did not
meet international standards. Then they say that it would be hard for them to accept it as
genuine and fair election at all. From moral point of view, it may be too right for them to tell
the truth. But from practical point of view they will find themselves at the losers end. They
can’t get away with this. EPRDF will definitely question their methodology and ridicule them
for the very obvious spatial and temporal limitations they have had during their
observations. (One British retired Colonel strongly advised the tyrants in Ethiopia, of course
for a big professional fee, that they should always fight back criticisms from any direction
(HRW or US Department of State) by ‘exposing errors in methodology’). So ultimately the
second scenario is very unlikely for it won’t be in the best interest of the EU. Anticipate it or
not before, or see it or not latter on, the EU definitely put themselves into such a trap by
deciding to send an observer mission to Ethiopia.
Short-Sighted Choices
What remains for the EU then is to make a forced choice between ‘losers’ and ‘winners’ –
the Ethiopian people and the tyrants that continue to rule the country. It doesn’t take much
thinking to tell which party they choose to stand by. Understandably, the choice would not
be too easy for them. But ultimately, who cares and dares to stand by losers’ side? What
would ‘losers’ have to immediately hand over to foreign players in return for the pounds,
dollars, and Euros the latter are supposed to pour on? Experience tells that these foreign
players are not able to see their strategic interests with growing democracies and
economies, with free people as masters of their sovereign states. But it is still difficult to
explain how these powers ignore the very fact that they are benefiting from their relations
with the free people and state of South Africa, of course with mutual arrangements.
Who is in Power in Ethiopia Today?
What happens in Ethiopia today and as long as tyranny prevails is only what a ‘police state’
does to ‘its’ people. Of course Ethiopians have survived Mengistu’s tyranny, where millions
of innocent people were killed, imprisoned, displaced and exiled. The trauma is still there.
And people’s suffering and plight continue still. Only the name and mask changes now:
‘Democracy’ (for Revolutionary Democracy & Dictatorship?), ‘Good governance’ (for Rule of
Men or a Developmental State?), ‘Self Administration’ (for Dismembering a nation, Anarchy
and Divide & Conquer?) what have you? Now after two solid decades again, it’s pity to find
oneself and one’s compatriots helpless and hopeless too. The state of the political climate
in Ethiopia today is pretty bad. And the EPRDF will remain in power after the 2010 election.
We can’t doubt that the condition will deteriorate from bad to worse and even to worst.
“The Government that People Get is all What they Deserve”
Is that saying working on us here? : “The government that people get is all what they
deserve”. But by what measure could we possibly deserve a police state and tyranny? May
be for not raising and fighting with arms? May be not necessarily so. Of course most of the
Ethiopian Opposition groups have thus far opted for not going in that direction. They are still
in the general frame work of a non violent struggle. But the question here is: Have they
fought or are they fighting that peaceful battle too well, courageously, exhaustively and in
unison?
What happened in Ethiopia this same week five years ago, just a week before the 2005
election (8-15, May), is still fresh in our memory. Millions of citizens in Addis Ababa and
other big and small towns took to the streets. That was a very huge, quite peaceful and
most civilized demonstration ever seen in the Ethiopian soil. The people sent very clear
message to the whole world that they want regime change; that they deserve popularly
elected government; that they deserve and ready too, to exercise and enjoy democracy as
fellow human beings in the developed world. Undoubtedly, that was a remarkable and
historical effort and result too. But let’s face the facts. It was proved, now more than ever
before, that the effort and the results achieved were never enough to put an end to tyranny
in Ethiopia! Are the opposition, the people and the popular struggle in their best shape
today? So the police state we have in power in Ethiopia today is all what we deserve.
This is very saddening. We should be collectively ashamed of our actions or reactions or in
actions as well. These include: our political culture; some groups’ unchecked lust for power;
a never-ending quest for special privileges; lack of focus, commitment, knowledge and skills
to assess situations critically and objectively and to organize and join forces to find lasting
solutions.
The Ghosts of ‘Draco’ and ‘Machiavelli’ Rule Here
Could it be that not wanting to resort to violence and armed struggle, a fault and crime for
the Ethiopian people? Europeans and North Americans fought such battles 200-300 years
ago. Mind you we are now in the 21st century. Yet we have in power in the 21st century
Ethiopia, political disciples of ‘Draco’ of Classical Athens and ‘Machiavelli’ of Medieval Italy.
Draco and Machiavelli rule here! How? We can find the answer in those Draconian Laws
that have been imposed on Ethiopians between the 2005 and 2010 national elections. The
major ones include: The revised criminal code, the media law, the charities and societies’
law, the antiterrorism law and the Proclamation to Amend the Electoral Law of Ethiopia.
But why these laws after the last election? Were they mere coincidence or deliberate
response? The answer is simple. The losers (EPRDF) had to revenge and punish all those
who worked hard to help the people victorious in the 2005 elections. And why these laws
well before the 2010 elections?
The answer is again simple but more strategic than the first
one. The losers had to make sure that these groups are checked effectively well before they
are out again to help heal people’s wounds and scars from the 2005 elections and
eventually boost peoples’ morale for the elections to be held in 2010. It didn’t take much
time and effort for the ruling party to realize that the independent media and Civil Society
Organizations contributed much for its defeat in the 2005 elections. It is needless to
mention that the people themselves played the front line role here together with the
opposition parties that appeared more united than they were in previous elections. So, all of
those who had their hands in the defeat of the EPRDF in 2005, had to pay for what they
did.. And more importantly, the EPRDF had to see to it that this will not happen again in the
coming election. In a word all the laws are primarily meant to put any and all restrictions
possible on any one, individual or group that is capable of bringing real threat to the
continuation of EPRDF rule for the coming 20 to 30 years. It is ‘Draco’ that controls the
political climate before, during and immediately after the 2010 elections. Unless checked at
some point, this will keep going God knows until when.
On the other hand, many scholars agree that Machiavelli’s work – “The Prince” is still
considered as a ‘hand book for rulers’ (dictators). In this work Machiavelli, a councilor of
not only kings of Medieval Europe but also mentor of all dictators of all times, teaches all
the evil and cruel strategies and tactics available for power mongers to come to power and
also maintain their rule over the people. Take EPRDF’s ethnic politics and all the other
strategies and tactics they use to divide the Ethiopian public along all possible lines and
ensure their conquest. Look at what they are doing to the people and the opposition with all
their military, security, legal, propaganda, endowment, bureaucratic and several other
machines. This was what was happening since the EPRDF came to power. This was what
happened mainly between the 2005 and 2010 elections. This is what is going to happen
after the EPRDF win the fake election now in 2010. That’s why we say the two evils, Draco
and Machiavelli, shaped and still control our rulers’ values, mind set, and ways of thinking
and action.
What Next?
To conclude, if we want to avoid any more disappointment and frustration, then let’s not
expect any good out of this election as it is only carefully designed for a long time to keep
EPRDF in power. Given the reality now and in the foreseeable future after the election, I
think this is what we need to consider now and here: we must engage ourselves in thinking
seriously, communicating widely, organizing and uniting early on about what to do / not to
do and on how to go / not to go about things after all the hodgepodge around the election is
over.
Condemning and pulling one another on sheer grounds of fighting tactics, organization
fashions and past affiliations and mistakes are all useless now as they were before. Given
what we have gone through, fighting over these issues will only be a luxury to all of us. Too
much clarity on ultimate cause(s), focus and seriousness of purpose on common goals,
selflessness and courage, unity in thinking, planning and acting are among the qualities and
values we need to resort to, develop and demonstrate most.
Of course, as the saying goes, things are easier said than done. But actions and desired
results have always preliminary phases: Understanding and analyzing situations and goals,
refining and organizing thoughts and then communicating, digesting, further refining and
internalizing strategies. So we need to work hard and dwell on common and bigger
concerns; on much broader national intentions and directions. We need to refine our
thinking and actions in manners that could well address the best interests of Ethiopians as
one people and Ethiopia as a nation.
Freedom Will Surely Come!
God Bless Ethiopia and Our Popular Struggle!
