Yes. The impossible has happened and come tomorrow 7300 days — twenty
years — will come to pass since the astonishing accession of EPRDF to
the helm of a nation it had never intended to lead. And a million-plus
pro-EPRDF rally is being hastily organized in Addis for the big day,
Saturday, May 28th 2011. Here is the EPRDF leadership at its best,
cunning, manipulative and callous. It may very well manage a
respectable rally — but probably short of its hoped million — despite
its profound unpopularity. Hostile the public may be but it is still
largely unorganized.
Nevertheless, with no end to the protests in the Arab world, the future
looks decidedly bleak for authoritarianism. It could be said
categorically that the best days for despotism lie in the past rather
than the future. There is nothing the EPRDF could do to prevent the
inevitable. It can not defeat history.
But it wasn’t like this all the time.
The most extraordinary facet of the EPRDF twenty years ago was the odd
absence of the charismatic strongman at its helm. Strongmen had always
appeared indispensable to successful insurgencies, but, intriguingly,
the EPRDF had defied the convention with charming ease. At its core
lay the bona fide collective leadership of the TPLF, one of the four
constituent members of the EPRDF. Meles Zenawi, the nominal head, was
really no more important than any other in the powerful TPLF
politburo. It stood in sharp contrast to the Derg, which had for
long — but not always — been singularly dominated by Mengistu.
Barely in his early twenties when he was one of the founding members
of the TPLF, Meles spent his formative years in the mountains of
Tigray as a less than impressive fighter during the crucial early
years of the insurgency. But he compensated with his extensive
readings and formidable debating prowess. If the TPLF was to have a
future it needed more than mere spirited fighters. The nerds (in its
innocuous sense) had to be given the floor, too. And Meles seemed like
the logical and safest choice.
What his comrades did not anticipate was how power was to change him
subsequently. Not only did he thrive in his new position but he was
also intellectually and spiritually revitalized. He was soon no more
content to serve the party. A diligent student of modern history, he
was both culturally and temperamentally predisposed to the notion of a
party that yields to the will of its visionary leader.
He was quick to recognize that real power lies in the state and not in
the party. Not so his peers. They concentrated on the party,
particularly the TPLF. When it was time for a showdown he took them
down almost with his hands down. The party was no match to the state.
And thus the EPRDF finally had its first strongman, almost ten years
after the party’s rise to power in 1991. EPRDF’s exceptionalism was
decisively cut short.
This is the genesis of EPRDF’s propensity to total conformity, both
inside and outside the party, which culminated in the infamous
election results of 2010. Ethiopia has thus become progressively less
democratic in the second half of EPRDF’s two-decade reign.
Meles Zenawi, as opposed to the entirety that is the EPRDF, is the
chief naysayer to democracy in Ethiopia. There are of course others
but they are more hoopla than substance. It took only the departure of
Ben Ali to realize democracy in Tunisia. It will most probably take no
more in Ethiopia.
But there is more at stake for Ethiopia in how the leader leaves
power. Ethiopia can not afford the kind of protracted instability
Yemen had to go through over the past several months. Ethiopia
desperately needs a peaceful transition to democracy. Meles knows
this. It’s his most potent card to fight change.
Meles’ great disadvantage is most probably akin to those of Ben Ali
and Hosni Mubabrak. Both took their underlings for granted, assuming
that patriotism had no place in their thinking. It was a fateful
misjudgment for them. Only rarely in history, as in Nazi Germany, does
collective common sense collapse entirely. There is more, not less,
patriotism in Ethiopia, both inside and outside the EPRDF, than either
Tunisia or Egypt. The voices in support of peaceful change will sooner
or later be heard from the midst of his support network.
But as things stand now, the only real legacies of the EPRDF are
poised to be the secession of Eritrea and a stint in power for Meles
Zenawi.
Is this what fifty thousand fighters (mostly teenagers) of the EPRDF
died for fighting the Derg?
Sir, you have wasted the two decades with which you were blessed to
affect change. In place of pragmatism dogma has prevailed; in place of
transparency secrecy has taken root; in place of democracy oppression
has intensified; and in place of merit patronage has been rewarded.
Sir, the people want — no, need — you to resign and leave office
peacefully, legally and immediately.
