First, Addis Ababans embrace diversity and inclusive politics. Ethnicist sectarian politics enjoys little appeal among Addis Ababans. The ethnic-based political parties, AAPO and OFDP, were each not able to solicit the endorsement of even 3% of the electoral votes.

Second, the Addis electorate does not harbor a lot of sympathy for politicians who embody the Maoist political tradition in the country. For Addis Ababans, the EPRDF represents the unpleasant face of both ethnicism and Maoist authoritarianism. Interestingly, even UEDF had to face serious setbacks in Addis as many of the candidates it fielded came from the marginal Meison and EPRP circles of Ethiopia’s Maoist days.

Finally, the percentage points with which Addis Ababans elected CUD’s candidates to victory is astounding. None of CUD’s candidates obtained less than 70%, and most of the party’s candidates won with over 80% of the electoral votes.

What this all means is that Addis is a hotbed of CUD because it is a hotbed of multi-ethnic and liberal politics. Addis incorporates the mosaic and fusion of Ethiopia’s ethnic and religious diversity. Because it is diverse, Addis is smart, tolerant, and vibrant. It is a city of live and let live.

The fear of ethnic retaliation that Meles Zenawi has injected in the aftermath of the Addis elections is therefore simply a smokescreen for the repressive measures he contemplates to unleash on the population. Not just that CUD’s leaders, whose multiethnic origins and political ideology is antithetical to ethnicist sentiments, would by no means allow a flurry of savage acts of vengeance against members of any ethnic group in Addis. Addis Ababans themselves would be repulsed by anything that violates the age-old culture of tolerance and sense of shared community in their city.

Meles Zenawi’s fear mongering should be exposed for what it really is: Fear that the ideology and politics of ethnic particularism, and with that the political architecture of the ethnocracy he and his comrades had hoped to build, are crumbling under the pressure of the enduring Ethiopian multiethnic edifice. By evoking fear, he also is trying to rally ethnic support for his repressive plans. Meles and his hardliners may even resort to a “Crystalnacht” act, i.e., the manufacturing of a massive act of crime in order to produce justifications for the repression of political adversaries, as the Nazis did in Germany.

All Ethiopians of good-will, all friends of Ethiopia, and the international community at large should do everything they possibly can to prevent Meles and his hardliners from resorting to the same blood-letting that many dictators resort to in such circumstances.