An Utter Failure

Abate Bejiga

We cannot afford to be so downright harsh and call what took place as such, even if it had come close to be an utter failure. The issue at hand is Ethiopians have failed to form effective democratic parties and the only party that comes close to meet the ticket, albeit what is taking place with the stalemate is EPRDF, which might need an overhaul in order to meet the stringent requirements of a democratic party.

Why it has to be like that must be baffling for most individuals who are observing what is taking place. Some have said that there could be some clandestine group that does not want to see democracy take root in the nation, and count the aristocratic Europe to be behind this group. Whereas there are other camps that are saying there are many interest groups that want to hijack democracy and modify it to meet their design, whatever it might be, in such a subtle manner that will not look suspicious. If there is anything alarming about the whole issue is, these groups are individuals who might have the know-how and the determination to get their way, not to mention the backup. The end result will be if there will ever be a quarrel, it is going to be among the elite of the nation who are the only ones in a position to take charge of the nation’s affair.

Nevertheless, what will happen to those who want to see democracy reign in the nation? Will they be short-sold? Or do they have to take the bull by the horn like Derge, and later on, TPLF did? If they succeed, will they take us back, and derail the advancement of the nation or will they attain their goal of democratizing the nation?
These are not all the tough unanswered questions and possible scenarios that could take us back to where we started. From past experience, these kinds of missteps happen when those who are in office start dragging their foot for any reason. At the time of the Imperial regime, the most important decision maker, the Emperor was unable to come up with a winning formula, and everyone blamed it on his old age. At the time of the Derge the Colonel, after alienating himself with everyone around him was waiting for an opportune time to flee the country that he did in the stark daylight, which left a power-vacuum even if he had named a successor.

What is the guarantee that the same thing will not be repeated, because like the above two incidents a segment of the public has unanswered questions and dissatisfaction, and the number of indecisive individuals that could easily be swayed to any side could rise. When that happens, experience tells us that the public’s confidence could start to waver. Anyone at a good vantagepoint could jump the gun and usurp power; mostly to fulfil some kind of personal drive and ambition disguised as an urgent public and national interest. And that is why unity is the winning chemistry if we want to get ahead.

Therefore, everyone is aware of the fact that EPRDF is alone in this war, even if it has some shortcomings. With the same token, if there is anyone who is steadfastly accusing CUD for working hard to get the vote of their own region, it will be totally wrong, because they do not necessarily have to represent the rest of the nation per se when they know the going will definitely get tough and is an uphill battle. What they can do is keep their own house in order, which they did.

If there is a mistake that they have committed, it was that they wanted to take advantage of the failure of the nation to form genuine parties and went to an extreme length to usurp power from the existing administration in office that has a five-year term to keep its own house in order, because they are new to democracy too. CUDs went to the extreme without meeting the requirement, which made everyone to believe that they do not have a good grasp of what democracy is all about.

What this means is the nation needs at least one good opposition party very urgently and if their number is more, it does not matter. For now, we have two opposition parties, but the problem with them was the other regions lack equal representation. The second opposition party Hibret, which is a good example of what a genuine party should be had lost votes badly, simply because the members were new to the game and most of them were outside of the country, which made them less attractive like it was asserted at the time of the election. Is there is any guarantee that this party that resembles EPRDF in its makeup has a promising future to grow in size, so that it will gain the confidence of the voting public on the next election to replace EPRDF. Because if what happened in this election is repeated again in an open and fair election, EPRDF will keep the office for another five years.

There is no such a thing as saying such an occurrence is good or bad, because the assumption is if an administration stays in office for a prolonged period of time it will lose its cutting edge. And in the real world that happens when there is no one to keep them on their toes, but if there are a big number of parties who are working hard to jump into their shoes that will definitely keep them on their toes. However, conventional wisdom has it that if any party is replaced after serving two or three consecutive terms it might be possible to bring in a better serving party into office and that reality cannot be put to the test unless it takes place. EPRDF has not failed the test up to this point, and even if it does considering what is taking place in the parliament, the oppositions might not be in a position to propose a motion of non confidence.

Where this will leave the participants is, it will soon be time for the politicians to start hitting the pavements, because the public will have to be educated, and for the most part of the year they have to come up with programs that will give them a much closer access to the voters. The tactic they use depends and varies according to the agenda they want to promote. If they stay long enough in the public eye, the public will know them better, and when the right time comes, they will know who to vote for.

All these might have to be financed by their supporters or they can start fundraising inside as well as outside of the country as the possibility of introducing democracy in the nation has generated a big interest and sympathizers. As long as they become pragmatic in the process of raising the awareness of the public to the noble virtues of democracy, even if they do not succeed, they could at least pave the way for those who will come after them.

There is nothing that will prevent parties like CUDs to widen their base, because for now it is narrowly focused only on one ethnic group and region. They can also be a good candidate by simply keeping their present form, because they are in a good position to create a coalition government with other parties that will be made up of the remaining regions so that there will be equal power sharing. Or there might be other local parties that will be formed from the same region that will share from their stronghold and if several parties split the votes of the region, on the upcoming election, like it has already started with the splitting of EDUP-Medhin, the unpopular party that had raised so much furor, and other interest groups that do not want to see stability in the nation are trying to take advantage of, could be eased out into oblivion or might come back as a lean machine with a toned down ambition, that will focus on serving the Ethiopian public instead of trying to force an agenda that will definitely will not be popular and is self-serving.

By simply doing that, everyone who had been transformed into "CUD basher" will get respite, and the respite certainly includes the nation that saved itself by electing EPRDF from being taken backward even if CUDs might be made up of a sincere group, their ethnic makeup could have exposed the rest of the regions to a disadvantage. The nation that had used Marxism and Leninism as panacea in an earlier era now needs unrelenting democracy to take it into the future.

But, a strive to bring back a government system that will be controlled by one ethnic group, like the feudal regime of yesteryears, which will be totally closed for others to partake like most of the systems that are in existence in Europe today, where it is only the aristocrats and those who got their blessing can even think of landing a decent job is totally unthinkable. It is good news that those kinds of governments are not the role-model for the administration in office and if there is another bold measure to take, of course, after a lot of deliberating and work to iron out the fallout with these powerful donor countries, it will be to tell them to keep their money out of the country or work with a stringent supervision from the government, because it will create instability in the nation, and the money could be used to arm insurgents among many things and most of them could be terrorists.

The Unavoidable Crunch

Abate Bejiga



Some of us who had chosen to see the measure EPRDF took with a favorable outlook did not have a choice other than witnessing the whole world had almost ended up on the neck of the newly elected government, which could result in harming the nation’s international relations that had been nurtured so sagaciously for a long time, and it could definitely be a drastic setback. This might be the right time to ask whether the measure was necessary or not.

The assumption is that the measure was taken in order to avoid unnecessary gridlock that will be created on the day-to-day work of the government. Yet, even if it could be said that it was well intended if it does not have support from the international community that has taken interest in what is taking place in the country, it means it should be scrapped. A government like EPRDF that has the support of the key international players is also expected to have their counseling, which means every major steps the party takes need to have their node. But from what we are seeing that is not the case, because sooner or later all the donor countries could retaliate by introducing some kind of a sanction, which would mean taking the country back to square one again for simply implementing one rule, a rule intended to benefit the whole nation by saving it from wasting precious time and resources because of unnecessary wrangling that will arise among the elected parties.

The other important issue here is, the international community, because they are parting with their hard earned money by giving it out in a form of an aid, it will automatically buy them a stake in what is taking place in the country, and even if it is not going to be spelled out in black-and-white, that tacit understanding is there. Whether it is directly or indirectly they could be benefited at some point in the future from what they are doing now, which means everything they are engaged in, more or less, is a future investment. At this point in time, what they give out might be in a form a financial aid because the nation is not at all advanced to solicit any other kind of arrangement since it is not advanced in none of the things it is doing, but that does not necessarily mean that it does not hold any future promise.

And that future has nothing to do with one political party that has found itself somehow on power, because what it is given is a facilitator’s role from its benefactors, which means the minute it made itself useless for the purpose they have in mind for it, it will make itself dispensable. As a result, when that is looming, the best way out is to be flexible, because even if the whole world knew that TPLF was the smallest ethnic player in the country, at the time when they were giving it the responsibility of running the nation, the outside experts must have studied what was exactly happening in the country. There was no one better than TPLF to take the responsibility, because they must have demonstrated some kind of a convincing capability and dynamism.

However, if there was a catch, as long they do what they are expected, which was appropriating whatever aid was coming into the country as equitably as possible, they had passed their first test. Then the next test was they had to play ball with all donor nations, which requires some tactfulness and subtlety, which they had passed with flying colors, and most probably that was the second phase of their administration, the first one being availing what the strapped nation needed.

At this juncture, it was time for the third test, which was to transform the administration into a democratic system according to the outcome of a democratic election. It is needless to say who the election attracted as observers, which included a former American president and a high level of EU officials, and the election outcome had a mixed endorsement, where for the most part it was said to be a fairly conducted election. This was not bad by any third world standard for a nation that held its first ever democratic election. Everyone went home knowing that what took place was a major step forward in democratizing the nation, because, even if the makeup of the major opposition party was skewed, it was an issue that will be corrected on the next election where every ethnic group, without vote fragmentation, could end up representing their own regions, resulting on equal power sharing.

One thing we can learn from this scenario is that democracy is a powerful tool that will introduce checks and balances into any system if it is applied correctly and once it took root, the focus of the people will totally be on different aspects of their life. It is only when there is no political strife any nation could go forward with its development, because there will not be any group that will be left behind or there will not be any group, unless it has a huge physical presence that will move its weight around.

The lesson learned from this is no matter how frequently misgivings were flying around, at one point there will almost be a natural correction, where TPLF is expected to eventually bow out after handing power to whoever will be elected democratically. Still, some of us will not at all doubt that possibility, because it is not late to make the necessary correction. Even if CUD is not going to be the best counterpart to work with, simply because of the prevalent political differences, when it comes to making decision, because of their number, there is not much they can do without the will of the majority, which is the ruling party. But the rest of their democratic rights, as genuine Ethiopians, will have to be observed, and if that is going to displease those who are going to work with them, there is always a way out, which is to call another election so that those who will have no problem in observing everyone’s democratic right will be brought into the parliament.

This will bring us to the key issue at hand, which might be the time and resource that will be wasted because of stalemates that might be created, provided that this was the pretext why EPRDF took the measure to adjust the rules, obviously without consulting their donor partners, which would have not jumped on their neck if it were otherwise. The solution here is to let that be witnessed by the big number of observers that are watching with a keen interest what is taking place in the country, and the presumption, in fact, is there will not be a threatening gridlock, although, if there is anyone who wants to get their way, it might obviously be difficult, which will bring us to the point where the time TPLF should bow out is inevitably approaching, simply because that is the vagary of how things work in a democracy.

In case TPLF members have a different plan and agenda, they will be hard pressed to implement them, because the possibilities are getting grim by the day, without mentioning the various threats that are hovering over the nation that does not deserve it. Therefore, as far as the administration in office is concerned, it will be good for the whole nation if they do not create vulnerabilities parities like CUD can exploit, because even if they have a long way to go before they can be trusted to play any responsible role, they could, in the meantime, create havoc, which could end up being destructive on the advancement the nation is striving to make. The only way to avoid such a calamity is by not tampering with the rules of democracy, especially when the other partners are not buying into the reasoning that is being used, and a democratic system itself has a lot of built-in mechanisms that should be allowed to make their own corrections.