A halo around the sun startled people in Ethiopia during Sunday’s local elections, with many seeing it as a miracle or a sign from God.
The ring of light caused by sunlight refracted by ice crystals hung in the sky for almost an hour before it finally faded and disappeared.
Some Ethiopians say it last appeared in 1991 before a military regime fell.
But the BBC’s Elizabeth Blunt in Addis Ababa says there is little chance it could augur change this time.
She says the overwhelming majority of candidates are from the government party.
Churchgoers who had flocked to see the visiting Patriarch of Alexandria, Pope Shenouda, acclaimed the phenomenon as a miracle, or at least a sign of a blessing from God.
Pope Shenouda himself believed it was a signal from above.
“We accept any sign from God to encourage us in our way,” he said, “and confirm that we are going right in our way.”
Abuna Paulos Ato Gebremedhin, the Patriarch of Ethiopia Woyanne cadre, added his voice to those who believe in signs from God.
“If God reveals himself from the sky,” he told a press conference, “we believers do not get surprised. We only rejoice and double our efforts to thank God. Thank you, God, for revealing a sign.”
Dictatorship
But others looked for more secular implications.
Older people in Addis Ababa remember seeing the ring around the sun once before – in the last days of the Derg, the despised military dictatorship, just before its leader Mengistu Haile Mariam fled to Zimbabwe.
But there is little prospect of the government falling in these elections.
The opposition winners of the controversial elections in 2005 in urban areas never took their seats and did not stand again.
The most successful of the other opposition parties pulled out, complaining of intimidation and our correspondent says the results are almost certain to consolidate the ruling party’s hold on power.
Results have not been published yet but an election official said turnout had been massive.
9 thoughts on “Sun halo wows Ethiopia amid poll”
stop joking please ! we can not sit and waight to bring us peace and democracy troght miracle ! please Elsabeth stop joking by the people of Ethiopia you know it yourself it doesn’t happen in that way so why do you write such a joke.
the end of TPLF adolf hitler’s style repressive and cruel anti ethiopia terrorists group. the end of the terrorists’ group TPLF means , the end of ethiopia’s misery and the beginning of ethiopians bright future on the grave of the shameless ,and narrow minded ,the foreign mecernarries and .anti ethiopia’s nationalism. we need to pray day and night. weyanes along with diabilos have been burning so many churches and gedams . God will punish these chigarams. TPLF has been begging in the name of ethiopia’s people for the last 17 years.
Checkout these incredible Election 2005 Debate videos – featuring Ato Lidetu, Dr. Befikadu and Ato Girma Biru(presumed Meles Zenawi successor): http://www.ethiotube.net/tags/Election
One of the best things I ever heard and I wish I was in Ethiopia to see Pope Shenouda and this miracle. When the Holy Pope of Alexandria enters in the Holy Land of Ethiopia, then this miracle happened. Nice Combination. And yes, we never anticipated the derg government would end but God brought it by giving victory to woyanne losers, they didn’t use the chance of the leading this Holy Country and then God will bring miracles, He is God after all. It might happen anytime, what if Meles chokes and voila, we don’t know whatever happens, God has changed the nature of Nabucdanazer into a beast and we don’t know what happens when God says enough is enough. Glory be to God of Ethiopia, God of Israel and God of the world, the Holy Trinity. Amen
I have always said that we Ethiopians have only God and ourselves to end the despicable era of the most cruel tyranny pervading all aspects of life in our Motherland. Remember God has shown the sign that He will keep his covenant with Ethiopia. Remeber also that God helps only those who help themselves. So Let us rise up in unison to defeat Zenawi the Lucipher.
KKKKKKKKKKKKKKK.
Yetelammeda behaymanot asaabboo maattalel enna managaga.
Nothing is new there!!!!!
Dear All,
Much money was spent to Organize this useless Election.In the Firs place,no opposition party involved in the Election.Secondly,if there are few,those who deny their own people and ambush with the Killers.Presently 90%of the People are starved.I do not understand why they wanted to organize this Artificial Election spending a lot of Money and time.The people never be fooled.Election Centers were barely empty.I do not know whom they are going to lie.If I were them, I would not do anything regarding election. The world know them very well.
Could the visits of the two great popes – one to Africa and the other to North America – bring stability, hope, peace, and prosperity to the people of this world, living under the shadow of death?
A miracle of a bright halo in the sky in a land full of miracle-believers is a blessing for the Ethiopian people who have been living under the shadow of death for over 17 years.
Of course, the second blessing is the long-awaited visit of his holiness Abune Shenouda, Patriarch of Alexandria, Egypt, and the former spiritual father of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahido Church Christians. The Alexandrian Church had been the mother of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church for a long time, and Ethiopia had paid a heavy price every time it invited the Alexandrian bishop to come to Ethiopia to ordain some Ethiopian monks to be bishops and archbishops; some times, the Alexandrian Church would not send its bishop to Ethiopia unless the Ethiopian Christians paid a huge sum of money. In this case, one could say the Ethiopian Orthodox Christians had been buying the blessings of the Alexandrian bishop, and the Alexandrian Church had been selling the blessings of its Patriarchs to Ethiopia with a substantial amount of money. As Jacob got the blessings of his father by deception, Ethiopia, on the contrary, had been getting the blessings of the Alexandrian Church by paying the right amount of money, but such a blessing purchased with money might have been very effective is any one’s guess; however, when time came that Ethiopia could not anymore afford sending millions of dollars to the Alexandrian Church, and when that wise and smart Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia saw the deception of the Alexandrian Church, and how that Church oppressed its daughter Church by teaching the Ethiopian Christian children only Church dogmas, doctrines, morals, monastic lives, just to make them humbler and more obedient to the Alexandrian Church, and depriving them of learning modern art, science, mathematics, geography, astronomy, world history, engineering, exploration, medicine, and modern technology, His Majesty King Haile Selassie courageously stopped the deception of the Alexandrian Church in 1959 by allowing Ethiopia to appoint its own Ethiopian Patriarch, Abune Baslios as the first patriarch of Ethiopia and saved the Ethiopian tax payers millions of money and ordered the Ethiopian Orthodox Christian children to be given modern education that teaches all humanities and liberal arts. After His Majesty introduced modern Church schools, such as St. Paul School and others in Addis Ababa, a great number of traditional church school students, aged 17, 19, and even 20 years, from various provinces of Ethiopia, especially from Gondar, Tigray, Gojam, and Shewa, flooded the new boarding modern church school in Addis Ababa. Thanks to the generosity of His Majesty King Haile Selassie, I’m one of the products of these modern Church schools established by His Majesty Emperor Haile Selassie, the Lion of Judah, King of Kings, and Defender of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.
The appearance of the halo in the Ethiopian azure sky and the visit of Patriarch Shenouda to its former financial supporter Ethiopia are more significant than the deceptive local elections which are being held in Addis Ababa. The Ethiopian people, like an anxious farmer who expects that rain is coming when he sees a little dark cloud in the eastern sky, expecting something spectacular to happen as the result of the appearance of this bright halo and out of his holiness visit, want to see Abune Paulos, the illegitimate Patriarch, be replaced by the former Patriarch Abune
Merkorios, who is in exile with thousands of Ethiopian Christians and, perhaps, Muslims and Jews. Out of the Addis Ababa local election, the citizens of Addis would expect nothing except that the same corrupt political gangs would be in the office again.
Patriarch Shenouda’s statement: “…we are going right in our way” does not convince one as a right statement because we know man’s ways are most of the time wrong and never been right in the eyes of the Almighty God. The Prophet Isaiah says: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways” (55:8). For example, Washington’s ways, Meles’ ways, and Abune Paulos’ ways are most of the time wrong: Washington’s ways are wrong for going to war with Iraq and for refusing to get out of Iraq and Afghanistan and for failing to bring peace to the Middle East countries. Perhaps, the visit of his holiness Pope Benedict XVI to Washington may change Washington’s ways of handling the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and in the Horn of Africa.
For sure, Meles’ ways have always been wrong and misleading: his ways of invading Somalia, intimidating, jailing, beating, exiling, and killing the people of Somalia, Ogaden, Oromo, Amhara, and other ethnic groups have always been wrong. Above all, his ways of running and conducting local and presidential elections are proven to be laughable according to the international standard of law of holding local and presidential elections; however, Meles continues to follow his misguided ways of running an election instead of following the international ways of doing people’s business democratically.
Abune Paulos’ ways are not different from Meles Seitanawi’s ways; however, Abune Paulos’ ways of taking the legitimate Patriarch Merkorios’ holy office are unpardonable sins in the eyes of many Ethiopian Christians, and I hope Abune Shenouda would mediate between the two patriarchs before he leaves Ethiopia.
This is the message from God and the answer to prayer of Ethiopians to the loved God that it is going to be the end of the brutal nazi dicators and the approaching of the end of the crimefamily.
It doesn’t really matter how the tplfwoyanae regime ends, what it matters is they will be captured dead or alive. We all believe.
It is a hot fire that rings aroung the crimefamily in a flame that burns in endless fire till no devil resides in a blessed land of the powerful. During jugment day, all memebers of the crimefamily,associates in crime,and those the black rats shall be standing inside the ring to feel the heat then to bleed from inside-out.
They will definitely feel the burning sensation, at the beginning, then the heat and then the punishment.
right now, as we speak,members of the crimefamily are in all sorts anxiety disorder:restlessness,disturbed sleep cycle,and dry mouth;as a result, they all members of the crimefamly are/is in a bad mood, flying to and fro ready to kiss thier bitter death and travel packed in a black coffin all packed in it to nakfa cave where they were hatched out of the rotten eggs of the devil that conceived them.