In connection with the local elections of 2001 in Ethiopia, the Norwegian Institute of Human has had researchers in the field following up and reporting on the election processes in different regions of the country. These reports are a continuation of the Institute’s research on elections as a part of the democratisation processes in Ethiopia since 1991. The reports from 2001 also constitute an immediate follow up on the findings presented in the NIHR publication on the previous parliamentary elections, “The Ethiopian Elections 2000. Democracy Advanced or Restricted?” edited by Siegfried Pausewang and Kjetil Tronvoll.
The researchers Siegfried Pausewang and Lovise Aalen travelled to the Southern Region to follow the local elections there on 23 and 29 December 2001. The elections were initially to be conducted in July, but were postponed several times. Aalen and Pausewang followed the elections in the Zones of Sidama, Hadyia, Kambata-Alaba-Tambaro and Gedeo. This report is based on Pausewang and Aalen’s findings during their field research.
The report has been edited by Bergljot Hovland. All opinions expressed in the report are the authors’ responsibility and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Norwegian Institute of Human Rights.
The Norwegian Institute of Human Rights / Nordem
University of Oslo
February 2002
Expectations unfulfilled
Despite the apparently reduced engagement in politics at the local level before and during the local elections, many observers and politicians at the national and regional level expressed high expectations for the upcoming elections. Both representatives from the Ethiopian Human Rights Council and Southern Front leaders at regional and zone level expected strong competition between the ruling party and the opposition. The Southern Coalition leader Dr Beyene Petros was relatively optimistic and expected that the Coalition would field candidates in most of the constituencies for the zonal and woreda elections. He complained, however, that imprisonment and harassment of candidates and a very short time for campaigning had reduced the party’s capacity to compete in the elections. As my descriptions below will show, the competition between the two parties on election day was much less that anticipated, due to large-scale withdrawal of opposition candidates immediately before and during the elections.
Both in written and oral form, ruling party leaders expressed expectations of better electoral performance for the upcoming local polls in the south. One of the main arguments behind these expectations was that the renewal (tehaddso) that allegedly had taken place within the party organisations during 2001 had strengthened the democratic nature of the party organisation. The EPRDF bulletin Tehaddso proclaimed that “The fact that this election follows soon after one of the most important renewal movements gives us great hope in avoiding the repeat of some of the most inexcusable mistakes committed by members of our party.”[9]
The elected leaders at regional and zone level (represented by Haile Mariam Dessalegn, president of Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Regional State (SNNPRS) and Abote Anito, chairman of KAT zone council) were openly discussing the challenges of implementing democracy at the ground level in Ethiopia. They were aware of the necessity of correcting violations conducted by lower party members and of the importance of training of kebele officials and local cadres in democracy and human rights in order to create a conducive atmosphere for fair elections. Nevertheless, the increased awareness of the regional and zonal leaders cannot be seen as a substantial progress in itself unless it leads to a behavioural change of the political actors in the woreda and the kebele. As my descriptions of the pre-election period and the election day will show, the message from above had not reached down to the grass root of the organisation. Although the elections were conducted without severe violence, many members of the lower party organisation and the representatives of local administrative bodies repeated past mistakes. For them, it seemed that the first priority was to prevent the opposition from winning seats like it had done in the 2000 elections. This priority was apparently hard to combine with the stated intentions of the tehaddso movement.
The election campaign
The elections in the south were postponed several times during 2001. This led to uncertainty and a weaker campaigning and mobilisation than in the previous election. Firstly, the elections were postponed from February/March to June because the electoral board needed time to ensure that the mistakes from the May 2000 elections would not be repeated. Secondly, the June elections were rescheduled until November allegedly because of the rainy season’s impact on the board’s logistical capacity. Thirdly, the November date was again altered, partly because the opposition claimed that there should be more time for releasing its political activists from prison before the elections started. Finally, the end of December was decided, despite protests from the opposition that they had too little time for campaigning and registering candidates and that the majority of the peasants in southern region would be pre-occupied with harvesting at this time and did not have time for voting.
Compared to the 2000 elections, there was little public debate about the upcoming polls. Neither Inter Africa Group nor Ethiopian Human Rights Council arranged party debates, and there were no other public arenas for both parties to discuss with each other. But the Southern Front had their own arenas for campaigning, for example evaluation of party candidates in public meetings in the kebele and meetings with regional and national members of parliament who went back to their home areas to propagate for the party. The Coalition also sent members of the national and regional parliaments back to their areas of origin to assist the campaigning, but the party leader Beyene Petros stayed in Addis Ababa. Although many party supporters argued that he had to stay in the capital to co-ordinate their activities and that it might not be safe for him to come to the south, they were also disappointed by his absence. “If he had been here for one single meeting, we would not have suffered from problems of mobilisation. More people would undoubtedly have voted for us if he had been here” stated one of the party leaders in Kambata.
In the local elections in Addis Ababa in February/March 2001, the public debates and mobilisation were also at low ebbs, but nevertheless the voters were subject to increased pressure through door to door campaigns from kebele officials[10]. In the southern elections a similar pattern occurred. Many voters, particularly in Doyogenna area in Kambata, told that kebele officials had come to their homes to register and distribute election cards to the voters. This was interpreted by the voters as undue pressure to participate in the elections and vote for the ruling party. Such practise is against the election regulations, where it is clearly stated that “any registrar who registers voters outside the polling stations […] will be punished according with the penal code.”[11]
Joint committees
Although the tehaddso did not lead to the improvements that the ruling party leaders had proclaimed, there was one achievement in the running of the local elections. This was the establishment of “joint committees” consisting of one representative each from the contesting parties and one from the National Electoral Board. These committees were meant to solve conflicts that arose in the pre-election period and on election day. In places like Shone and Durame they managed to correct some violations, but due to limited capacity and power they were able to intervene only in a small number of cases[12]. One of the achievements the joint committee in KAT zone obtained was that candidates were allowed to hand in their supporting signatures directly to the woreda electoral board instead of to the kebele office. This made the registration of candidates less prone to political manipulation from the ruling party because the opposition felt less threatened by intimidation from the kebele officials. This is an example of how important it is to exclude overzealous kebele officials from the electoral process, and should be followed up by other measures to detach kebele and woreda offices from organising the elections. Nevertheless, in most places the strong power and presence of the kebele and woreda executives in the electoral process made the joint committees inactive or non-existent and generally they played no significant role in solving differences or mediating conflicts during the election.
Withdrawal and cancellation of opposition candidates
The joint committees were not able to prevent opposition candidates from withdrawing or being cancelled from the elections the week before the woreda and zone election and on polling day. In Kambata, where I did most of the interviews in the pre-election period, opposition candidates withdrawing or being cancelled was relatively widespread. In areas where strong competition was expected, like in Shinshicho and Angacha towns, only the ruling party candidates maintained their candidacy. When I visited those towns I was quite surprised by the absence of the opposition, because I was told by the Coalition that these places would probably be some of the hotspots in the elections. When I arrived, I approached the local authorities to ask them the reason. Members of the ruling party generally explained the absence of the opposition candidates either by the argument that the candidates were not really being members of the Southern Coalition and therefore had been cancelled by the local NEB, or that they had withdrawn voluntarily because they had realised that they did not have enough support from the people. One Southern Front representative in Angacha woreda stated that “many [opposition party] members withdraw because they haven’t been able to keep the promises they made for the last election. People are realising that the Coalition is lying. They promised free fertilisers supply from the party, but they did nothing! Many people withdraw their supporting signatures for the candidates and some even write a public letter stating that they do not support the party anymore.”[13]
When I talked to the ex-members or ex-candidates of Southern Coalition without the presence of the EPRDF cadres, however, they told us that they had abandoned their party membership or candidature because they feared for their family’s security, and not because they rejected the ideas or the programme of the party. Threats concerned i.e. their access to land and community services, imprisonment and threats on their lives. One of them, who had written a public letter telling that he abandoned his involvement, told it in this way: “Some months ago I was a member of the Southern Coalition. In the last election I was campaigning for the party and it won here. But the EPRDF were forcing the Southern Coalition and our members were beaten and imprisoned, especially at the kebele level. So I decided to be neutral and withdraw from politics. At this time I live peacefully and feel happy for that. If I had continued with politics I would probably have been imprisoned now.”[14]
In Shinshicho town in Kachabirra woreda the opposition candidates had apparently withdrawn voluntarily. I was not able to talk to any of the withdrawn candidates, but the opposition party leaders in the zone claimed that the candidates did not want to maintain their candidacy because their complaints to the local electoral board had not been taken seriously. One specific concern was that the local head of the electoral board was a known member of the ruling party, and he had not been replaced by a neutral person despite repeated complaints about him[15]. In Sidama, many SLM candidates withdrew during election day because of alleged election fraud. They claimed that after seeing ballot boxes being stuffed before the polling stations were opened, they had withdrawn because they had realised that there was no chance of being fairly elected[16].
In addition to the “voluntary” withdrawal of candidates there were several reports of opposition candidates being involuntarily cancelled from the lists during election day. Many of the Coalition candidates complained that they had not been issued ID cards, their names were not made public and some candidates were cancelled from the lists during the election day on allegations that they were not qualified candidates. Many of these cancellations were done without any formal decisions from the NEB[17]. It was therefore difficult to trace who actually had done the cancellations and whether it was done on order from the electoral officials or the local kebele and woreda officials. But many opposition candidates claimed that the reason for cancellation was that kebele officials, when checking the validity of the supporting signatures collected, had claimed that they could not be accepted.
The role of armed guards
In the majority of the places I visited on election day, there were several armed guards at the gate and even inside of the polling stations. Some of the armed guards were local police or militia linked to the kebele, while others were demobilised soldiers who had returned to their home areas and were hired by the kebele authorities to take care of the security on election day. According to the election regulations published by NEB, the electoral officers are only allowed to assign the police for security, and persons carrying weapons should stay five hundred metres away from the polling stations (Election Officers Manual, April 2000, Addis Ababa, p. 180). Apart from being a violation of the electoral law, this armed presence had a negative psychological effect on the voters. In many cases, the voters expressed that they perceived the guards as agents of the ruling party and were reminded of the retaliating role played by armed personnel after the 2000 elections in Hadiya and Tambaro. There were also several reports on kebele officials and police shooting gunshots in the air during the counting of the votes, particularly in Angacha woreda (Dinika area). Southern Front members explained this as a way of celebrating the SEPDF victory, while the Southern Coalition saw it as a way of threatening their observers present in the polling stations at that time.
In addition to the kebele militia and the demobilised soldiers was the presence of regular armed forces stationed in many parts of the southern region. According to the regional president Hailemariam Dessalegn, there are six camps of soldiers within the region, located in Wolaita, Awassa, Arbaminch, Hossaina, Shone and the Jinka border area. He claimed that the location of the camps had nothing to do with the elections. The opposition, however, claimed that the armed forces were deliberately placed in some of these areas because they were expected to be contested. Although the armed forces allegedly had been told to stay in their barrack during the elections, the opposition claimed that large groups of soldiers had moved around to provoke and scare the voters, particularly in remote areas at night. During our stay in the region, we did not observe any regular army moving around and we were therefore not able to confirm or refute the opposition’s claim on army activity.
Kebele and woreda officials intervening
In addition to the strong presence of armed guards, the attendance of kebele and woreda officials in the polling stations added to the pressure on voters and the electoral board officials to favour the ruling party. In the majority of the polling stations I visited, kebele and woreda officials were the ones who approached us when we asked for admittance to the sites. In some cases they forwarded us to the electoral board officials, but more often they were the ones who took the decision whether we would be allowed to enter or not. This indicates that the local officials acted as organisers and controllers of the electoral process and intervened in the work, which the NEB officials were supposed to take care of. This is a clear violation of the electoral regulations, which states that members of the administrative bodies and kebele officials can show up at the polling stations only as voters. In the 2000 elections, this issue was raised by the National Electoral Board itself, when NEB urged administrative bodies to stay 500 metres away from the polling stations and prohibited them from appearing at the polling station from six a.m. until the results are officially known[18]. Even EPRDF’s own “code of conduct” for this election clearly states that “during the election period government institutions and law enforcement agents should not be used in support of any political organisation or candidate”.[19]
When I asked the local officials about their role in the elections, many of them told that they were assigned to take care of security issues and to see that everything went smoothly. They were apparently not intending to hide the fact that they played an important role in the conduct of the elections. This shows that the local executive can basically act according to their own interests without taking the electoral regulations into consideration. It also shows that the electoral board is too weak and lacks the independence from the local executive to prevent violations of the regulations, or that they are deliberately allowing the local officials to interfere because they basically share the same interests – those of the ruling party.
Imprisonment of opposition activists
A major complaint from the opposition was that their activists were frequently imprisoned on a short-term basis just before and during election day. In Kambata, we observed ourselves that police attempted to arrest an opposition activist after he had approached us to report on violations of the electoral law. My interpreter, who speaks both the local Kambata language and Amharic, was able to read the situation without the knowledge of the involved parties, and did therefore obtain information that was not intended to come through to us. He observed that the police officer that was assigned as a guard outside the polling station threatened the activist to imprison him if he did not keep quiet. When the activist protested, some woreda officials, who also were candidates, intervened and told the police to leave the man until “the guests” had left. In other places where opposition activists were imprisoned during election day, for example in Doyogenna town in Angacha woreda, representatives of the Southern Front claimed that the activists had been illegally campaigning. The opposition representatives, however, argued that the activists had just informed the voters about their symbols, as the ruling party candidates did routinely. This is another example of how the reality is twisted and that two contradictory stories of the same event are told. It is also representative for many of the cases where opposition candidates were kept in prison before and even after the elections started.
One of the most serious cases is the two representatives of the Southern Coalition for the regional parliament who are imprisoned in Durame in Kambata. They were detained in March 2001 after the instability in Tambaro, but were not accused before November 2001. The Coalition has appealed to release the candidates because of their immunity as regional MPs, but to no avail. The chairman of KAT zone, Abote Anito, explained that the two MPs were accused of murder and could not be released on bail. But the actual court charges which we have seen, concern only accusations of having agitated people to resist payment of taxes and fertiliser debts and to use force if payment was demanded – a charge often set forth and hard to disprove. Moreover, the charge is extended to include banditry and an attempt at destabilising the administration and jeopardising peace and security, after the people allegedly upon such agitation forcefully seized a gun from a kebele security guard.
The number of detainees allegedly members of the Southern Coalition seems relatively high in the southern region. Although many were released after the electoral board had proclaimed that political prisoners should be freed in August 2001, we have many reports on party activists still imprisoned. In these cases, two contradictory stories are again produced to explain the detentions. The Coalition claims that they are imprisoned because of political persuasion, and that the court charges in many cases are based on fabrication, while the Southern Front claims that the detainees have committed illegal acts and cannot be released, even if they are members of a political party. Which story is the most credible? We have had no mandate to visit the prisons and talk to the detained themselves, and it is therefore not possible to get their side of the story. A common claim from the ruling party is that many of the supporters of the opposition are ex-soldiers and unemployed youths seeking material benefit from being party activists and are essentially trouble makers. Even if this claim was true, it does not automatically prove that these people are criminals and must be imprisoned. On the other side, it might be in the interest of the opposition to deny that the detainees are ordinary criminals, and they might exaggerate the problem of political detentions. Criminals who are imprisoned might also have the interest of presenting themselves as party activists, so that they have a better chance of being released.
Although the reasons for imprisonment are a matter of speculation, there are certain conditions, which indicate that the process of detention and court decisions is strongly influenced by the interests of the ruling party. It is a general observation that the police and judiciary lack independence from the local executives in the woreda and the kebele and the local party cadres. This is a problem even acknowledged by the ruling party leaders in Awassa. Hailemariam Desselegn, the regional president, admitted that much more had to be done to separate the party from the other administrative bodies and the judiciary[20]. A common statement from the people is that they cannot differentiate between the police, the court and the woreda/kebele authorities, because they all work for the interest of the ruling party. It is clear that the local executives do not have the right to arrest people, but still there is a widespread belief that it is the responsibility of the kebele officials to make detentions. This apparent political influence makes it credible that political detentions on short and long term basis take place.
Opposition withdrawing from the kebele elections
On the 28th of December 2001, the Southern Coalition held a press conference in Addis Ababa, announcing that they would withdraw from the kebele elections on the coming Sunday. They stated that “to expect a democratic election competition from EPRDF is like expecting a pigeon from a snake’s egg”[21] – there was no point in continuing for the kebele elections because the process was rigged. The Coalition denounced further that the result of the woreda and zone elections should be invalidated because of severe irregularities and that re-elections should be conducted. Their major complaints concerned the treatment of their candidates.
In addition to the specific complaints about the irregularities, the statement about the withdrawal contained essentially the same arguments as that issued after the woreda elections in the other parts in the country in February/March 2001[22]. At that time, six different opposition parties behind statement presented a unified front against the EPRDF. Although it was only one party behind the statement this time, there were some signs of internal strain within the Coalition on the issue of withdrawal. The leadership in Addis Ababa decided to withdraw from the kebele elections, but this decision was apparently not co-ordinated sufficiently with all the parts of the organisation. One of its member organisations, the Sidama Liberation Movement (SLM), intended to continue for the kebele elections, and did partly so. The SLM party leader argued that although they knew that the kebele elections would be rigged, their candidates wished to maintain their candidacy for the coming Sunday[23]. These internal differences indicate that there is a need to strengthen the Southern Coalition party organisation and build internal unity and make the internal decision making process more democratic and transparent, in order to continue being an efficient opposition.
Neither the SEPDF/EPRDF nor the electoral board made any public announcements to refute the accusations that the Coalition forwarded on the press conference on the 28th of December. But the local ruling party representatives in Kambata and Badawatchu claimed that the opposition had withdrawn solely because they had lost in the woreda and zone elections. When the results of the elections were announced by NEB, it was however clear that re-elections would be conducted in 15 polling stations of the region where irregularities had taken place, mostly in Hadiya and Sidama zones. At the end of January, the Southern Coalition made another statement where they repeated their complaints. This led the head of the National Electoral Board, Aseffa Birru, to issue a personal attack on the leader of SEPDC, Beyene Petros. Aseffa Birru warned the SEPDC leader to refrain from defaming and insulting the board, otherwise he would be sued in court. The board described all of the Coalition’s complaints as unfounded allegations[24]. But Beyene Petros rejected the warning from Aseffa Birru as illegal and claimed that he had evidence for the accusations that he had made[25]. These incidents illustrate the fundamental lack of trust between the different actors in the electoral process in Ethiopia. There is generally an absence of dialogue between the actors, and if a dialogue takes place, it is essentially about mutual accusations. The opposition’s boycott of the kebele elections could have led to a public discussion on the conduct of the elections, but due to the polarised political climate, mistrust and hostility are nourished and a constructive dialogue is prevented.
Conclusion: elections as a “zero sum game”
The conduct of the local elections in southern region does not lead to any fundamental re-evaluation of the democratic situation in Ethiopia, but rather strengthens our conclusions made for the previous elections in the country. The EPRDF and its member parties do still not allow competition if it threatens its own position. The stated intentions of the tehaddso/renewal movement have not led to any fundamental changes in the behaviour of the local party cadres and administrators, who are still exceeding their mandate to maintain their positions and prevent the opposition from gaining support. Although the participants in the elections continue to give two fundamentally different stories of the events, one largely positive and the other utterly negative, there is no reason to doubt that the electoral conduct in southern Ethiopia must be dramatically improved to give the competitors equal chances of participation.
Although the national leaders of Ethiopia have another language than the party cadres and local officials at the grass root in southern region, they essentially tell the same story of why the EPRDF always defeats the opposition. Sebhat Nega, one of the most influential politicians in the EPRDF, claims that EPRDF’s repeated electoral victories are a result of the party’s political programme[26]. My observations in the southern region do not support this explanation. As my findings from Kambata and Tambaro have shown, voters are to a very little extent concerned about party programmes in the selection of candidates. Their choice is more influenced by the decisions made by the elders in the community regarding the involvement in electoral politics. They were very much concerned as to whether their choice of candidates will improve or endanger their personal security and chances of survival. When support for the opposition leads to harassment and imprisonment from local authorities, voters may choose to vote for the ruling party.
Prime Minister Meles Zenawi explains EPRDF’s monopolistic position by the fact that the party has based its support on the peasantry, which constitutes 85 per cent of the Ethiopian population. He claims that as long as the population of Ethiopia is as undiversified as this, the support for the party will remain strong[27]. Although my observations in the southern elections do not converge with this view, the Prime Minister’s explanation points at one crucial issue, the relationship between the peasantry and the ruling party. My argument is that as long as the peasants in Ethiopia rely on the state for daily survival, and as long as agents of the ruling party act on the behalf of the state and control their means of survival to the advantage of the party, the people will continue to vote for the EPRDF. As observed in the elections in Ethiopia since 1992, the voters perceive the ruling party as agents of the state and vice versa, materialised through the omnipotent position of the kebele and woreda officials at local level. If the voters do not support the ruling party, they perceive it as an exclusion from essential resources distributed by the state. In connection with the tehaddso within the EPRDF, it has become apparent that leaders of the ruling party are aware of this lack of separation between the different branches of the government. But as the local elections in the Southern Region have illustrated, this awareness is still not present on local level.
One of the explanations on why the allegedly new awareness at higher level has not reached ground is that elections in Ethiopia are still perceived as a “zero sum game” for both the opposition and the ruling party. Electoral victory is seen as a guarantee for survival. If victory is secured, the party in power gains the control of the local administration and thereby the resources distributed by the government. Electoral loss, on the other hand, is perceived as an ultimate exclusion from resources and positions. In the worst case, as experienced by the opposition, the loss means deprived community services, resources and even personal freedom through imprisonment. Evidently, this “zero sum game” makes it very hard to make a conducive atmosphere for fair elections.
[9] Special Issue of the bi-monthly bulletin of the EPRDF “Tehaddso”.
[10] See Aalen and Pausewang 2001 “Withering democracy. Local elections in Ethiopia, February/March 2001” Nordem Report, Norwegian Institute of Human Rights, Working paper 2001/07.
[11] See Election Officers Manual, April 2000, Addis Ababa, p.137).
[12] Interviews with representatives of HNDO Shone and, SEPDC Durame, 22.12.01
[13] A SEPDC observer interviewed on woreda/zone election day in Angacha woreda.
[14] Interviewed in Angacha woreda, on woreda and zone election day
[15] Information obtained from SEPDC leader in Kambata.
[16] Interview with SLM representative, Awassa, 28.12.01
[17] Interviews with SEPDC candidates in Doyogenna town, Angacha woreda 24.12.01, and Shone town, Badawatchu woreda, 28.12.01
[18] See Walta Information Centre 13. May 2000
[19] Special Issue of the bi-monthly bulletin of the EPRDF “Tehaddso”.
[20] Interviewed in Awassa, 21.12.01
[21] The headline of the SEPDC press statement, 28.12.01
[22] See Aalen and Pausewang 2001 “Withering democracy. Local elections in Ethiopia, February/March 2001” Nordem Report, Norwegian Institute of Human Rights, Working paper 2001/07.
[23] Interview of Jilma Chamola, Awassa, 28.12.01
[24] See Walta Information Center, 6.12.01
[25] See Reporter newspaper, 6.02.02
[26] Personal communication in Addis Ababa, 14.01.02.
[27] Recorded interview of Meles Zenawi by Kjetil Tronvoll, Addis Ababa, 16.01.02.