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Meles Zenawi Stolen Election

Why Do Things Always Fall Apart in Africa?

Posted on , Updated on by Alemayehu G. Mariam

By Alemayehu G. Mariam

Copycat Dictators and Cartoon Democracies in Africa

Ivory Coast, December 2010. Laurent Gbagbo says he won the presidential election. The Independent Ivorian Election Commission (CEI) said former prime minister Alassane Ouattara is the winner by a nine-point margin. The African Union, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the United Nations, the United States, the European Union all say Ouattara is the winner. Gbagbo is only the latest African dictator to steal an election in broad daylight, flip his middle finger at his people, thumb his nose at the international community and cling to power like a barnacle to a sunken ship.

Ethiopia, May 2010. Meles Zenawi said he won the parliamentary election by 99.6 percent. The European Union Election Observer Team said the election “lacked a level playing field” and “failed to meet international standards”. Translation from diplomatic language: The election was stolen. Ditto for the May 2005 elections.

The Sudan, April 2010. Omar al-Bashir claimed victory by winning nearly 70 percent of the vote. The EU EOM declared the “deficiencies in the legal and electoral framework in the campaign environment led the overall process to fall short of a number of international standards for genuine democratic elections.” Translation: al-Bashir stole the election.

Niger, February 2010. Calling itself the Supreme Council for the Restoration of Democracy (CSRD), a group of army officers stormed Niger’s presidential palace and snatched president Mamadou Tandja and his ministers. In 2009, Tandja had dissolved the National Assembly and set up a “Constitutional Court” to pave the way for him to become president-for-life. Presidential elections are scheduled for early January, 2011.

Zimbabwe, March 2008. In the first round of votes, Morgan Tsvangirai won 48 percent of the vote to Mugabe’s 43 percent. Tsvangirai withdrew from the runoff in June after Mugabe cracked down on Tsvangirai’s supporters. Mugabe declared victory. The African Union called for a “government of national unity”. Former South African President Thabo Mbeki mediated and Tsvangirai agreed to serve as prime minister. A stolen election made to look like a not-stolen-election.

Kenya, December 2007. Mwai Kibaki declared himself winner of the presidential election. After 1500 Kenyans were killed in post-election violence and some six hundred thousand displaced, intense international pressure was applied on Kibaki, who agreed to have Raila Odinga serve as prime minster in a coalition government. Another stolen election in Africa.

Massive election fraud, voting irregularities, vote buying, voter and opposition party intimidation, bogus voter registration, rigged polling stations, corrupt election commissioners and so on were common elsewhere in Africa including Rwanda, Uganda, Nigeria and Egypt. In 2011, “elections” will be held in Chad, the Central African Republic, Malagasy, Uganda, Zambia, Nigeria and other countries. Will there be more stolen elections? One thing is for sure: In January, the Southern Sudanese independence referendum will be held with little doubt about its outcome.

Ivory Coast Headed for Civil War?

The tragedy about Gbagbo is that the one-time university professor was one of the courageous Ivorian leaders who had struggled against civilian and military dictatorships. He was the chief opponent of Ivorian president-for-life Félix Houphouet-Boigny. Today Gbagbo wants to become Félix Houphouet-Boigny reincarnate. After a decade in power, Gbagbo has become addicted to the sweet life (la dolce vita) of dictatorship. He is said to have the support of the country’s military. He controls the south, and “rebels” are said to control much of the north where Ouattara has his support. To complicate matters, there are reports that rogue remnants of Charles Taylor’s bloodthirsty Liberian army are being recruited by both sides of the crises as a perfect storm of civil war gathers over the Ivorian horizon. Is Ivory Coast headed for a replay of the two-year civil war that began in 2002? Unless Gbagbo peacefully leaves power, it seems inevitable that violence and conflict will again reign in the Ivory Coast destroying thousands of lives and the economy of one of the more prosperous African countries.

The international community led by the U.S and France appears to be orchestrating diplomatic pressure, economic sanctions and a cutoff of access to funds at the regional West African bank to force Gbagbo to step aside. ECOWAS (a group of some dozen West African countries) is said to be considering military action; but there is little evidence that it has an offensive military capability to rout Gbagbo’s troops. Gbagbo has intimated that he will retaliate against immigrants from ECOWAS countries in Ivory Coast should military action be initiated to dislodge him. He remains steadfastly defiant and has escalated the crackdown on opponents. He continues to round up opposition supporters; and street killings, abductions and detentions by the military and armed youth thugs are said to be widespread. Gbagbo has repeatedly claimed that the “international community has declared war” on Ivory Coast and he has a constitutional duty to defend the country against such aggression.

The Lesson of Ivory Coast

Informed analysts suggest that Ivory Coast will prove to be a global test case of whether the international community could develop consensus to uphold the outcomes of democratic elections against a defiant African dictator who refuses to leave power peacefully. I disagree for two reasons. First, dictatorships in Africa have always been tolerated by the international community. As in the past, the West will cackle, bray, neigh and yelp about Gbagbo, but at the end of the day they will yawn and walk away shaking their heads and repeating the words of former French President Jacques Chirac, “Africa is not ready for democracy!” Second, the AU and ECOWAS will make sure that nothing is done that will set a precedent for an African dictator being removed from power through international action. These are the same crooks who are today coddling and shielding al-Bashir from prosecution in the International Criminal Court. Today it is Gbagbo; tomorrow it could be any one of them. Africa’s dictators will never, ever allow such a precedent to be established.

Things Keep Falling Apart After One-Half Century of African Independence

Things keep falling apart in Africa because over the past one-half century of independence it has been nearly impossible to hold Africa’s so-called leaders accountable. For fifty years, African “leaders” have been telling Africans and the world that Africa’s problems are all externally caused. Africa is what it is (or is not) because of its colonial legacy. It is the white man. It is imperialism. It is capitalism. It is the International Monetary Fund. It is the World Bank. The continent’s underdevelopment, poverty, backwardness, mismanagement are all caused by evil powers outside the continent. The latest re-invention of the old African Boogeyman is “globalization” and “neoliberalism”, which Zenawi claims has “created three consecutive lost decades for Africa”.

There are indisputable reasons why things keep falling apart in Africa. The major one is the lack of competent leadership with vision, purpose and integrity. Indeed the common thread that sews the vast majority of post-independence African leaders is not steadfast commitment to good governance and democratic practices, but their incredible sense of entitlement to rule forever and ever and ever. In 1964, Kwame Nkrumah invented the whole idea of president-for-life becoming the first certified post-independence African dictator. Many others followed. In 1970, H. Kamuzu Banda of Malawi declared himself ‘President-for-Life”. Jean-Bédel Bokassa, the military ruler of the Central African Republic, kicked it up a notch in the mid-1970s. He coronated himself “Emperor”. Idi Amin of Uganda, Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire, Félix Houphouët-Boigny of Ivory Coast, Muammar al-Gaddafi of Libya, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, Albert Bernard Bongo of Gabon, Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, Ismail Omar Guellah of tiny Djbouti, and countless others have clung or continue to cling to power as rulers-for-life. It boggles the mind to call these individuals “leaders”; they are, as the great Afrobeat legend and human rights activist Fela Anikulapo Kuti described them, “animals in human skin”. I would call them hyenas in designer suits or uniforms.

These “animals in human skin” have stoked ethnic and tribal hatred, caused fragmentation and sectarian tensions and have unleashed unspeakable violence on their populations to cling to power in much the same way as the old colonial masters. In Ivory Coast and Nigeria today violent confrontations are being orchestrated by “leaders” along ethnic and religious lines. Just in the past few days, there has been a surge in violence in Nigeria, a country said to be evenly split between Christian and Muslims, with the firebombing of churches. Various scholars have expressed concern over the “heightening of the resurgence of ethnic identity politics in Nigeria” and the rise of armed ethnic militias which not only challenge the legitimacy of the Nigerian state but are also spearheading separatist movements to dismember the Nigerian nation. Given these tensions, more and more “marginalized” Nigerians are said to choose their ethnic identities over loyalty to the Nigerian nation. No doubt echoes of the Biafran War of 1967 reverberate in the minds of concerned Nigerians. Ethnicity and sectarianism are also a core element of the current Ivorian crises. Gbagbo accuses Muslims, who are in the majority in the north, of aiding and supporting the “rebels” who control the region. They have been subjected to attacks and persecution.

As Africa burns in ethnic, political and sectarian fires, the unctuous, hypocritical and self-righteous Western governments frolic in bed with the corrupt dictators in power. They jibber-jabber about democracy, human rights, the rule of law, accountability, transparency and the rest of it, but will gladly hold hands with bloodthirsty African dictators and walk down the primrose path to maintain their oil, mineral and military strategic interests. No Western government involved in Africa will openly admit it, but each and every one of them shares wholeheartedly Chirac’s view that “Africa is not ready for democracy” and that “multi-partyism” is a “kind of luxury,” that is unaffordable by a country like the Ivory Coast (or any other African country for that matter).

Chinua Achebe and Why Things are in Free Fall in Africa

In Things Fall Apart (1959), the great African novelist Chinua Achebe tells the story of the initial encounters in the 1890s between Ibo villagers in Nigeria and white European missionaries and colonial officials. That was the time when things really began to “fall apart” in Africa. The white man “put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart.” But his depiction could apply to the “falling apart” of many other African societies as a result of contact with colonialism and Christianity. But over the last one-half century, colonialism has become extinct and the white man has “left” Africa. The African leaders who replaced the colonial masters have not hearkened back to pre-colonial Africa and used traditional values and methods to hold the center and keep things from falling apart. Rather, they have followed in the colonial footsteps and lorded over vampiric states which have attenuated and frayed the fabric of the post-independent African societies to ensure their hold on power.

Robert Guest, Africa editor for The Economist, in his book The Shackled Continent (2004), argues that “Africa is the only continent to have grown poorer over the last three decades” while other developing countries and regions have grown. Africa was better off at the end of colonialism than it is today. According to the U.N., life expectancy in Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Sierra Leone, Zambia, Mozambique and Swaziland for the period 2005-2010 is less than 44 years, the worst in the world. The average annual income in Zimbabwe at independence in 1980 was USD $950. In 2009, 100 trillion Zimbabwean dollars (with a “T”) was worth about USD $300. In the same year, a loaf of bread in Zimbabwe cost 300 billion Zimbabwean dollars (with a “B”). The tens of billions in foreign aid money has done very little to improve the lives of Africans. The reason for things falling apart in Africa is statism (the state as the principal change agent) and central planning, according to Guest. The bottom line is that the masses of Africans today are denied basic political and economic freedoms while the privileged few live the sweet life of luxury, not entirely unlike the “good old” colonial times.

Guest concludes that “Africans are poor because they are poorly governed.” The answer to Africa’s problems lies in upholding the rule of law, enforcing contracts, safeguarding property rights and putting more stock in freedom than in force. Much of Africa today is under the control of “Vampire states”. As the noted African economist George Ayittey explains, the “vampire African states” are “governments which have been hijacked by a phalanx of bandits and crooks who would use the instruments of the state machinery to enrich themselves and their cronies and their tribesmen and exclude everybody else.” (“Hyena States” would be a fitting alternative in the African landscape.) Africa is ruled by thugs in designer suits who buy votes and loyalties with cash handouts.

Things have fallen apart in Africa for a long time because of colonialism, capitalism, socialism, Marxism, communism, tribalism, ethnic chauvinism… neoliberalism, globalism and what have you. Things are in total free fall in Africa today because Africa has become a collection of vampiric states ruled by kleptocrats who have sucked it dry of its natural and human resources. It is easy to blame the white man and his colonialism, capitalism and all the other “isms” for Africa’s ailments, but as Cassius said to Brutus in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar: “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.” The fault is not in the African people, the African landscape or skyscape. Africa is rich and blessed with natural and human resources. The fault is in the African brutes and their vampiric regimes.

Achebe took the title for his book Things Fall Apart from William Butler Yeats’s classic poem, which in partial rendition reads:

Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, (substitute Africa)
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

For what it is worth, my humble view is that the African center cannot hold and things always fall apart because the best and the brightest of Africans lack all conviction to do what is right, while the worst are full of passionate intensity to divide the people ethnically, tribally, racially, ideologically, religiously, regionally, geographically, linguistically, culturally, economically, socially, constitutionally, systematically… and rule them with an iron fist. “Ces’t la vie en Afrique!” as the French might say; but to gainsay Jacques Chirac, “Africa is ready for democracy!” (L’Afrique est prêt pour la démocratie!).

FREE ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS IN ETHIOPIA.

Ethiopia: The A B C’s of Stealing an Election

Posted on , Updated on by Alemayehu G. Mariam

Alemayehu G. Mariam

It is a staple of the criminal defense bar to represent thieves, robbers, burglars, muggers, pickpockets, shoplifters, embezzlers, con men, fraudsters and swindlers. It is also the ineluctable lot of the defense lawyer to learn about the M.O. (modus operandi, techniques) of the criminal classes with professional detachment. But few defense lawyers could claim the dubious honor of representing criminals that specialize in election heists. So, when the Carter Center issued its post-mortem “Ethiopia National Elections Observation Mission 2005 Final Report”[1] recently, a unique academic opportunity became available to learn about how an election is actually stolen.

First, a detailed discussion of the specific findings of that Report is unnecessary. Anyone who has followed the May 2005 electoral process and observed the post-election period even with marginal interest is familiar with the facts presented and reviewed in the Report. Second, the diplomatically finessed conclusion of the Report tells the whole story. The 2005 Ethiopian election was stolen in broad daylight:

In spite of the positive pre election developments, the Center’s observation mission concludes that the 2005 electoral process did not fulfill Ethiopia’s obligations to ensure the exercise of political rights and freedoms necessary for genuinely democratic elections.

The real value of the Report lies in its plain depiction of how the 2005 Ethiopian election was stolen. One could say the Report is a sort of manual on the anatomy of election theft. To be sure, the Report effectively shows the “dos and don’ts” of a successful election heist and the specific things one must do in the “pre-election”, “election day” and “post-election” period. Carrying out the perfect election theft, however, is not for the faint of heart. One must have the cunning of a smiling villain, the audacity of a desperado outlaw and the brutality of a back alley thug to successfully steal an election in broad daylight. Above all, the accomplished election thief understands, masters and applies five basic principles.

Principle #1 (The Setup): Pander to your Western donors who bankroll you.

Elections in dictatorships are all about pleasing and trying to hoodwink Western donors, who are themselves all too willing to oblige with a wink and smile. They know elections in dictatorships are always stolen, but need an “election” charade to make plausible denials that they knew the election is stolen. In other words, they need a convenient cover story to shroud their hypocrisy in a garb of moral and intellectual virtue while concealing their criminal complicity in the theft. They pretend to maintain the appearance of neutrality and mediation in public while doing business as usual with the election thieves after dark. The smart election thief understands these basic facts and will do everything to make the donors happy, give them all the diplomatic cover they need and eventually squeeze more cash out of them.

The smart election thief will do just the right symbolic things to please the donors such as opening up “political space” for “competition and dialogue”, making grand pronouncements of “reforms”, giving lip service to open and vigorous electoral campaigns, not overtly interfering with civil society groups and the independent press and so on. It is a big deal for Western donors to see that “international election observers” are on the ground “watching” the “election” (from being stolen?!), and hopefully giving their blessings at the end. Western donors are kind of funny though: They want the local people to believe that an election could be stolen just a little and still be “free and fair.” But the people know that just as there is no such thing as a woman who is a little bit pregnant, there is also no such thing as an election that is a little bit stolen that is “free and fair”.

The Carter Center Report describing the 2005 pre-election period in Ethiopia stated:

The early pre-election period saw indications of growing space for political competition and dialogue. Government leaders, and opposition leaders met face-to-face to discuss the electoral process and needed reforms, with government agreeing to implement some of the key reforms called for by the opposition. International observers were invited and freedom of movement was assured. The Carter Center assessment team found the country’s political conditions conducive for an improved election. Government representatives exhibited openness to constructive criticism, and a willingness to consider recommendations for reforms. The opposition appeared ready to participate in the elections, and civil society was positioned to conduct voter and civic education and to observe the process…

Oh! What about democracy, free and fair elections, the people’s voice and all that good stuff? Not a problem. Western donors know the Ethiopian people are too poor, too hungry and too ignorant to understand or appreciate democracy. It is actually a simple problem of mind over matter: Western donors don’t mind (a stolen election) and the Ethiopian people don’t matter.

Principle #2 (Setting up the Heist): Use lots of smoke and mirrors.

Razzle-dazzle and theatricality are critical props before an election takedown. This requires keeping “the people” and the opposition distracted with all sorts of cute election games and amusements. One of the best election games is called “election code of conduct”. It is similar to a children’s game of marbles in which one player owns all the marbles. The game has only one rule: The guy who writes the “code” always wins the elections. As the election date nears, it is necessary to create hoopla and hype. The Carter Center Report describes:

The pre-election period witnessed unprecedented participation by opposition parties and independent candidates, and an unmatched level of political debate in the state-dominated electronic and print media and at public forums held across the country. Political parties agreed to a Party Code of Conduct, committing themselves to compliance with provisions calling for fair play and supporting peaceful political competition. Ethiopian civil society organizations were active in the pre-election period, observing election preparations and sponsoring a series of televised debates on public policy issues between government officials and opposition leaders.

Principle #3: (The Takedown) Snatch the election, faster than a New York pickpocket.

The smart election thief is lightening fast when it comes to the takedown. He does not wait for election returns, results or tabulations. He does not wait for verification reports and analysis of international observers or resolutions of vote challenges. On election day, he moves swiftly and declares victory before the votes are counted, imposes martial law and runs away with the prize in broad daylight in view of millions of stunned voters who look on in total disbelief. The Carter Center Report describes:

The May 15 voting process progressed relatively smoothly with Carter Center observers reporting that polling was calm and peaceful in the polling stations visited, with only limited incidents of disturbances reported. However, problems began to emerge during the counting and tabulation phases, with significant irregularities and delays in vote tabulation and a large number of electoral complaints. Preliminary but unconfirmed reports of election results from the political parties began to circulate on election night suggesting that the opposition parties had scored significant electoral gains, especially in Addis Ababa and other urban areas. On the night of the election, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi declared a one-month ban on public demonstrations in the capital and brought the Addis Ababa security forces (soon to be under the command of the opposition that won Addis Ababa) under the control of the office of the Prime Minister.

Principle #4 (The Getaway): Run them down if they get in your way!

As in any daylight crime, there may be witnesses. The smart election thief will use “shock and awe” to make a successful getaway. He will use extreme violence to deal with anyone standing in the way of his getaway. He will destroy any evidence of the theft and make it impossible to determine the full magnitude of the crime. He will boldly declare that it is necessary to kill unarmed demonstrators and jail nearly all of the opposition leaders to save democracy!

It’s very obvious now that the opposition tried to change the outcome of the election by unconstitutional means. We felt we had to clamp down. We detained them and we took them to court. In the process, many people died, including policemen. Many of our friends feel that we overreacted. We feel we did not. There is room for criticism nevertheless it does not change the fact that this process was a forward move towards democracy and not a reversal. Recent developments have simply reinforced that. The leaders of the opposition have realized they made a mistake. And they asked for a pardon, and the government has pardoned them all.[2]

The official Inquiry Commission set up to investigate the post-2005 election violence reported[3]:

There was no property destroyed. There was not a single protester who was armed with a gun or a hand grenade as reported by the government-controlled media that some of the protesters were armed with guns and bombs. The shots fired by government forces were not to disperse the crowd of protesters but to kill by targeting the head and chest of the protesters.

Principle #5: Deny, deny, then lie.

The smoothest criminals always deny, deny and lie that they have done anything wrong. It is no different for the smart election thief. In other words, once you get away with the heist, follow the wisdom of the Amharic saying “Ye leba ayne derek meles o leb adrik.” (A boldface thief will tax your patience by persistent denial.) Deny having stolen the election. Distract attention from oneself by pointing an accusatory finger at others and make ridiculous claims about “interhamwe” conspiracies, “blind hatred” and so on. Follow the teachings of Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda minister: “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”

As any criminal defense lawyer knows, the criminal perpetrator gains special psychological advantages by following a strategy of denial. The act of denial enables the criminal to shield himself from the shocking reality of his wrongdoing. It also offers him an opportunity to admit a fact but deny the seriousness of the crime (rationalization). In many cases, denial enables the criminal to admit a wrongdoing and its seriousness while avoiding moral responsibility altogether.

Everyone, including the most ardent critics of the government, agrees that right up to election day the democratic elections in Ethiopia were exemplary, by any standard. The issue arises as to whether the counting of the vote was done in a fair and transparent fashion. Here, there are varied assessments. We argue that while there may have been mistakes here and there, on the whole it was a credible and fair count. The opposition did not agree. So we said: ‘Let’s check. Let’s review the counting in the presence of foreign observers.’ We did that. After we did that, two groups of observers the African Union and the Carter Center said that while there had been some mistakes, the outcome of the election was credible.[4]

Principle # 5.5: Go back to Principle #1.

If at first you succeed in stealing an election, steal and steal again! Welcome to Ethiopia Election May 2010!

Whoever said “crime does not pay” has not tried stealing an election! Steal an election and you can steal everything in sight (or out of sight) with impunity, indefinitely!

“The people who cast the votes don’t decide an election, the people who count the votes do.” Joseph Stalin

[1] http://www.ethiomedia.com/course/carter_center_final_report.pdf
[2] http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1659420,00.html
[3] http://www.ethiomedia.com/addfile/ethiopian_inquiry_commission_briefs_congress.html
[4] See footnote 2.

Alemayehu G. Mariam, is a professor of political science at California State University, San Bernardino, and an attorney based in Los Angeles. He writes a regular blog on The Huffington Post, and his commentaries appear regularly on pambazuka.org, allafrica.com, newamericamedia.org and other sites.