By Assafa Endeshaw
1. The available accounts and reports suggest that nearly all the political parties and groups were resigned to the probability that the outcome of the 2005 elections in Ethiopia might confirm the TPLF/EPRDF’s grip on power. The ruling groups had no doubt that the elections would go the same way as previous ones–a landslide victory most of all in the countryside where local militias, the police and political cadres had displaced all the laws and institutions of the land and established total control on behalf of those groups. Far more important, the two main opposition groups (Hibret and Kinjit) had misgivings that the elections could trigger any dramatic changes in the political landscape.
2. The TPLF/EPRDF underestimated and misread the popular disenchantment with its rule expressed in the form of numerous petitions (abetuta), plain indifference or silent disapprovals sometimes paired with open support even for the most odious of their deeds–a longstanding form of political opposition in Ethiopia. (The latter attained an ‘art’ form during the Dergue years of terror where virtually no dissent surfaced even when masses of youth were slaughtered and their corpses thrown onto streets while others, including the parents of some, shouted slogans of support for the same action, labelled abyotawi ermija). The growing but scathing critique of the regime through the fledgling press, largely confined to Addis Ababa, and in other fora was interpreted by the same regime as the whining of a tiny few hankering after taking power away from the Tigrayans (hence ‘chauvinists’). The TPLF/EPRDF did not believe that any allowances to the opposition groups to gain access to the government-controlled mass media, at least in the run up to the elections, would do them any damage. After all, they had total control of the countryside, including the means to decide who was to be elected and by what margin!
3. Within the Hibret grouping, the predominant view rested on the circular (cynical) argument that the regime in power had not embraced democracy (free and fair elections, an independent judiciary and other relevant institutions) and any expectation of seizing power through the ballot box was illusory. The same view projected instead turning the election process into a means of conducting a campaign for total transformation of the state (through a new constitution and other institutional trappings) and, if there was sufficient support on the ground in terms of extensive wins in the elections, doing a second edition of the Orange Revolution in Ethiopia. Predictably, the Hibret grouping was torn between rejecting the electoral process at the outset, in keeping with this cynical theory championed by a former ideologue of the Dergue now perched at the helm of the Hibret, and pursuing the struggle for a democratic alternative through any available means (consistently championed by the Southern Ethiopia People’s Democratic Coalition or SEPDC, led by Beyene Petros). Not only did this dilemma cripple its leadership from evolving and executing practical policies in the wake of the fast pace of developments, it threw its potential supporters into despair and/or the arms of other groups
4. The Kinjit group was more prone to spontaneity and a reactive stance. Having emerged from an amalgam of diverse groups (some of which had just split from the Hibret) and armed with a hodgepodge of liberalism including a new doctrine of ‘change but without a revolution’, it was not possible for it to subject the onrushing course of events to any palpable scrutiny and to adopt a common viewpoint in terms of policies and tactics. Its ‘election manifesto’ was not only a concoction of all kinds of ideas and promises, befitting a ‘rainbow’ grouping, but also demonstrated the influence of varied persons and persuasions barely able to mix together into a coherent perspective to meet Kinjit’s urgent need for some kind of programme. The discernible presence of an assortment of voices, styles and views in the manifesto (as well as beyond, in the streets and through the press, for example) proved that the group was strung together partly on account of the urge for unity that the populace demanded. Indeed, although the Kinjit was fraught with the diverse, even contradictory, perceptions that had infused the constituent groups and impacted on how the Kinjit behaved in the actual course of events, its performance was always swayed by the popular desire for change and remained in that grip until the arrest of its leaders by the regime in power on false charges of treason. To be sure, it gradually overcame the internal dissonances by co-opting the leading elements in each subgroup and excluding those they deemed ‘difficult’ or ‘obstacles’ (such as, notably, the hapless Lidetu Ayalew). Yet, the formation of the Kinjit did not end the proliferation of diverse views and perceptions in its ranks. The compulsion to keep together and win the elections became a paramount rationale for its continuity as a ‘rainbow’ grouping before the elections and the transition towards a unified party, afterwards. As regards the expectation of any significant wins over the TPLF/EPRDF, that too was blurred by the lack of trust in the electoral system as well as its inability to estimate how the general populace might react on the day. That the general public could have the courage to throw the ruling groups out of power through the ballot box was too surreal for the group to contemplate. For a population that has never put its trust in political authority, particularly that of the central state, and remains in the grip of the widespread perception that those in power engage in routinely abusing it, it would not have been a normal reaction to express their will freely and without fear of consequences. The people’s fear of the current power holders and their cynical deployment of a political police throughout the length and breadth of the country meant that avoiding having to express their real feelings about state affairs to organs of the state (the election commission or whatever) would be the rule rather than the exception. Popular antipathy to, and suspicion of, anything to do with and by the state runs so deep in the psyche of the nation that no one could have accurately gauged how the public would react other than to reinstate the status quo just as during the earlier elections.
5. For all kinds of reasons, the outcome of the 2005 elections threw up nothing dramatic. The vast majority of the general public in Ethiopia had no faith in the policies and practices of the TPLF/EPRDF almost from the beginning of their reign. Sections of the population that sought to give them the benefit of the doubt in 1991 had seen their hopes dashed in subsequent years. The urban unrests and open rebellion in 2001 against the regime in power were sufficient testimony to the lack of support for, indeed also to the abject failure of, the policies and administration of the TPLF/EPRDF. Although the government had belatedly begun to realise that its policies and administration had failed in a number of areas and antagonised broader sections of the population, it focussed on undertaking mass meetings to explain them away and to reassert the validity of its ‘revolutionary democracy’–a euphemistic mumbo-jumbo frequently cited to suggest some form of populist ideological rationale behind their misrule. The TPLF/EPRDF fired, even imprisoned, a number of its leaders to reinforce the message that its policies had undergone some form of repackaging and that implementation (portrayed as the basic failure) would improve. Still, major planks of the failed policies of the regime, viewed by the vast majority as replicas of the Dergue (some had hence dubbed it Dergue II), remained intact. The premier positions in the public administration up and down the country was filled by cadres who were largely recruited from the ranks of the TPLF; the economy and the public treasury continued to be plundered by business interests linked to, or privately owned by, leaders of the TPLF (mostly) and their teletafi organisations or hangers on (a few); the TPLF/EPRDF trampled underfoot all forms of public life (the mass media, the educational system, the business community, the judiciary and law enforcement agencies). In brief, the TPLF/EPRDF had in effect become a military bureaucratic dictatorship routinely deploying brute force as a means of getting its way everywhere but masquerading as a moderniser through the incessant propaganda mounted largely by the state-controlled media. Add to this the massive deception it perpetrated on its foreign backers (painting itself as democrats engaged in a gradual and measured introduction of democracy into a country that never enjoyed any of it until they sprang to power) and the picture becomes clear of a potent force continuing with its destructive rampage in all sectors of the society. Its unending mishandling of the ‘Eritrean problem’, the neglect of growing poverty, mass unemployment and continuing exclusion of all forms of political groups from the public space gave the lie to the regime’s claim to any level of legitimacy as the ultimate authority over Ethiopian affairs. When it therefore emerged that the general public had voted in the June 2005 elections not to express acquiescence and loyalty to the TPLF/EPRDF as would have been normal, but actually to throw them out of power, it supplied fresh evidence of the public’s widespread desperation and bitterness, a determination that, come what might, they would choose death to life under the TPLF/EPRDF. It became strikingly apparent that the masses of people had voted without any fear of the consequences that might be visited on them the morning after the elections should the TPLF/EPRDF stay on. Neither were they concerned that the foreign powers so deeply involved in sustaining the regime could come to their aid and force it to recognise the popular verdict. They appeared not to be worried too much that the political leadership supplied by Hibret and Kinjit was wanting in providing clear directions and alternative options in the fast-paced course of events.
6. The reactions of the different parties to the outcome of the elections were nevertheless dramatic. The moment the news of their wipe out in Addis Ababa and possibly in outlying regions came flooding in, the leadership of the TPLF/EPRDF was consumed by fear and unease. If any of the news reports are to be believed, some of them had started packing to run away before they were ordered to stay put at their posts until further notice. The inner circle of top military officers, intelligence and security chiefs and selected political bosses were reportedly hastily gathered for a debriefing and to map out a plan of action in case the expected Orange Revolution materialised. Drastic steps were soon announced to stem the tide of public opinion and expectations of a quick handover of power to the presumed winners. The election machinery appeared to have been co-opted into delaying announcements of vote counts and overseeing massive rigging of the outcomes. Stories abound of independent observers refusing to budge (some killed, but many intimidated and forced to abandon their posts) from the voting stations before the counting process was completed and the winners duly declared on the very night of the fateful elections. The fact that the regime brought into the capital an infamous army corps (known by the name of ‘Agazi) instantly reviled for its atrocities (beatings, killings and imprisonment of thousands) to stamp out any expression of popular disenchantment with the election process and suspended even the semblance of democratic liberties it used to flaunt for the benefit of foreign embassies and international agencies in Addis Ababa exposed the hysterical level of fear that engulfed it. Indeed, its media started churning out steadfastly scare stories of plots by the opposition parties to target Tigrayans in the capital that it had insinuated at infrequent gaps before the elections. The real aims appeared to be to bring back into the fold of the TPLF sections of the Tigrayans in the administration, the army and within the business community as well as abroad (in foreign countries) who had deserted the TPLF or opposed its policies and practices, particularly after the split of the leadership and the demise of the Gebru Asrat-Siye group. Once the immediate fear of a mass uprising against the TPLF/EPRDF receded (partly because of the confusion in the ranks of the opposition as to what to do and partly also because of the expectation among the same groups that the foreign embassies who had kept tab on all the developments might advise the regime to come clean on the results), the government targeted groups of people for its systematic suppression: taxi drivers, university students, youth in general and finally supporters and members of the opposition movements. Each time one or more groups rose spontaneously (it had to be such because the opposition groups disavowed any form of mass action and disowned even those who died on the streets exercising their rights to hold peaceful demonstrations under the TPLF-designed constitution), the regime would forcibly disband, arrest and incarcerate ever wider sections and take them to all corners of the country. It seemed that history was repeating itself but this time the regime in power raining bullets on the demonstrators and establishing huge concentration camps (some with the identical names dating from the 1970s) was headed by a few of the protestors of some thirty years ago. It is incredible, but true, that a number of today’s jailers and executioners were the very persons who feared for their lives under the imperial regime and sought to bring to an end mass repression and dictatorship.
7. The reactions of the Hibret and Kinijit to the election outcomes were extraordinary. This had to do in part with the manner in which the disparate opposition political groupings in the two years preceding the 2005 elections in Ethiopia came together. The decade long public disappointment and despair with the TPLF/EPRDF had generated increased pressures on the opposition political groupings to create a broader consensus and unified action to remove the incumbents from power. In spite of the differences that might have existed among those groups, it had become increasingly ridiculous for miniscule groups to opt to gain power at the expense of all other forces, including the TPLF/EPRDF. Once the 2005 elections were around the corner, it seemed necessary for all to forge alliances or fronts, at least, to make a dent on the grip of the TPLF/EPRDF on the Ethiopian state. As referred to above, the Hibret and Kinijit operated on the premise that some gains may be made in the elections but that a decisive victory would be unthinkable knowing fully well the ruling parties’ undiminished control over the electoral system, access to the media and the army (often viewed as the praetorian guards of the TPLF). When the results for Addis Ababa became known and those for the provinces began to filter through, however, the opposition sensed blood on the carpet. Instead of the earlier expectation of some level of success (reinforced by the foreign media and the local ambassador’s insistence that such was sufficient for the time being, until the next elections that is), the opposition declared that they would have won had it not been for the massive fraud and intimidation in the outlying regions. They therefore started to mount fresh campaigns to verify the outcome of the elections, partly through the election board itself (despite their repeated castigation of that body for its bias and role as a tool of the dictatorship) and by appealing to foreign embassies as well as the very government they sought to displace. The two main groups appeared to believe that a recount or verification of the contested votes would give them the majority they thought they had won. The next few weeks after the elections were therefore spent by these groups in trying to find the listening ear for their pleas: the regime itself; the foreign embassies of the big powers in Addis Ababa and the foreign media. If at all the general public was considered in the calculus of regaining the lost votes, it was as a force of last resort. The public was told repeatedly not to engage in any action that might be construed as ‘violent’ or endangering the peaceful process underway in brief, “change but no revolution!â€Â
8. The contrasting political chess game between the TPLF/EPRDF which deployed brutal forces and engaged in unadulterated repression mainly against the urban population and the Kinjit and Hibret who unwittingly acquiesced in the liquidation of the popular craving for a total change of government did not represent any forward movement in the political conditions of the country. The slide of the TPLF/EPRDF towards a blatant dictatorship ostensibly to thwart a re-enactment of the Orange Revolution or the massacre in Rwanda was not met by popular mass action if only to assert the veracity of the overwhelming votes cast against it and to resist its onslaught. If the people had indeed voted in the opposition groups and cast the TPLF/EPRDF out of power, the obvious conclusion must have been to go back to the people and urge them to support their votes by taking to the streets and demanding either a recount, re-elections or whatever other suitable moves. Nothing of the kind transpired except the feeble threats of ‘civil disobedience’  a self-imposed staying away of the people from the streets and work. Even that was given up when the foreign ambassadors intervened to wrest a verbal promise from the government that they would agree to negotiate a way out, only to be unceremoniously ditched by them a few days later. In the despair over the lack of any actual leadership and directions for the developing situation in the ensuing days and weeks after the elections, the indomitable spirit of student activism at the universities rose to explode the myth of the TPLF/EPRDF repression as the pivotal factor for not mounting any resistance. Again, this was a literal application of the newly concocted ‘change but no revolution’ adage; the new belief (if at all one could call it that) sought to avoid any confrontation, any blood from spilling and giving the TPLF/EPRDF any excuses for launching its brutal attacks on the people everywhere. Student activism, the spontaneous resistance of the youth and taxi drivers nevertheless showed the impotence of the opposition leaders as well as their mantras of a negotiated settlement of the dispute about the results of the elections. It also showed for the nth time in history that the people never desire to die, spill any blood or seek to launch a revolution if their demands are met by those in authority. Although the TPLF/EPRDF regime managed to disperse, kill, imprison and abuse the youth and students as well as the general population, it did not stamp out the resistance, nor could it; it merely lost any vestiges of credibility or ‘revolutionary democracy’ in the process. As a matter of fact, since the first bloody suppression of demonstrations and the mass incarcerations, even primary school pupils have joined the ranks of the political opposition and shut down schools! The entirety of circumstances has underlined that its days as a government would last only as long as it continued to muster the military forces that could do its bidding: shooting down demonstrators (mostly youngsters and students), arresting anyone in the streets and re-creating the concentration camps that had long been forgotten with the imperial regime. Secondly, by virtue of its arrogance, malicious propaganda and thuggery, the TPLF/EPRDF has opened the doors even wider for any form of armed opposition. On top of this, significant sections of the population (not just the intellectuals) have rediscovered their voices to express openly their disdain for the TPLF/EPRDF and the fact that they would sacrifice everything to see the back of it. Ultimately, the TPLF/EPRDF has prepared the ground for a major counter-resistance on a scale never known before in Ethiopia. A veritable revolution is knocking at its doors and brewing with every passing day. (The thrust of this new wave has already led to the formation of an alliance of otherwise implacable enemies sworn to get rid of it. But more of this later.) In the meantime, the fate of the leadership of the TPLF/EPRDF is in the hands of a small circle of military and intelligence officers who might decide to act sooner rather than allow any form of popular uprising that might put an end to the entire edifice of brutal power, corruption and plunder of the nation’s resources. It is not inconceivable that the foreign powers that have sustained the leadership of the TPLF might seek to replace it at their whim, just like they did to the murderous regime of Mengistu Haile Mariam.
9. To the extent that the TPLF/EPRDF succeeded in dispersing the gathering post-election storm in Addis Ababa and some of the regional capitals and got the foreign ambassadors engaged in hoodwinking the opposition that their intention of a negotiated outcome was honest and the like, one would have thought that the upper hand they got might prompt them, in their own self-interest, to reflect on their brutal responses to the people in the recent past and start making amends. If they had any sense of abiding by any democratic principles or belonged to any sane belief system, for that matter, they would of course have renounced their hold on power once the majority of senior ministers in the government were defeated at the polls. The decapitation of the government at the polls was in no measure a reflection of the personal weaknesses of those who fell but of the policies and practices of the entire administration. Yet, true to form, the TPLF/EPRDF behaved as if its policies and track record had won in the elections and discounted any significance that the fall of the senior ministers definitely had. Worse, it threatened to retain the fallen ministers in their jobs. In the end, it assigned the same persons to various high posts in the state again indicating that the voice of the mass of voters who gave them a thrashing in the elections counted for nothing. In effect, the TPLF/EPRDF did not mind being perceived by all, not just the section who always contested its democratic claims, as a government that has no respect for the expressed wishes of its population. A second area of possible concessions by the TPLF/EPRDF was to keep its brutal praetorian guards away from popular spaces and venues (urban centres in general, universities and schools, public festivities) to avoid any further aggravation of the dire situation. As a follow up, it could have let the opposition leaders and their organisations go about their business. Having lost the plot in the first week after the elections and never being able to regain their senses in the second, the Hibret and Kinjit leaders were already at loggerheads with their membership and the general public, playing into the hands of the government by quietly working for a negotiated settlement (which was never going to happen) and without any form of dialogue with the general public at all. While the TPLF/EPRDF had an army rampaging in the streets, a media sowing all kinds of confusion among the people, at the same time as blocking any means of mass communications (including mobile phones, fax machines, the Internet and the fledgling press), they denied themselves of the support of the only force that helped them gain a sense of purpose and hope for change at all. It was therefore odd, even lunatic, for the TPLF/EPRDF to launch more attacks and imprisonment of masses of people as well as the leadership of the Kinjit and to a lesser extent (by design, it seems) of the Hibret.
10. It is not easy to understand why the TPLF/EPRDF has continued its onslaught on the popular masses in spite of the fact that it has gained the upper hand in the post-election confrontations (however expressed) and that the mass movement has yet to evolve a stable leadership with distinct policies and strategies. Yet, it seems that the changed circumstances have not allayed its fear of what could have happened. The TPLF/EPRDF still remains in a state of shock and unforgiving of those forces who nearly brought it down. Thus instead of engaging in a brutal assessment of its failed policies and practices and working towards remedying/revamping them, it continues to be fixated on the past and on meting out punishments against those who dealt it a severe blow in the 2005 elections. Its supporters abroad, including Tony Blair and Bob Geldof, were at a loss to understand how a regime they generously dubbed ‘an example to the rest of Africa’ might all of a sudden unleash such a devastating attack and murderous campaigns against its own people. The true picture seems to be a morbid fear of the huge gulf that separates the dictatorial state from the populace and an inability to see how they can claw back the support that has deserted them. The nightmare of losing power to persons they suspect to be the very forces they have for long castigated as ‘chauvinists’, ‘neftegna’ and what not seems to be behind the frantic, desperate and diabolical waves of atrocities, incarcerations of political activists and their supporters of any age, gender and national group. Just as the imperial regime and the Dergue before it, the TPLF/EPRDF’s indiscriminate acts of repression of the entire population is propelling mass opposition to the level unheard of in our history. Having shut off the space required for political dialogue and debate and incarcerating the leadership of the principal opposition movement in Ethiopia today, the TPLF/EPRDF is throwing the gauntlet to all those who aspire for change to find other ways of throwing it out of power.
11. Paradoxical though it might seem, the slide of the TPLF/EPRDF towards dictatorship and brutality has fostered two principal outcomes that might otherwise have taken an extended period of gestation. On the one hand, it has accelerated the integration of the motley of groups that joined together to establish the Kinjit as a front to become a single party. By blocking the non-violent path of struggle, the onslaught has stemmed the creation of ever newer but disparate political groups, thus eliminating the persistent problem of attempting to unify them under a single programme and organisation. Moreover, the fact that the Kinjit has been singled out by the TPLF/EPRDF to bear the brunt of the repression has gifted that organisation a virtual monopoly of the moral and political authority over entire sections of the population in the confrontation with itself. In brief, the victims of the mass terror and unbridled oppression carry the mantle of justice and victory even while behind bars, in hospital morgues and muzzled not to speak/write a word. On the other hand, the differences that persisted within the constituent groups of the Kinjit were narrowed further and prevented the occurrence of any likely splits. Not that the process was accompanied by clearer views and positions on issues of the day and the social-economic transformation of the country. Initially, the focus of all the groups in the Kinijit was on getting to grips with the widely reported rigging of the election results and any other issues (including the rationale and foundations of the planned party) were relegated to second place. As soon as the TPLF/EPRDF opened its reign of terror and committed mass killings and incarceration, the Kinjit began to be preoccupied with demanding a halt to the atrocities and the restoration of the democratic rights including the release of prisoners. No sooner had the TPLF/EPRDF shifted towards capturing the entire leadership and members (suspected or actual) of the Kinijit and a few others on charges of fomenting public disorder and the ‘illegal overthrow of the constitutional authorities’ than the opposition to the regime assumed a global reach. Ethiopians living abroad assumed the responsibility of voicing opposition to, and propagating to the outside world of, the spectrum of misdeeds, systematic emasculation of the democratic movement inside Ethiopia. Although the lack of foresight on the part of the Kinjit leadership to prepare alternative centres of authority within the ranks of its membership but to leave the movement in a state of disorganisation and leader-less started to throw up a measure of confusion and other problems, the overall tenor of the determined opposition to the regime has deepened and grown.
12. While the respective leaderships of the opposition movements inside Ethiopia put their trust more in the ongoing negotiations mediated by the foreign embassies of the big powers than in the indomitable will and strength of the general public, the US and Britain in particular had remained unconvinced that the TPLF/EPRDF had to go. In spite of the atrocities, widespread killings and suppression of students, the youth and the general public that the TPLF/EPRDF committed, these powers merely sought to distance themselves from its ‘excesses’, ‘overreaction’ or whatever. The European Union took the more direct step of withdrawing the budgetary support that it had been providing to the regime for years on end and threatened to act on any form of aid to the regime unless it mended its ways. Yet, US reluctance to do the same against the Ethiopian regime and the general Western indifference to whatever happened in Africa added to the familiar position of letting the state sort out its internal problems the way it saw fit. Moreover, the US does not see any risk of losing its influence over the TPLF and the role the latter has played over the last 20 years or so as US henchmen in the Horn of Africa, including Somalia. Any US fears that the European Union or, belatedly China, might loosen their grip over the Ethiopian state seem to be too far in the distance to matter at all. Whatever might come out of efforts in the US Congress, essentially, to clip the wings of the TPLF/EPRDF, the general consensus among the Western governments with influence over Ethiopia seems to be to intervene through their embassies in Addis Ababa towards making the political opposition succumb to the status quo: play as a loyal opposition in a parliament dominated, once again, by the TPLF/EPRDF and bid their time hoping to win in the coming elections. The pressure of foreign embassies on the leaders of the opposition forces stretched beyond promises of more ‘development aid’ targeted at improving the electoral system, to lenient sentencing on the trumped up charges pending in the courts, to some sort of sharing of the political space with the regime.
13. The role of foreign elements and forces (governments, voluntary organisations, donor agencies, consultant of all shapes) and their embassies in Ethiopian affairs has reached its peak during the rise to power of the TPLF/EPRDF and afterwards. The efforts made by the TPLF/EPRDF to polish its image and presentation in front of these forces has paid dividends in terms of gaining it unreserved support regardless of its odious practices (amongst others, the massacres in the early years in Arsi and Harar, during the last two elections in Hadiya and Wolaita and most recently in Gambella). Foreign experts and journalists unashamedly peddle the farsightedness of its leaders and the supposed huge improvements in the life and conditions of the people as well as deride popular opposition to them as manifestations of the Amharas yearning to regain the power they lost in 1991. By contrast, they portray the TPLF/EPRDF as trusted allies in the fight against terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism in the Horn of Africa and perhaps beyond (remember the warm response given by these people and their friends on the other side of the Mereb to Bush’s call for sending troops to Iraq). The tragedy for the Ethiopian people has not been the fact that its rulers became out and out agents of foreign powers and cared less that their mainstay was not the people as ‘revolutionary democracy’ decreed, but that opponents of the regime too sought to find succour from the same foreign forces. The contest of who must gain power in Ethiopia was therefore viewed by the opposition parties to be determined by the level of support they won among the foreign powers. Every time the various leaders of the opposition movements visited foreign capitals, they routinely solicited an appointment to talk to officials in government departments who often turned out to be low ranking and desirous only of sucking up any information of interest to their governments. It is thus not difficult to see that the contests in the elections were predestined to be shaped by the extent to which foreign forces put their pressure on the TPLF/EPRDF to conduct free and fair elections and to abide by the results. Where these were lacking, it was inevitable that the claim to rectify any resulting fraud or rigging would only be brought to the attention of those foreign forces. The support of millions of people up and down the country would always be regarded as second best.
14. The industrial powers have long decreed the unconditional embrace of democracy (manifested through a free press, periodic elections and a multi-party system), the rule of law and the market economy to be the litmus tests for their support of any political forces in Africa and elsewhere. The tie up (prescribed by those powers and accepted by those who seek to gain their patronage above all else) between the method of gaining power (elections), the manner in which such elections would be conducted (presumably free and fair) and the forms of handling any subsequent complaints (through independent courts) was so clear and unambiguous that, in Ethiopia, the vast majority of political opponents of the regime denied the presence of these processes and boycotted any elections as a matter of principle. The ‘reasoned’ opinion of the above cited Dergue ideologue went so far as to suggest that nothing could happen in Ethiopia before a new constitution was in place–in effect, rejecting the role of elections in political struggles including their potential value in removing dictators from power and paving the way for more democratic reforms. The mechanical contrast of either full democracy first and then elections or no participations in elections at all had proved convincing for years before 2005 among the broadest section of the political opposition. Only the political group based in a section of the population in the South of Ethiopia (SEPDC) persistently opposed such a stance and demonstrated in deed that it was possible to gain seats at the expense of the ruling powers. Indeed, during all the elections that were conducted since 1991, the people of Southern Ethiopia had risen up repeatedly to challenge the rule of the TPLF/EPRDF. They managed to stand firm and confront the regime through peaceful and democratic means, even in the face of violent assaults on their rights, the burning of their houses and incarceration/killing of their legitimately elected leaders and the wider population. The shining example of the Southern Ethiopian people was not quickly appreciated by other political forces and regions, nor did the value of their peaceful struggle that deployed all available means (including the government-controlled elections) ever become a rallying point for years on end. Neither was the sudden rush by all the opponents of the regime to participate in the 2005 elections a realisation of mistakes committed in the past in not properly understanding the potential role of electoral politics in getting rid of the dictatorship and replacing it with a democratic administration. The groups and parties that were based abroad always had the luxury of threatening to start a war, engage in armed struggle or extend what they claimed already existed against the dictatorship. The domestic political groups have had to refrain from similar adventures for fear that the regime in power might clamp down on their activities particularly in urban areas (in much the same way as the OLF suffered). All in all, the actual conversion to the peaceful (often confused with the pacifist) form of struggle represented by the participation of the political opposition in the 2005 elections was thrust on them by force of circumstances. One the one hand, having come out of decades of civil war in the north of the country, the general population had become sceptical about the proprietary of any more resort to the violent path. On the other hand, the relative absence of foreign backing to such a pursuit subsequent to the ‘end of the Cold War’, indeed the pressure brought to bear on the political opposition to engage in the peaceful process purportedly opened up by their protégés in Addis Ababa, rendered any notion of armed struggle illusory. Thus the inability of the political opposition to discover independent means of struggle that might lead to the removal of the TPLF/EPRDF dictated that elections should be resorted to, at least, to demonstrate to the foreign powers that all efforts have been channelled by the opposition into establishing democracy in Ethiopia and, if such failed, it was not for want of trying. Ultimately, their participation in the elections was not based on a serious conviction that change would be possible through the ballot box and that the masses of people who supported them would be the principal authors/actors of the triumph. All along, they appeared to have placed their trusts on foreign powers intervening to dislodge the groups in power and inviting them to take over.
15. The morning after the polling stations of the 2005 elections closed, a war of claims and counter-claims erupted. In its habitual mode of shooting itself in the feet first and trying to cover up malicious falsehoods and blatant deceptions, the TPLF/EPRDF declared a landslide in its favour. As if to distract attention from the shock of its defeat in Addis Ababa and the virtual beheading of the government (most of its senior ministers having lost their seats in parliament), it vociferously declared it had got the election in the bag even before any official figures were released by the pertinent body (of its own making). Evidently, the fear of losing the elections was so widespread among its membership (mainly its army) that it sensed fabricating news of its victory was better than allowing the rumour of its impending defeat to spread across the country. This provoked the broad supporters of the opposition groups into a frenzy to find out the truth and to respond with their own versions of total victory. Still, the ruling groups were in the opportune position of not just finding out what the results were from the Election Board that they had set up by themselves, they could also order what those results must be. Surely, a dictatorship which has lasted over a decade and a half doing the kind of unsavoury things in all directions (establishing an army with loyalty to the TPLF alone, building up a band of huge corporations from the state’s coffers and other resources to be run and owned by the TPLF, establishing a media empire by stripping and dwarfing that nominally run by the state), could not possibly resist the temptation to fiddle with the figures and results of constituencies mostly in the regions and far away from the gaze of the foreign media and elections monitors. The constant intimidation and brutal force poised to be deployed in whichever locality the regime might find resistance assured that whatever shock it expected to protect itself against did not materialise. The disorganisation and lack of foresight among its political opponents also helped it keep the election returns to be delayed as long as possible and to orchestrate massive vote rigging. The demonstration of the university students that erupted in Addis Ababa in the days following the government’s unilateral declaration of winning the elections was no doubt in opposition to the deliberate delays and the suspicion that it might be falsifying the results. All told, the opposition groups could not hasten the declaration of the results and the only way open to them was to reject the results as a whole or to contest some of them. There was a temptation in the first few weeks to reject the declared outcomes of the government’s Election Board (obviously in league with the government itself) but it seems that pragmatism and persuasion from the foreign ambassadors dissuaded them from such a path. Should they reject the results as a whole, the question would turn into why did they participate at all? Once they desisted from total rejection, the door was open to attempting to right the wrongs largely by appealing to the regime itself, the foreign ambassadors who continued to mediate between the opposing sides more formally, and then the legal avenue. The regime was in no way prepared to accept any malpractices in the counting of the votes and directed the complainants to take up their ‘gripe’ with the Electoral Board knowing full well that the latter was a mere government department serving the purposes of the TPLF/EPRDF as directed. The foreign ambassadors concurred with the government in directing the opposition parties to seek solace in the same organ of state. The quest to get the TPLF/EPRDF to recognise any misdeeds in the electoral process was hence doomed from the outset. This the foreign ambassadors seemed to have understood when they began to prod the political opposition to compromise (read: accept what has happened as final and unchangeable) and play their ‘responsible role’ by entering parliament and continuing their struggle to get into power through subsequent round of elections.
16. The inability of the political opposition to impose their will on the TPLF/EPRDF, nullify the effects of its interference in determining the results of the election became clearer with each passing day. Still, they did not devise any means of channelling the popular anger at the deception perpetrated by the TPLF/EPRDF and their determination to pay any price to get ready of it into any meaningful support for their tactics. The exclusion of the general public from the legal confrontations they set about (partly on the advice of the foreign ambassadors), diminished any prospects they might have had in winning any concessions from the TPLF/EPRDF. It was perfectly possible for example for the electoral body to be declared totally incompetent to decide on the contentions as it was a department of the government. This could at least have served the purpose of getting rid of this ulcer in the electoral process for good. Instead, they allowed that body to be used by the TPLF/EPRDF to make a mockery of their contentions and complaints. The resort to the courts proved to be such a drawn out affair with an outcome only too well foreseeable that the opposition parties had misgivings about pursuing that path from the start.
17. While the results of the elections were still contested, the TPLF/EPRDF rushed to open parliament and push through new rules that made it virtually impossible for anyone but their members to table any motions in the house. Such a step is symptomatic of what the TPLF/EPRDF is all about: riding roughshod over everyone and everything, including the laws it has pushed through. Thus it has legislated against corruption but the leaders of the TPLF/EPRDF routinely plunder state resources to establish their own corporations. While the TPLF/EPRDF was fiddling with the parliamentary rules, the Kinjit and Hibret had for some time indicated that unless the accuracy of the election results was confirmed, they would not enter parliament. They kept repeating to all and sundry that ‘entering parliament without rectifying the rigged results would be tantamount to treason’. The public was also led to believe that the accurate results would be established somehow and that their participation would never happen until such was done. In reality, the possibilities for such an outcome was dimmer and dimmer as (indicated above) their links with the general public remained tenuous, their tactics were about pleading with the authorities established by their antagonists and the foreign ambassadors. Even when the urban youth started breaking into demonstrations and street fights with the Agazis, the political opposition took the side of the government in condemning such steps and disowned them. Then in a twist that would make fiction writers gasp for air, the TPLF/EPRDF concocted the idea of stripping the ‘elected representatives’ from Hibret and Kinjit of their legal immunity before they even set foot in parliament. This was, with hindsight, in preparation for more odious measures to be launched against the Hibret and Kinjit. The powers that be stepped in to put an end to any further wrangles by arresting hundreds of the supporters and leaders of the oppositional parties. They also set in motion proceedings in the courts to charge more than a hundred people of crimes against humanity and such other acts. By locking away such a high number of people and virtually the entire leadership of the Kinjit, they were probably aiming at incapacitating that organisation and reducing its presence in parliament.
18. The arrest of the Kinijit leadership and the trumped up charges of genocide and treason initiated against it further inflamed broader sections of the population that had declared their support for change in government. Quite to the dismay of even their foreign backers, the TPLF/EPRDF stepped up their repression in the countryside, conducted a rerun of a few elections they had managed their agents, the Electoral Board, to pronounce as tainted by irregularity. In reality, this was a ploy to regain seats that some of its senior ministers had lost. The Hibret and Kinjit were in no state to contest these reruns as they were busy countering government propaganda of the success of the elections overall and concentrated on pushing for a re-examination of the rigging of the entire process (through the expected help of the foreign ambassadors and the courts). In the meantime, the TPLF/EPRDF started harassing the elected representatives who did not want to take part in the opening of parliament or to join it afterwards so long as the results were not certified as legitimate. The test of strength obviously favoured the regime who used all manners of pressures and threats to force each of the elected representatives to turn up for the opening of parliament and to sit at its sessions subsequently. Those who succumbed to the pressure and/or sought to retreat from the standpoints of their groups (to continue to oppose the officially declared outcome of the elections) inevitably encouraged the TPLF/EPRDF to harden its strong-arm tactics. It seemed to the TPLF/EPRDF as well as to the opposition that the options of engaging in negotiations or having the courts determine the legitimacy of the outcomes no longer remained attractive to either side. The regime in particular gloated over its successes and appointed defeated electoral candidates (some of whom were senior ministers) to prominent state positions. It constantly bragged that it had the firepower to silence any opposition and proved it without reservation. Arraigning the leaders of Hibret before the courts and simultaneously playing out its malicious propaganda against the opposition in general whilst denying them any means of voicing their opinions ushered in a sordid chapter in its dictatorial rule. The lessons it offered to the opposition day in and day out has been to take up arms and force it out of power or to remain in submission for the remainder of the five years it has declared itself elected.
19. The overall consequences of the systematic emasculation of non-violent political opposition by the TPLF/EPRDF have been twofold. Firstly, a fresh wave of anti-TPLF politics has engulfed practically all sectors of the society. The unanimous view appears to be that its time is up. The use of brute force by the TPLF/EPRDF against children, the youth and students, peaceful demonstrators and supporters of the Kinjit and Hibret has fostered a belief in the general population that the only way to get rid of its rule is to embrace armed struggle. Such a stance has gained acceptance across age groups and political persuasions. A number of armed ‘fronts’ have either declared their emergence or unwavering commitments in parts of the country. Still, a new round of civil war waged against the background of ethnically defined regions making up the country and ethnically-based political organisations teeming everywhere has perilous repercussions that cannot be underestimated. Not only the predictable but objectionable outcomes of armed movements not willing to give up power to elected representatives but also the probability of ethnically divided regions pitting themselves against each other make that alternative fraught with dangers. Secondly, the assault on the Kinjit and Hibret and their immobilisation through the denial of non-violent political fora has prompted the establishment of bigger and more far reaching alliances than was attempted before the elections. The most recent that has begun to take shape in the latest attempt to find suitable formula for removing the TPLF/EPRDF from power is the ‘Alliance for Freedom and Democracy’ (AFD). The AFD constitutes an umbrella for groups and movements more diverse than one could possibly have imagined possible a year ago. It purports to link up Kinjit and the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), diametrically opposed to each other at least in one regard (the moronically conceived ‘cessation’ of Oromia from Ethiopia), to similar movements waging war (actual or planned) against the regime. The AFD defines itself as committed to a broad framework that allows each party or member to maintain its independent existence as well as politics.
20. The creation of the AFD represents the first step in the realisation that no single political force alone can undo the damage done by the TPLF/EPRDF to the process of democratisation of the Ethiopian state that started with the overthrow of the imperial regime in 1974 but met with all kinds of obstacles and deficiencies along the way. Moreover, it seems to recognise that the weaknesses of each political opposition in failing to remove the TPLF/EPRDF from power could only be overcome through the combination of all sections/elements of the society on a broad front of pluralist political activism. Although it is an article of faith in any politics bent on seizing power to seek to unite all forces that stand in opposition against the established political order, this has rarely happened in Ethiopia because of the backwardness and/or short-sightedness of the leading political elements. More inclined towards feudal parochialism and obscurantism as they often have been, even the more radical elements in the society sought to wage their respective struggles in exclusion of all other forces that championed the very aims they proclaimed to stand for. The splintering of the Ethiopian Patriots before the returning Emperor Haile Selassie I, the innumerable attempts to unseat the Emperor by diverse groups and persons, the parallel existence/struggle of radical groups against the Dergue, the different factions that sprang up in opposition to the TPLF/EPRDF though they spoke the same political language and desired almost identical ends, all these and more kept the popular struggle at bay while the respective rulers maintained their grip. The AFD’s focus therefore on removing the TPLF/EPRDF from power, or, at any rate, seeking to erect a universal platform whereby the process of democratisation could be propelled forward by bringing all political forces in Ethiopia (obviously opening the door wide open for the TPLF/EPRDF to join in if it so wished) therefore constitutes a break with the long standing decadent tradition. The message that all the political forces have a stake in coming together to tackle the continuing domination of a remorseless kleptocracy in Addis Ababa and work towards establishing democracy and the rule of law introduces a breathe of fresh air in Ethiopian politics.
21. Unfortunately, the AFD’s emergence has not been met with universal acceptance. The Hibret group which has already splintered between the largely domestic forces and those based in North America became the first victim of allegiance to decadent parochialism and sentimentalism. It simply lost the essential significance of the AFD, confused it with a process of unification of all the political forces and threw up all kinds of objections before declaring itself against it. By not recognising the merit of pulling all forces that militate against the latest military bureaucratic dictatorship, irrespective of the distinct and often conflicting stances of the diverse groups that would be joining in the new wave, it has elected to play into the hands of the TPLF/EPRDF. Merely by playing up the deficiencies or idiosyncratic bents of the diverse groups, it has sought to stress self-evident truisms and, ultimately, to score cheap points against the AFD. Whilst the forces it denigrates and vilifies have expressed their willingness, and started activities, to work together towards the principal objective of democratising the Ethiopian state, it engages in disseminating all kinds of nonsense dressed in theoretical and political gimmicks. Many have already given up hopes that the Hibret, as it exists in North America and in keeping with the conspiratorial/divisive tradition of the two constituent groups inside it (Meisson and EPRP), will ever recover from its gross lack of common sense and avoid its impending political suicide. Surely, the hovering of the EPLF as a shadow behind some of the constituent members of the AFD, the formal structure of the AFD or other secondary issues cannot justify sabotaging this historic opportunity of erecting a new, broad framework to bring down the beleaguered dictatorial regime of the TPLF.
22. Remarkably, whilst a section of the Hibret is engaged in self-destruction, the TPLF is frantically looking for, and deploying, diversionary activities. Having lost the credit facilities and aid extended to it by all foreign governments and agencies (except the US), the TPLF was keenly eyeing China and North Korea as potential sources of support, in the footsteps of Mugabe & Co. It has also sought to maintain a state of ‘no war no peace’ with Eritrea by way of igniting a conflict at any time to divert the poplar opposition towards its rule. Moreover, the TPLF/EPRDF continues to meddle in the conflict within Somalia, to shore up groups that do its bidding and ultimately carry out the strategic objectives of the US in that part of the Horn. The designs of the TPLF/EPRDF to conduct a ‘war against terrorism’ in Somalia is being projected as part of its attempt to regain full US and European support. In light of these tactics, it makes one wonder why the Hibret lost its senses and seeks to destroy a potent weapon with which to counter the machinations of the TPLF/EPRDF. Besides, the foreign powers are not exactly averse to the coming together of all political forces in Ethiopia to get to grips with the democratisation of the state and the transformation of the economy and society. Indeed, if ever there was any opportunity of dislodging the TPLF/EPRDF from its long-term alliance with the Western powers on the false premise that there are no other competent political forces to govern the country democratically and build a prosperous economy, then this was precisely the time and condition to act prudently. The fact that the foreign powers have started to release the funds they had blocked (following their finding of abuse of human rights and the rigging of the popular vote by the TPLF/EPRDF) was an indicator that they had reassessed (and retreated from?) the viability of expecting an alternative government emerging from among the opposition movements.
23. From the disproportionate space devoted to current Ethiopian politics, one might be excused for thinking that politics is the be all and end all of the debate about our future. Indeed, the essential problems of current Ethiopian politics pale in comparison with the little understood (discussed) questions of economic and social regeneration of the country. We have yet to hear from any of the political groups a systematic programme of action to check the economic and social decline of the nation and to transform it. In a sense, the incoherence and wishy-washiness in the realm of politics manifested through the multiplicity of (contradictory) views just about any issue and the glaring lack of consensus hold back any serious examination of how the economy and society need to be managed AFTER WINNING POWER. The obsession with the narrowly conceived notion of getting into government without a clear programme of social and economic transformation virtually postpones the need to put pressure on the ruling clique to mend its misguided and destructive policies and practices in the meantime. The fact that the removal of a regime from power should be predicated on its actual failure to deliver on day to day tasks as well as long-term policy goals makes it incumbent on its opponents to examine its spectrum of activities continuously and challenge them whenever necessary and not just confine themselves to high-flown ideals without concrete links to the here and now. It cannot be emphasised enough that political democracy is a tool for social and economic transformation and not an end itself. Those sworn to bringing about a fundamental transformation for the Ethiopian people need to recognise that accomplishing that heavy task may be easier with the introduction of a democratic regime but that the task will not be resolved overnight or in a short span. For a nation that has been constantly in decline for many decades and in a world with rapidly changing economic and technological parameters, it will not be enough to have a transfer of power from one group to another. The millions of people afflicted with poverty, illness and the gruesome struggle for survival need and deserve the creation of the broadest coalition of all possible forces to be able to start the journey towards a more decent and respectable livelihood. The era of single issues and small groups fighting for a portion of the pie should come to an end.