Who knows about Ethiopia’s perfekt elektion in May 2015?
It is the middle of February 2015 as I write this commentary. But I always remember in November.
I see some of my Ethiopian friends carrying long forlorn melancholy faces. A few lines from Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing” flash in my mind:
Why, what’s the matter,
That you have such a February face,
So full of frost, of storm and cloudiness?
A February face with Sturm und Drang in their hearts. They reply in gloomy resignation with questions. Did I know this or that about the “election”? “Election”, eh? I feign ignorance. Of course, they are asking me about the “election” set for May 24, 2015 by the Thugtatorship of the Tigrean Peoples Liberation Front (T-TPLF).Am I aware the T-TPLF has jailed leaders and members of Semawayi (“Blue”) Party, the Unity for Democracy and Justice (UDJ), and the Arena Tigray Party? Did I know the T-TPLF police are busting open the heads of peaceful protesters? Did I know the “criminal case” of the Zone 9 Bloggers had been postponed for the umpteenth time? Did I know the T-TPLF is harassing and jailing activists and critics every day? What do I think of the support the T-TPLF is getting from the United States, the European Union, United Kingdom, the World Bank, the International monetary Fund and all the rest to steal the 2015 “election” like they did in 2010?
Do I think the T-TPLF is scared _ _ _ _less about the possibility of a spontaneous political combustion to its rule, election or no election? (That’s a no brainer. Why else would they jail young Facebook bloggers?) Do I “know” as much about the May “elections” as President Obama? (Well! I would like to ask President Obama if he knows a state that silences the opposition is a source of terror to all its citizens as did his predecessor Harry Truman. “Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear”, cautioned Truman.)In late September 2014, Obama glibly remarked, “… the Prime Minister [Hailemariam Desalegn] and the government is going to be organizing elections in Ethiopia this year. I know something about that…” (Obama would have known “something” about the terror of living in a police state had he read my commentary the Republic of Dystopia Ethiopia!
I was so stunned, intrigued and outraged by Obama’s remark I wrote a full commentary demanding to know the “something” he knows about the May 2015 “election”? I made that demand out of an abundance of concern and caution. Did Obama “know” the “election” is going to be stolen? Did he “know” it was going to be rigged? Did he “know” opposition party leaders would be harassed and jailed? Did he “know” journalism and blogging in Ethiopia would be declared state crimes? Did he know…? Long story made short, I posted a list of interrogatories inquiring into President Obama’s “knowledge” of the Ethiopian “election” in my commentary “What Does President Obama “Know” About Ethiopia’s ‘Election’?
But who else “knows” about Ethiopia’s 2015 “election”?
The marionette and bumbling “Prime Minister” Hailemariam Desalegn knows the 2015 “election” will be “perfect”. The pitiful and hopelessly discombobulated Hailemaraim not long ago remarked, “We have to make the [election] process democratic, free, fair and credible in the eyes of our people.” He said his party could ensure a free and fair election because “Our institutional process and our laws and regulations are perfect. It is not the law that hinders but the implementation of these laws.”
True, it is not the laws but the T-TPLF that “hinders the implementation of these laws.” I also have no doubts that Hailemariam and his T-TPLF will “implement” (I did not say rig or manipulate) the “election laws” to deliver a “perfect election”. They damn near had a “perfect election” in 2010. They won by 99.6 percent! That is what I call a super duper close near miss or near hit. What’s four-tenths of a point away from 100 percent, anyway! A teeny weeny statistical error? (By the way, I want to be the first one to offer kudos to the T-TPLF for having won the “perfekt elektion” in May 2015 now. I guess Hailemariam will soon find out the meaning of the expression, “use him and lose him.) The last time such perfektion was achieved anywhere in the world was during the 2002 Iraqi election. Saddam Hussien won by 11 million-to-0.)
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