While U.S. attention is fixed on Afghanistan’s contested elections and the need to insure a democratic process, in another part of the world, democracy has been under siege at the ballot box with terrible consequences.
African elections have devolved into rituals of absurdity. In the last five years we have witnessed attacks on democracy in Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria and Zimbabwe.
In Ethiopia in 2005, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s Ethiopian People’s Democratic Revolutionary Party was thumped in parliamentary elections by the opposition Coalition for Unity and Democracy. Zenawi hijacked that election and bushwhacked the opposition by simultaneously declaring victory and a state of emergency. In the following months, his security forces killed nearly 200 protesters and imprisoned over 30,000 others.
In Kenya in 2007, the opposition Orange Democratic Movement swept the political landscape, cleaning out the incumbent President Mwai Kibaki’s cabinet, including his vice president, foreign and defense ministers, and a host of plutocratic parliamentarians. Yet Kibaki held on to power, leading to riots that killed 1,500 people and displaced more than 250,000 Kenyans.
In Nigeria, after nine months of legal wrangling, a presidential election tribunal in 2008 upheld Umaru Yar’Adua’s declared victory, despite evidence of widespread rigging and fraud. In the same year Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF suffered massive defeat in Zimbabwe’s national elections. After intimidating supporters of his opponent, Morgan Tsvangirai, with violence, Mugabe, at 84, “won” an uncontested runoff election.
Warnings from the West have had no effect. For example, in response to Zenawi’s crackdown on the opposition, European governments temporarily withheld aid, and multilateral institutions suspended loans to the regime. The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill (H.R. 2003) to hold Zenawi’s regime accountable, but it failed to clear the Senate. And in Kenya and Zimbabwe, though the West pressed Kibaki and Mugabe to form coalition governments, the country remains more divided than ever.
Spanish philosopher George Santayana once said, “Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it.” Because of Africa’s failure to implement reforms, we are ready to restart that cycle, as parliamentary elections are scheduled to take place in Ethiopia in May 2010.
This time Zenawi seems even more determined to circumvent Ethiopia’s democracy. In April, his regime announced that in local elections, the opposition won a paltry three out of 3.6 million “contested” seats.
Elections in Ethiopia under Zenawi’s dictatorship, now spanning two decades, have manifested two recurrent patterns. First, Zenawi has spared no effort to eliminate his opposition. He has used intimidation, threats, arbitrary arrests and detentions, bogus prosecutions, extreme violence, fraud and trickery to wipe out his opposition. Recently, Zenawi invited the opposition for 2010 election talks, but promptly demanded that they sign a “code of conduct” before discussions could be held. Leaders of an alliance of opposition parties under an umbrella organization known as Forum for Democratic Dialogue in Ethiopia walked out of the talks, plainly sensing a trap. Zenawi retaliated by initiating a campaign of harassment and intimidation that sent nearly 500 opposition members to detention.
Zenawi has succeeded in distracting the opposition from making the election about issues or a referendum on his regime to inconsequential issues about personalities and individual grievances. There is little discussion by the regime or the opposition about the formidable and apocalyptic issues facing the country.
Famine threatens to wipe out one-fifth of the Ethiopian population. There are thousands of political prisoners held in regular and secret prisons without trial. Gross abusers of human rights walk the streets free. Ecological catastrophes, including deforestation, soil erosion, over-grazing, over-population and chemical pollution of its rivers and lakes, threaten the very survival of the people. Galloping inflation has made life unbearable for most Ethiopians. Rampant corruption and plunder of the public treasury has left the country with only a few weeks of foreign currency reserves. And there has been no accountability for the reckless intervention in the Somali civil war, the squandered resources and wasted young lives, among many other issues.
Can Ethiopian democracy be salvaged by the 2010 elections? Many of us think it can be saved, but only if we restore the pre-2005 opposition. Back then, there were real opposition parties that were allowed to campaign vigorously. There were free and open debates throughout the society. A free private press challenged those in power and scrutinized the opposition. Civil society leaders worked tirelessly to inform and educate the voters and citizenry about democracy and elections. Voters openly and fearlessly showed their dissatisfaction with the regime in public meetings. On May 15, 2005, voters did something unprecedented in Ethiopian history: They used the ballot box to pass their verdict. That’s how the 2010 election can be saved – by letting the people pass their sovereign verdict.
Only a transition to a constitutional democracy can end the kind of dictatorship that robbed Ethiopians of a chance to advance. As President Barack Obama said, “Africa needs strong institution, not strong men.” Ethiopia’s history is full of strong men on horses, in tanks and boardrooms. As a result, Ethiopia has weak legislative, judicial and electoral institutions.
Clues to saving Ethiopia and other African countries from strongmen may be found in Ghana’s nascent democracy. Since Ghana’s military dictatorship ended in 1992 when it adopted a new constitution, Ghanaians have shown the essential prerequisites for a successful multiparty democracy in Africa. They institutionalized the rule of law and conformed their laws to meet international human rights standards. They created a strong judiciary with extraordinary constitutional powers that made failure to obey a Supreme Court order a “high crime.” They included strong protections for civil liberties, allowing Ghanaians to freely express themselves without fear of government retaliation.
Ghana established an independent electoral commission responsible for voter registration, demarcation of electoral boundaries, conduct and oversight of all public elections, referenda and electoral education. Above all, Ghana’s uncompromising constitutional language made it illegal to have tribal or ethnic-based political parties, the root of most conflicts in Africa.
The glimmer of hope shimmering in the Ghanaian experiment proves that multiparty democracy can be successfully instituted in Ethiopia and elsewhere in Africa, without bloodshed. Failure to do so may once again force Africans to prudently heed Victor Hugo’s admonition: “When dictatorship is fact, revolution becomes a right.” If it gets to that point, it’s going to be a quagmire too difficult to get out of this time.
(Alemayehu G. Mariam, is a professor of political science at California State University, San Bernardino, and an attorney based in Los Angeles. For comments, he can be reached at [email protected].)
Des Moines, IOWA — World Food Prize laureate Gebisa Ejeta says he’s “greatly optimistic” that Africa can have its own green revolution because of improving national leadership and increased international support.
However, the Ethiopian-born plant breeder warned that outside aid agencies and governments need to let Africans take the lead in deciding how best to improve farming.
“An African green revolution need not be a mirage,” he said Friday at the final day of the annual World Food Prize conference.
But he said boosting crop production will “require an uncommon recognition of the empowerment of local people, local institutions and local governments.”
Ejeta, who was raised by illiterate parents in a thatch hut, discovered ways to dramatically increase yields of an African staple crop, sorghum, by making the plant resistant to drought and a parasitic weed.
He followed his achievements in genetics by setting ways to get the high-yielding seeds widely distributed to poor farmers.
Ejeta argued that small farmers in Africa could increase production of other crops and pull themselves out of poverty with training in simple agronomic practices, such as fertilizer usage and correct timing of planting.
He said an erosion in agricultural expertise in rural Africa in the past few decades fostered a reliance on aid agencies for assistance.
Ejeta also faulted the United States and other countries for reducing agricultural development assistance in favor of shipping their own food into African countries, a practice that hurt local farmers.
U.S. farm groups have traditionally pressured Congress to buy U.S. crops and ship them to areas with food needs rather than provide assistance to farmers in those countries.
However, that approach may be starting to change as result of the sharp increases in commodity prices in 2008. The United States and other members of the G-8 group of developed countries earlier this year pledged $20 billion in agricultural aid.
Although it’s unclear how much of that aid will be new money and how much was already planned, Ejeta welcomed the new emphasis on helping small farmers.
But he said “no amount of external assistance” can improve African farming without the support of an “inspired citizenry” and the commitment of political leaders.
Whether the United States and other rich countries maintain their interest in agricultural aid is an open question.
“Much of this attention is owed to the price spike of mid-2008,” said J.B. Penn, a senior official in the U.S. Agriculture Department during George W. Bush’s administration and now the chief economist for Deere & Co.
“That was a wake-up call to lots of people and lots of governments, not so much because of the hunger concern, I’m afraid to say, but because of fear of political instability.”
But he said that interest in agricultural development typically wanes once commodity prices fall. “We have to see now if the interest is going to be sustained.” (Des Moines Register)
The Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF), an Ethiopian rebel group that is operating in eastern Ethiopia, denied that a weapons cache displayed by the government Woyanne regime belonged to them and accused the authorities of trying to tarnish their image.
On Saturday, state television showed what it said was more than four tonnes of explosives and thousands of bullets discovered by security forces after an ONLF leader surrendered and showed them the location of the arms dump.
The report said he had defected after refusing to work alongside neighbouring Somalia’s hardline al Shabaab insurgents — but on Monday the Ethiopian rebel group said that was a lie.
“Ethiopia Woyanne constantly parades fictitious ONLF deserters in front of the cameras … to get some semblance of credibility for its wishful claim of victory,” the ONLF said in a statement.
The ONLF is fighting for independence for the ethnically Somali Ogaden region, but it denies any links to al Shabaab, which Washington accuses of being al Qaeda’s proxy in Somalia.
Both the ONLF and Ethiopia’s government the Woyanne regime accuse each other of committing atrocities in the remote Ogaden region, which is believed to sit on top of significant mineral and oil deposits.
The ONLF has often warned foreign companies against working in the area, and in April 2007 its fighters killed 74 people at an oil exploration field run by a subsidiary of Sinopec, China’s biggest refiner and petrochemicals producer.
But the ONLF rebels said the latest allegations by the authorities in Addis Ababa were just an attempt to tarnish their reputation by linking them to Islamist insurgents in Somalia who are notorious for suicide bombings and assassinations.
“If Ethiopia Woyanne thinks that the countries it is trying to get more aid from have no intelligence services that are capable of knowing who is with whom in the Horn of Africa, it is in for a mighty shock,” the ONLF said in its statement.
I visited Dembi Dollo, in Qelem Wallaga Zone of Oromia Region from September 18-28, 2009. During my visit, I tried to gather as much information as possible on the current political situation. I was unable to hold public meetings because the local administration was unwilling to cooperate. I therefore tried to meet as many individuals as I could. During the 10 days, I talked to over two dozen individuals, including cadres of the OPDO/EPRDF, business leaders, community elders, government workers (teachers and health workers), local qabale officials, vacationing university students, church leaders, private professionals, NGO employees and members and supporters of the OFDM.
This descriptive analysis summarizes and focuses on a few major issues. My general conclusion is that the OPDO/EPRDF totally controls and dominates the local political arena, and therefore, there could be no level playing field for the opposition in the Dembi Dollo area. Unless the situation changes dramatically in the next few months, I do not expect the 2010 election will be fair, free or democratic. The first step in correcting the current situation is by appointing well trained election officers to different levels of the election administration.
Strict Security Control and Surveillance
The OPDO/EPRDF which claims to have won the 2005 and 2008 elections seems determined not to allow any other political organization which could compete against it in the area. This goes as far as not welcoming individual visitors to the area. Visitors are secretly followed and placed under surveillance to determine where they have been, whom they have visited, and what they have said. The visitors would rarely be called for interrogation or approached by the security people. It is the local people who had contact with visitors that are summoned and grilled by security officials. In my case, my brother-in-law, with whom I stayed, made a copy of the letter I brought with me from the parliament and gave it to the security office. He also received telephone calls from the Dembi Dollo and Naqamte security offices. He was asked why I came, whether I came for preparation for the coming election or for any other purpose.
About two months ago Professor Haweitu Simeso of the USAID visited Dembi Dollo with colleagues from the Irish and Canadian embassies. The visiting group was followed from the time it arrived in Naqamte. After the group returned, several security officials interrogated leaders of the Dembi Dollo Bethel-Mekane Yesus Church who had spoken to Haweitu and his colleagues. One of the church leaders was even summoned to the zonal administrator’s office and asked detailed questions about the visitors from Addis. Three weeks before I went to Dembi Dollo, Dr. Belaynesh (member of the OFDM and an MP) was in Dembi Dollo. After she returned to Addis, all the people who went to her father’s house to greet her and others she greeted on the streets in the town were arrested, interrogated and held in custody for 24 to 48 hours. The houses of some of these individuals were also searched. A building contractor who arrived in Dembi Dollo on September 28 to inspect the construction of the new Bethel Church was also followed. He left the next day fearing that he will be summoned to the security office. OPDO/EPRDF in Dembi Dollo, besides using the police and security offices and personnel, also collects information on each household through other means. One of these methods involves the use of organizations or structures called “shane”, which in Oromo means “the five”. Five households are grouped together under a leader who has the job of collecting information on the five households every day and pass it on to a higher administrative organ called “Gare”. There are 30 to 40 households in a “Gare” group which has a chairperson, a secretary, a security chief and two other members. The security chief passes the information he collected to his chief in the higher administrative organs in the Qabale, who in turn informs the Woreda police and security office.
Each household is required to report on guests and visitors, the reasons for their visits, their length of stay, what they said and did and activities they engaged in. The “shane” leader knows if the members of the households have participated in “development work”, if they have contributed to the several fund raising programs, if they have attended Qabale meetings, whether they have registered for election, if they have voted and for whom they have voted. The OPDO/EPRDF runs mass associations (women, youth and micro-credit groups) and party cells (“fathers”, “mothers” and “youth”). The party cells in the schools, health institutions and religious institutions also serve the same purpose.
Organizational Structures
Understanding how the OPDO/EPRDF itself and its Woreda administration are organized is very important. There is the OPDO/EPRDF Qellem Wallagga Zonal office in Dembi Dollo. This office receives information and instruction from the regional office in Addis Ababa. It passes messages to the lower structures and oversees the propaganda and organizational activities of the party. This office has branches in every village, schools and health institutions. These branches are subdivided into basic cells. The branches of these cells are organized into supporter groups, candidate groups and full members groups.
Additionally, the party has organized the people into youth, women and micro-credit associations for tighter control and easy dissemination of its propaganda and to do party activities. Dembi Dollo town is a special Woreda Town Administration. The Administration is sub-divided into four large “Ganda” (villages). The town used to have seven Qabales but was restructured just before the Qabale election in 2008. Each Qabale has 15 in the Woreda Council. It is said that the OPDO/EPRDF presented the names of pre-selected council members to the Qabale Council and had them endorsed. There is also the Sayyo Rual Woreda (24 Qabales). The administration of Sayyo Woreda also has its seat in Dembi Dollo town. These are all appointees of the party and are believed to be “strongly committed” to it. The four “Ganda” (villages or some times called Kifle Ketema) have each their own councils. A council has 300 members. The members were “elected” in 2008. All the people I talked to confirmed to me that the party pre-selected the candidates. The Qabale has its own cabinet and these are also party members. A Qabale is further sub-divided into different zones. The zones are sub-divided into “Gare”. There are up to 17 “Gare” in each zone.
Misuse of Public Property, Finance and Civil Servants
The party’s propaganda and organization committees are located in the Zonal, Woreda and Qabale Administration building. The party does not pay rent for the rooms it uses. The committee members are party cadres but their monthly salaries and per diems are paid by the administration from public treasury. Their secretaries, cleaners and messengers also get their salary from public treasury. All civil servants are also members of the party. Monthly contribution of the members to the party are collected by the Woreda finance office at the time they pay the workers their monthly salaries. The party officials use government office materials, supplies and equipment, including official transport vehicles. The party uses town and qabale halls without paying rent. Meeting halls in health and educational institutions are also used without any payment and at will. This system is practiced from Zonal to “Gare” levels. But opposition to the OPDO/EPRDF are not allowed to rent rooms for offices from private owners or rent public halls in the town for meetings. Plasma televisions supposed to be used for school-net and Woreda-net are used for dissemination of party propaganda.
Dissemination of OPDO/EPRDF thoughts
All adults in the qabales and government employees are forced to participate in different seminars and workshops. The same is true of all school children who are in high schools and vocational training institutions. University students on vacation are also required to participate in such programs. Lessons in “Tarsimo” (Strategy) and “Bulchiinsa Gaarii” (Good Governance) are given to all residents (school children, college and university students, and private and government employees). Workshops on BPR have been held and each government employee is given Birr 25 for participation. The seminar for university students lasted five days. The per diem for this seminar was supposed to be Birr 35 per day for each participant for nine days. Every two weeks on Friday afternoon, all government employees participate in study circles of the party and cell meetings during work hours and in the public meeting rooms. No rent is paid for the use of the rooms. Fund raising programs are organized once in a while for support of the party. It is the administration’s finance officers who deduct the pledged amount from employees and transfer the money to the party.
Elections
During the 2005 election, I have witnessed that civil servants were deployed for two weeks for election campaign for the OPDO/EPRDF and that government vehicles (cars and motor cycles) were used for this purpose. OPDO/EPRDF members and cadres were busy disrupting public meetings I called in the field. One of my observers was bribed with Birr 200 and agreed to give the votes I received to my opponent (OPDO/EPRDF). In one qabale, I was prevented from holding an election campaign meeting 500 meters away from a market place. The qabale officials told me that my meeting will disturb “their market”. My posters were removed from several places and leaflets I distributed were collected and destroyed. I persistently appealed to the election officials to correct the OPDO/EPRDF illegal activities or cancel it from the election in accordance with the election law but no one heeded my appeals.
According to the people I talked to, the chief of an election office during the 2008 election was also a member of the OPDO/EPRDF. There is a rumor that the same person is being appointed to the office by the OPDO/EPRDF for the 2010 election. The OPDO/EPRDF appointed a supporter or a member to each polling station to stand by the voters and tell the voters in which box they should put voting signs or signatures.
Situation of the Opposition
The office of the OFDM has remained closed since 2005. Members and supporters were beaten up and imprisoned several times. They were intimidated or bribed. During the three weeks before my visit to Dembi Dollo, 60 people in Sayyo and 15 people in Dembi Dollo were arrested and kept in police custody for up to 48 hours. They had to pay one hundred Birr as bail before being released. They were reprimanded and warned for the 2010 election. They were told, “Be careful! Don’t support, or join or vote for the opposition as you did in 2005. We shall not give in like then. We defend ourselves even with guns.” OFDM is equated with OLF while the CUD or the “Qindomina” as it is called in Oromia, is equated with the “Nafxagna”. The campaign against the UDJ as a “Nafxagna” organization has already begun.
Media
No private or independent newspapers exist in Dembi Dollo. Alternative news sources to the Federal and Oromia public media are only VOA and Deutche Welle. The Oromia information office and the OPDO send their press media to the area by bus. These are picked up by a government employee and distributed to different institutions and offices. All workers are forced to buy these news papers.
Conclusion
It is plain to anyone who has been to Dembi Dollo and surrounding areas that there is no political level playing field. I can not imagine how the opposition can enter into an election process under such conditions. If the ruling party is serious about having a peaceful, fair and democratic election in 2010 it has much to do, including the release of all political prisoners and putting a stop to new illegal arrests, intimidation, detentions and bribing opposition member, immediate reopening of offices of the opposition, providing immediate equal access to the public media, allowing public meetings organized by the opposition to take place freely, amending the Election Law so that neutral election officials can be appointed and making it possible for international election observers free access to ensure fair elections, and putting into place control mechanisms so that its supporters and members respect the constitution and the election laws. It must also start repaying rent for offices and halls it has used for its party activities over the past several years as well as for use of government office materials and equipment, fuel, telephone and electricity, and return the money it took out of the public treasury and paid as salaries to its members.
(Dr. Negasso Gidada is former figure-head president of Ethiopia from 1995 to 2001.)
Details are still coming from Ethiopian Review sources in Addis Ababa regarding Teddy Afro’s concert last night. By some estimate, tens of thousands of Addis Ababa residents attended the show. The photo below tells it all.
The concert ended with no major incident, but some wondered if it was an entertainment event or a political rally. Others are heard asking how did Woyanne allow Teddy to organize such a big event right under its nose. Was there some kind of deal between Woyanne and Teddy Afro’s managers for Teddy to stay clear of any thing that may antagonize the vampires in power? We are digging into that.
Until then let’s just say that Teddy did not disappoint the audience with his magnificent performance. Sunday’s night event was the mother of all concerts for Addis Ababa. [read more in Amharic here]
The stage is now set — it will be Woyanne vs Woyanne in 2010. With the announcement on Saturday by the newly formed “opposition” alliance in Addis Ababa that it will participate in the June 2010 elections, it will be a match between one Woyanne-led group (EPRDF) vs another Woyanne-led group (FDD). EPRDF is a cover for Meles and gang, while FDD is a cover for Seye and gang. Every one else who are giving them cover such as OPDO are useful idiots. The following is a report by Sudan Tribune.
(ST) — With Ethiopia’s national election approaching, some opposition groups have reportedly begun to hint boycott from the upcoming election, accusing Ethiopian government Woyanne of already stepping up harassment against them.
Despite opposition’s growing claims of “harassment” and “undemocratic actions” perpetrated up on them by the ruling EPRDF party Woyanne, Ethiopia’s biggest alliance of opposition political parties on Sunday said that it will contest in the country’s [fake] election scheduled for May 2010.
“Currently the party has no intention to boycott election nor did it yet set any preconditions on to it” Gebru Asrat (Woyanne and former President of Tigray Republic), the person in charge of public relation and vice chairman of the group, Forum for Democratic Dialogue (FDD) told Sudan Tribune.
Gebru Asrat, a former ally of Meles Zenawi, said that his party’s primary efforts are to engage in negotiation with government on key election issues ahead of the election but he said that Meles Zenawi-led government is being reluctant to take his party’s offer.
“We are pushing the ruling party to tolerate negotiations for a binding election rule to be set” Gebru said adding “if a fair and democratic election is to be held in Ethiopia, it will highly depend on whether or not the ruling party is willing to hold talks on the binding law of election.”
FDD is insisting to engage in a pre-election negotiation with the ruling party on 10 key subjects, among which the issues of access to Media for campaigning, supremacy of law, free flow to international observers, establishment of independent electoral board and a stop to harassment on opposition members.
Gebru Asrat further said that the Ethiopian government Woyanne last month hinted a little interest toward the offer but on second thought changed its minds.
The Ethiopian government Woyanne has repeatedly guaranteed its commitment to conduct a fair and democratic election but when asked if this is likely, FDD chairman, Dr. Merara Gudina, told Sudan Tribune that he strongly doubts that promise.
“I can’t be certain on that pledge. But with the reality going on ground, a fair and peaceful election is unlikely to happen.” He said adding “Why don’t you go ask the government? The government knows that answer.”
The opposition official further said that his party, Forum for Democratic Dialogue (FDD) has been appealing to the international community to put pressure on the Ethiopian government to stop harassing opposition parties and also to release political prisoners, including potential candidates jailed in the recent “wave of arrests.”
“Calling to the international community is our daily bread but responds we have are either deaf ears or not satisfactory” Dr. Merara added.
Recently the opposition group has accused the Ethiopian government of arresting as much as 480 opposition members on false allegations and the opposition chairman now says that the mass arrests to opposition members, candidates and supporters are still being carried out but on “on and off bases.
Recently FDD, the coalition of 8 Opposition group and two prominent politicians, including former president, has pulled out of talks on election code of conduct, demanding separate talks with government to negotiate on what they said was election binding law.
In an interview, Bereket Simon, government communication office Minister Woyanne propaganda chief on Thursday said that the opposition group this week has rejected an offer by the government for negotiation.
“We invited the opposition group for a negotiation in the presence of Germany and British Embassies but they declined” Bereket said adding “a party which walks away from a negotiating table doesn’t have a moral right to accuse us for shutting down political space.”
Last month, Ethiopian Prime Minister tribal warlord Meles Zenawi, at a press conference blasted some opposition groups that demanded a release of an opposition leader Birtukan mideksa, as having an intent to discredit the election process from day one. Meles stressed that her re-arrest is a legal matter and has no any political motive.
Since last December, Birtukan mideksa is serving a life term in prison for denying a pardon that let her freed in 2007. She was jailed after the 2005 post-election violence for attempting to overthrow constitutional order.
