BERLIN (AFP) — Ethiopia’s Haile Gebrselassie said Thursday he is convinced he can lower his own world record at this year’s Berlin marathon, on September 28.
The 35-year-old set the current marathon world record of two hours 4min 26sec on September 30 in Berlin last year, the 25th world record of his career, and he wants to go even faster over the flat 42.195km-long course.
“I am convinced I can break the record again if the weather conditions are right,” he said.
As a four times world champion and two-time Olympic champion over 10,000m, Gebrselassie is currently training at altitude near the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa.
Gebrselassie finished fifth in the 10,000m at the Beijing Olympic Games behind compatriot and gold medal winner Kenenisa Bekele.
It rains a lot in Addis Ababa. The day can start with nice bright sun, shining down on the highest city in Africa, but within hours it can become dark and gloomy, with drizzle pouring on the rocky soil. A little rain can bring the temperature to below ten degrees with a chilly wind. Since I have arrived in this beautiful mountain city, I have spent most of my late afternoons and early evenings on the balcony of a Family Guest House, sitting on a chair gazing at the sprawling city as rainwater washes the roads, buildings, trees and hills.
This downpour never stops the daily life in the city. From the balcony, I can see cars running on the Bole road. People are walking to and fro, holding umbrellas over their heads. I can see Shewangiazaw Derbe, the caretaker of this guesthouse, sitting on the chair, a sheet wrapped around his body, observing the raindrops on the ground with undivided attention. Once in a while the phone would ring and he would get up to answer it. Sometimes he would come up with a bottle of water or coffee to the guest on my floor. Sometimes he would stop at my request and chat with me.
The conversation always starts with rain. Shewangiazaw informed me that it is not typical for all of Ethiopia. Some areas in Ethiopia only have a few showers throughout the year and often face drought. His hometown Debre Birhin, in the Amhara region, has had little rain this year, though it is not as severe as other parts of the country. Through several rain-induced conversations I have got to know him a little better.
Shewangiazaw left his home almost six years ago to support his two brothers and younger sister. One of his brothers took up farming on the small land they had, producing beans, maze and Teff. The youngest brother and sister are still in school. His has four more sisters and all are married off.
He works seven days a week and only gets few days leave every year, with a salary of 500 Birr (approximately 30 GBP) and a room to sleep. He tries to send half his salary to his siblings so they can continue with their education. However it has become harder by the day. Nowadays, he is spending more of his salary on food. He informed me that the price of food has gone up two to three times in the last year. “A kilo (2.2 pounds) of tomato used to cost 3 Birr few months ago, now it cost 7 Birr. 50 cents Injera cost almost 3 Birr”, Shewangiazaw said, “I don’t know why but the price is going up every day.”
The increase in food prices, coupled with two failed crops within the year because of lack of rain, has pushed millions of people in Ethiopia near to starvation. In an interview with the Financial Times, Meles Zenawi, the prime minister of Ethiopia, said: “The increase in food prices has pushed a significant number of Ethiopians, particularly among the urban poor and in some pastoralist regions and areas of drought, to the brink…” Recently in a statement, the United Nations has described the food crisis in Ethiopia as “alarming”. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports that “the food security situation in Ethiopia has deteriorated to alarming levels in the wake of drought conditions throughout much of the country”. The UN says that more than four million Ethiopians need emergency assistance and a further eight million need immediate food relief. The Daily Monitor reported, quoting WFP that around 737,000 Ethiopian are enrolled in its Targeted Supplementary Feeding programme (TSF), designed to address the problem of acute malnutrition among pregnant women, nursing mothers and children under five.
Shewangiazaw started to repair his house but had to stop in this tough economic situation. “Money was good back then. Tips were good. Nowadays it is becoming less. People don’t have money to tip, I guess,” he said. He hopes the situation will become better and he will able to finish his house. Once he is done with the house and his brother and sister are out of school, he plans to become a taxi driver in Addis Ababa. As the new years starts in Ethiopia, people like Shewangiazaw have had to put their dreams on hold and hope for the best in the future.
Meeting the President of Southern Region, or the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples’ Regional State (SNNPRS), Ato Haile Mariam Dessalegn, the Secretary and Deputy Chairman of Hadiya Zone, Ato Tamrat, the Chairman of KAT Zone, Abote Anito and the Chairman of Gedeo Zone, Yohannes Gebeyehu, we got the encouraging impression that authorities acknowledge past shortcomings and promise improvements.
Compared to 2000, the elections in Hadiya in particular showed indeed one important improvement: the 2001 election was peaceful and there were no major confrontations and no major incidents of violence. We saw no presence of the regular army on election day, in spite of rumours about the military spreading fear in some remote areas. There were, however, several armed guards at the gate and even inside many of the polling stations on election day. According to the election regulations published by NEB, the electoral offices are only allowed to assign the police for security, and persons carrying weapons should stay five hundred metres away from the polling stations (Election Officers Manual, April 2000, Addis Ababa, p. 180).
On local level, in the woreda and kebele, the promise of equal chances for all parties was not fulfilled. It was the same pattern as in 2000: wherever the opposition put up alternative candidates who could challenge the ruling party, repression was applied, both before the election and during voting day. The opposition was invited and got some concessions to participate. But in the last moment, a considerable number of their candidates were removed from the lists for formalities or withdrew after intense pressure and intimidation. In several woreda of Hadiya and Kambata, no one or only one or two opposition candidates could compete for seats in the Zonal and woreda councils.
In the preparation to the elections, people who signed for a candidate of the opposition were threatened to withdraw their signatures or face consequences. We have evidence that in some cases even candidates themselves were forced to withdraw. In most places, EPRDF representatives explained the opposition’s withdrawal with the opposition realising that they did not have sufficient support to stand as candidates. Ex-members or ex-candidates of the Southern Coalition, however, told us that they had abandoned their party membership or candidacy because they feared for their family’s security, and not because they rejected the ideas or the programme of the party.
In the rural constituency Soro 1 in Hadiya, no candidate of HNDO, and in Soro 2, only two candidates of HNDO for the zonal and one for the kebele election were allowed to run. People protested by going to the street with their blue voter cards, saying: “We have the right to vote – we have registered – but we can not exercise our right because our candidates have been refused. We demand our right to vote.” It was an impressive and peaceful demonstration. Local officials tried to explain this demonstration: “These are school students under 18 years. They try to disturb the election.”
Complaints about imprisonment of candidates and supporters of the opposition were reported everywhere and there was a widespread belief that all the opposition candidates would be imprisoned after the elections were finished. Even if these complaints were repetitive, there can hardly be any doubt that a huge number of people have been in prison for a shorter or longer period because of political preferences. We were informed that the National Electoral Board had succeeded in releasing over one hundred members of the opposition. Still, we were informed about candidates and supporters being arrested or kept in prison over election day. In Kambata, we observed ourselves how the police attempted to arrest an opposition activist after he had approached us to report on violations of the electoral law. We had no mandate to visit and interview the detained in prison, but the number of complaints, and indeed the efforts of officials to explain away political detentions, leave little doubt about the fact.
The Secretary of Hadiya Zone and the Chairman of KAT Zone explained that the two Southern Coalition regional MPs imprisoned in Durame were accused of murder and could not be released on bail. The actual court charges which we have seen, concern only accusations of having agitated people to resist payment of taxes and fertiliser debts and to use force if payment was demanded – a charge often set forth and hard to disprove. Moreover, the charge is extended to include banditry and an attempt at destabilising the administration and jeopardising peace and security, after the people allegedly upon such agitation forcefully seized a gun from a kebele security guard. We have also heard rumours that the candidates are being made responsible for a murder committed with this illegally seized gun. This incident supports the opposition’s argument that people are detained on fabricated allegations, which have no basis in real court charges.
While hundreds of opposition members were imprisoned for shorter or longer periods, none of those responsible for election fraud, stealing of ballot boxes, violence and even murder during the election in 2000 has been arrested or brought to court so far. The authorities try to explain away this fact by pointing out that some officials had been replaced or transferred, or by the fact that authorities had for some time little control over some rural areas. However, they had sufficient control to arrest their opponents.
During the elections, voters in several voting stations were asked to mark their ballot papers openly in presence of election attendants, or to show them to the officials. From different voting stations we heard people telling us that they had been forced to vote for EPRDF. In some cases, eyewitnesses reported that officials or cadres tore ballot papers marked for HNDO into pieces and demanded a new one filled in for EPRDF.
The President of SNNPRS, Ato Haile Mariam Dessalegn, explained to us that the Hadiya zonal council consisted of 60 members, of which 30 were elected last year in the regional election, the other half to be elected now. HNDO had already won 24 seats – as representatives in the regional council are also entitled to a seat in the zone – and needed only seven more seats to gain a majority. Was it just a slip that he did not tell us what we learned in Hosaina: In the meantime, the number of zonal council members had been increased to 85, reducing the lead of HNDO from 40 to 28 per cent. The announcement of the election results of NEB contains yet another twist in this matter: it says that in Hadiya, the HPDO, and EPRDF-affiliate, “won 54 seats for the zonal council elections. The zonal council has 54 seats.” It seems thus that there will no more be a representation of the regional council members in the zonal council: the 24 mandates, which Ato Haile Mariam told us about, have disappeared. Moreover, there were 10 constituencies in Hadiya when we observed the zonal elections, each of them electing six representatives. At least in one of them in Soro, a majority of people did not go to vote. We would expect that their six seats have not been dropped, but will be decided in a re-election.
The National Electoral Board (NEB), and its executive secretary, did a tremendous job to resolve some of the complaints of the opposition and to facilitate their participation. But the executive secretary cannot be everywhere, and the people he sent from other areas as “neutral” election officials were in many places absorbed into the local climate of total dominance of the electoral process by the EPRDF. We have seen several voting stations where the electoral officers from Addis Ababa watched without objections while voters were filling in their ballots under the eyes of officials, or where a cadre was present in the secret booth to “advise” voters. They chased away opposition candidates, but had no objections against the kebele chairmen or EPRDF candidates being present in the voting stations. Nor did they react when observers of the opposition were excluded from being present in the voting station. Some NEB officials at local level accepted the disqualification of candidates on the basis of the kebele officials scrutinising their endorsing signatures and refusing some of them, without questioning how and why they were disqualified.
In some woreda, “Joint Committees” were established, consisting of one representative each from the contesting parties and one from NEB. The idea of joint committees is an encouraging step towards giving the elections more credibility and transparency. These committees were meant to solve conflicts that arose in the pre-election period and on election day. But in most places, the strong power and presence of the kebele and woreda executives in the electoral process made the joint committees inactive or non-existent and generally they played no significant role in solving differences or mediating in conflicts during the election.
One of the researchers had a chance to stop for a short re-visit in Gedeo, where he had been under the 2000 election. At that time, the opposition party had indeed mobilised a substantial support. The ruling EPRDF party used their control over the administration, police, and judiciary to prevent their electoral victory. Nevertheless, the experience was not taken sufficiently serious to warrant a re-election. NEB argued they needed evidence that could be used in court.
In Gedeo we talked to several people we had met during the election in 2000. We got a vivid picture of GPRDM revenging against their adversaries after the election: offices of the opposition were closed, many of their leaders arrested, property confiscated, civil servants transferred or dismissed, families put under pressure and personal careers ruined. As a result, GPDO did not even field candidates for the 2001 elections. “We have learned from the experience that it is just not possible to challenge the EPRDF in elections”, said the Chairman of GPDO, now living in Addis Ababa. After 2001, leaders of HNDO drew exactly the same conclusion in Hadiya.
Officials in Southern region claim that the popularity of Beyene Petros is waning as he is never seen in the region and is steering the Southern Coalition centrally from Addis Ababa. We found his support in Hadiya to be strong. But in some other areas, we sensed some discontent, i.e. with his decision to withdraw from the kebele election. One member organisation, the Sidama Liberation Movement, intended to continue for the kebele election, and partly did so. Budding discontent may be an indication that the organisation needs some strengthening of its internal communication and building internal unity founded on participation in transparent decision making. Discontent may also be a reaction to repression and to the many frustrations of being disqualified in spite of strong voter support.
In conclusion, seeing this recent election as the last one in a succession since 1992, we cannot see that local repression in the preparation and conduct of the election has decreased. So far, the promises from higher officials have not been met by improvements on local level. We have followed the process since 1991 and found that there are structural reasons for rural repression – in the elections as well as in other contexts – in the way the party and the administration are linked in the kebele and the woreda. Repression is structurally caused. Already the NIHR report on the 1995 elections observed that rural repression was increasing: the peasant association structure of the Derg had been revived, only EPRDF cadres had replaced the former Ethiopian Workers Party (EsePa) cadres. They control the administration of the kebele and the peasants. Since then, the control over peasants – where necessary by repression – has increased. In the elections of 2000, when opposition for the first time challenged the EPRDF, it became openly visible. In 2001 it reached Addis Ababa in full force. And the present election, in spite of encouraging promises, gave no indications of improvement.
The immediate reason is that the local party officials depend on the party for their livelihood, just as much as the party depends on them. Therefore they fight for their positions with all means – also illegal ones. But the ruling party also depends on the local officials for keeping their positions: Without offering them government positions, the party (or the EPRDF-affiliated parties) could not maintain their party organisation. This structure creates the problem: it incites local officials to fight with all means, including repression. It allowed them to deprive the supporters of HNDO from public resources and community services. And it gives them virtually total impunity.
Moreover, the local structure, with a strong executive and a weak judiciary, strengthens this trend. Judges are not in a position to challenge the administrator. Cadres order the police, and frequently can command the police to do even clearly illegal arrests and punishments. Rural people believe that there are two legal forms of imprisonment: by court decision or by administrative decision.
There are some encouraging signals indicating that the government is attempting to initiate a clear separation of legislative, executive and judiciary, and of party and government structures. There have been constitutional amendments in most regions to provide the legal base for this separation. We strongly support these reforms. But there is a long way to go from an amendment of a constitution to its practical implementation in the everyday life of peasants. As long as peasants can not be convinced that their rights are respected, as a matter of everyday experience, the reforms will not reach their goal. As long as peasants can not feel that they have an institution to complain to if their rights are violated, they will not trust democracy, they will continue to say (as they did to us:) “Election is shaking just one hand…” or “Democracy is just another word for fraud”. Peasants feel defenceless, under pressure, and not free, if they can not hold the cadres and administrators accountable.
This said, however, we see a potential in a serious implementation of the promised reforms. We want to emphasise that a separation of institutions and powers, from central level and down to local administration, is a most essential step. It will go a long way towards establishing inclusive structures that offer the individual the security and consciousness of having civic rights –and having access to remedies if these rights are infringed. We hope that the announced efforts will succeed in putting local accountability into practice all the way down to the kebele level. Unfortunately, we have experienced unrestricted local repression in spite of sincere promises from officials. One should continue to measure promises by their results in local practice.
The Norwegian Institute of Human Rights / Nordem
University of Oslo
February 2002
In connection with the local elections of 2001 in Ethiopia, the Norwegian Institute of Human has had researchers in the field following up and reporting on the election processes in different regions of the country. These reports are a continuation of the Institute’s research on elections as a part of the democratisation processes in Ethiopia since 1991. The reports from 2001 also constitute an immediate follow up on the findings presented in the NIHR publication on the previous parliamentary elections, “The Ethiopian Elections 2000. Democracy Advanced or Restricted?” edited by Siegfried Pausewang and Kjetil Tronvoll.
The researchers Siegfried Pausewang and Lovise Aalen travelled to the Southern Region to follow the local elections there on 23 and 29 December 2001. The elections were initially to be conducted in July, but were postponed several times. Aalen and Pausewang followed the elections in the Zones of Sidama, Hadyia, Kambata-Alaba-Tambaro and Gedeo. This report is based on Pausewang and Aalen’s findings during their field research.
The report has been edited by Bergljot Hovland. All opinions expressed in the report are the authors’ responsibility and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Norwegian Institute of Human Rights.
The Norwegian Institute of Human Rights / Nordem
University of Oslo
February 2002
Expectations unfulfilled
Despite the apparently reduced engagement in politics at the local level before and during the local elections, many observers and politicians at the national and regional level expressed high expectations for the upcoming elections. Both representatives from the Ethiopian Human Rights Council and Southern Front leaders at regional and zone level expected strong competition between the ruling party and the opposition. The Southern Coalition leader Dr Beyene Petros was relatively optimistic and expected that the Coalition would field candidates in most of the constituencies for the zonal and woreda elections. He complained, however, that imprisonment and harassment of candidates and a very short time for campaigning had reduced the party’s capacity to compete in the elections. As my descriptions below will show, the competition between the two parties on election day was much less that anticipated, due to large-scale withdrawal of opposition candidates immediately before and during the elections.
Both in written and oral form, ruling party leaders expressed expectations of better electoral performance for the upcoming local polls in the south. One of the main arguments behind these expectations was that the renewal (tehaddso) that allegedly had taken place within the party organisations during 2001 had strengthened the democratic nature of the party organisation. The EPRDF bulletin Tehaddso proclaimed that “The fact that this election follows soon after one of the most important renewal movements gives us great hope in avoiding the repeat of some of the most inexcusable mistakes committed by members of our party.”[9]
The elected leaders at regional and zone level (represented by Haile Mariam Dessalegn, president of Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Regional State (SNNPRS) and Abote Anito, chairman of KAT zone council) were openly discussing the challenges of implementing democracy at the ground level in Ethiopia. They were aware of the necessity of correcting violations conducted by lower party members and of the importance of training of kebele officials and local cadres in democracy and human rights in order to create a conducive atmosphere for fair elections. Nevertheless, the increased awareness of the regional and zonal leaders cannot be seen as a substantial progress in itself unless it leads to a behavioural change of the political actors in the woreda and the kebele. As my descriptions of the pre-election period and the election day will show, the message from above had not reached down to the grass root of the organisation. Although the elections were conducted without severe violence, many members of the lower party organisation and the representatives of local administrative bodies repeated past mistakes. For them, it seemed that the first priority was to prevent the opposition from winning seats like it had done in the 2000 elections. This priority was apparently hard to combine with the stated intentions of the tehaddso movement.
The election campaign
The elections in the south were postponed several times during 2001. This led to uncertainty and a weaker campaigning and mobilisation than in the previous election. Firstly, the elections were postponed from February/March to June because the electoral board needed time to ensure that the mistakes from the May 2000 elections would not be repeated. Secondly, the June elections were rescheduled until November allegedly because of the rainy season’s impact on the board’s logistical capacity. Thirdly, the November date was again altered, partly because the opposition claimed that there should be more time for releasing its political activists from prison before the elections started. Finally, the end of December was decided, despite protests from the opposition that they had too little time for campaigning and registering candidates and that the majority of the peasants in southern region would be pre-occupied with harvesting at this time and did not have time for voting.
Compared to the 2000 elections, there was little public debate about the upcoming polls. Neither Inter Africa Group nor Ethiopian Human Rights Council arranged party debates, and there were no other public arenas for both parties to discuss with each other. But the Southern Front had their own arenas for campaigning, for example evaluation of party candidates in public meetings in the kebele and meetings with regional and national members of parliament who went back to their home areas to propagate for the party. The Coalition also sent members of the national and regional parliaments back to their areas of origin to assist the campaigning, but the party leader Beyene Petros stayed in Addis Ababa. Although many party supporters argued that he had to stay in the capital to co-ordinate their activities and that it might not be safe for him to come to the south, they were also disappointed by his absence. “If he had been here for one single meeting, we would not have suffered from problems of mobilisation. More people would undoubtedly have voted for us if he had been here” stated one of the party leaders in Kambata.
In the local elections in Addis Ababa in February/March 2001, the public debates and mobilisation were also at low ebbs, but nevertheless the voters were subject to increased pressure through door to door campaigns from kebele officials[10]. In the southern elections a similar pattern occurred. Many voters, particularly in Doyogenna area in Kambata, told that kebele officials had come to their homes to register and distribute election cards to the voters. This was interpreted by the voters as undue pressure to participate in the elections and vote for the ruling party. Such practise is against the election regulations, where it is clearly stated that “any registrar who registers voters outside the polling stations […] will be punished according with the penal code.”[11]
Joint committees
Although the tehaddso did not lead to the improvements that the ruling party leaders had proclaimed, there was one achievement in the running of the local elections. This was the establishment of “joint committees” consisting of one representative each from the contesting parties and one from the National Electoral Board. These committees were meant to solve conflicts that arose in the pre-election period and on election day. In places like Shone and Durame they managed to correct some violations, but due to limited capacity and power they were able to intervene only in a small number of cases[12]. One of the achievements the joint committee in KAT zone obtained was that candidates were allowed to hand in their supporting signatures directly to the woreda electoral board instead of to the kebele office. This made the registration of candidates less prone to political manipulation from the ruling party because the opposition felt less threatened by intimidation from the kebele officials. This is an example of how important it is to exclude overzealous kebele officials from the electoral process, and should be followed up by other measures to detach kebele and woreda offices from organising the elections. Nevertheless, in most places the strong power and presence of the kebele and woreda executives in the electoral process made the joint committees inactive or non-existent and generally they played no significant role in solving differences or mediating conflicts during the election.
Withdrawal and cancellation of opposition candidates
The joint committees were not able to prevent opposition candidates from withdrawing or being cancelled from the elections the week before the woreda and zone election and on polling day. In Kambata, where I did most of the interviews in the pre-election period, opposition candidates withdrawing or being cancelled was relatively widespread. In areas where strong competition was expected, like in Shinshicho and Angacha towns, only the ruling party candidates maintained their candidacy. When I visited those towns I was quite surprised by the absence of the opposition, because I was told by the Coalition that these places would probably be some of the hotspots in the elections. When I arrived, I approached the local authorities to ask them the reason. Members of the ruling party generally explained the absence of the opposition candidates either by the argument that the candidates were not really being members of the Southern Coalition and therefore had been cancelled by the local NEB, or that they had withdrawn voluntarily because they had realised that they did not have enough support from the people. One Southern Front representative in Angacha woreda stated that “many [opposition party] members withdraw because they haven’t been able to keep the promises they made for the last election. People are realising that the Coalition is lying. They promised free fertilisers supply from the party, but they did nothing! Many people withdraw their supporting signatures for the candidates and some even write a public letter stating that they do not support the party anymore.”[13]
When I talked to the ex-members or ex-candidates of Southern Coalition without the presence of the EPRDF cadres, however, they told us that they had abandoned their party membership or candidature because they feared for their family’s security, and not because they rejected the ideas or the programme of the party. Threats concerned i.e. their access to land and community services, imprisonment and threats on their lives. One of them, who had written a public letter telling that he abandoned his involvement, told it in this way: “Some months ago I was a member of the Southern Coalition. In the last election I was campaigning for the party and it won here. But the EPRDF were forcing the Southern Coalition and our members were beaten and imprisoned, especially at the kebele level. So I decided to be neutral and withdraw from politics. At this time I live peacefully and feel happy for that. If I had continued with politics I would probably have been imprisoned now.”[14]
In Shinshicho town in Kachabirra woreda the opposition candidates had apparently withdrawn voluntarily. I was not able to talk to any of the withdrawn candidates, but the opposition party leaders in the zone claimed that the candidates did not want to maintain their candidacy because their complaints to the local electoral board had not been taken seriously. One specific concern was that the local head of the electoral board was a known member of the ruling party, and he had not been replaced by a neutral person despite repeated complaints about him[15]. In Sidama, many SLM candidates withdrew during election day because of alleged election fraud. They claimed that after seeing ballot boxes being stuffed before the polling stations were opened, they had withdrawn because they had realised that there was no chance of being fairly elected[16].
In addition to the “voluntary” withdrawal of candidates there were several reports of opposition candidates being involuntarily cancelled from the lists during election day. Many of the Coalition candidates complained that they had not been issued ID cards, their names were not made public and some candidates were cancelled from the lists during the election day on allegations that they were not qualified candidates. Many of these cancellations were done without any formal decisions from the NEB[17]. It was therefore difficult to trace who actually had done the cancellations and whether it was done on order from the electoral officials or the local kebele and woreda officials. But many opposition candidates claimed that the reason for cancellation was that kebele officials, when checking the validity of the supporting signatures collected, had claimed that they could not be accepted.
The role of armed guards
In the majority of the places I visited on election day, there were several armed guards at the gate and even inside of the polling stations. Some of the armed guards were local police or militia linked to the kebele, while others were demobilised soldiers who had returned to their home areas and were hired by the kebele authorities to take care of the security on election day. According to the election regulations published by NEB, the electoral officers are only allowed to assign the police for security, and persons carrying weapons should stay five hundred metres away from the polling stations (Election Officers Manual, April 2000, Addis Ababa, p. 180). Apart from being a violation of the electoral law, this armed presence had a negative psychological effect on the voters. In many cases, the voters expressed that they perceived the guards as agents of the ruling party and were reminded of the retaliating role played by armed personnel after the 2000 elections in Hadiya and Tambaro. There were also several reports on kebele officials and police shooting gunshots in the air during the counting of the votes, particularly in Angacha woreda (Dinika area). Southern Front members explained this as a way of celebrating the SEPDF victory, while the Southern Coalition saw it as a way of threatening their observers present in the polling stations at that time.
In addition to the kebele militia and the demobilised soldiers was the presence of regular armed forces stationed in many parts of the southern region. According to the regional president Hailemariam Dessalegn, there are six camps of soldiers within the region, located in Wolaita, Awassa, Arbaminch, Hossaina, Shone and the Jinka border area. He claimed that the location of the camps had nothing to do with the elections. The opposition, however, claimed that the armed forces were deliberately placed in some of these areas because they were expected to be contested. Although the armed forces allegedly had been told to stay in their barrack during the elections, the opposition claimed that large groups of soldiers had moved around to provoke and scare the voters, particularly in remote areas at night. During our stay in the region, we did not observe any regular army moving around and we were therefore not able to confirm or refute the opposition’s claim on army activity.
Kebele and woreda officials intervening
In addition to the strong presence of armed guards, the attendance of kebele and woreda officials in the polling stations added to the pressure on voters and the electoral board officials to favour the ruling party. In the majority of the polling stations I visited, kebele and woreda officials were the ones who approached us when we asked for admittance to the sites. In some cases they forwarded us to the electoral board officials, but more often they were the ones who took the decision whether we would be allowed to enter or not. This indicates that the local officials acted as organisers and controllers of the electoral process and intervened in the work, which the NEB officials were supposed to take care of. This is a clear violation of the electoral regulations, which states that members of the administrative bodies and kebele officials can show up at the polling stations only as voters. In the 2000 elections, this issue was raised by the National Electoral Board itself, when NEB urged administrative bodies to stay 500 metres away from the polling stations and prohibited them from appearing at the polling station from six a.m. until the results are officially known[18]. Even EPRDF’s own “code of conduct” for this election clearly states that “during the election period government institutions and law enforcement agents should not be used in support of any political organisation or candidate”.[19]
When I asked the local officials about their role in the elections, many of them told that they were assigned to take care of security issues and to see that everything went smoothly. They were apparently not intending to hide the fact that they played an important role in the conduct of the elections. This shows that the local executive can basically act according to their own interests without taking the electoral regulations into consideration. It also shows that the electoral board is too weak and lacks the independence from the local executive to prevent violations of the regulations, or that they are deliberately allowing the local officials to interfere because they basically share the same interests – those of the ruling party.
Imprisonment of opposition activists
A major complaint from the opposition was that their activists were frequently imprisoned on a short-term basis just before and during election day. In Kambata, we observed ourselves that police attempted to arrest an opposition activist after he had approached us to report on violations of the electoral law. My interpreter, who speaks both the local Kambata language and Amharic, was able to read the situation without the knowledge of the involved parties, and did therefore obtain information that was not intended to come through to us. He observed that the police officer that was assigned as a guard outside the polling station threatened the activist to imprison him if he did not keep quiet. When the activist protested, some woreda officials, who also were candidates, intervened and told the police to leave the man until “the guests” had left. In other places where opposition activists were imprisoned during election day, for example in Doyogenna town in Angacha woreda, representatives of the Southern Front claimed that the activists had been illegally campaigning. The opposition representatives, however, argued that the activists had just informed the voters about their symbols, as the ruling party candidates did routinely. This is another example of how the reality is twisted and that two contradictory stories of the same event are told. It is also representative for many of the cases where opposition candidates were kept in prison before and even after the elections started.
One of the most serious cases is the two representatives of the Southern Coalition for the regional parliament who are imprisoned in Durame in Kambata. They were detained in March 2001 after the instability in Tambaro, but were not accused before November 2001. The Coalition has appealed to release the candidates because of their immunity as regional MPs, but to no avail. The chairman of KAT zone, Abote Anito, explained that the two MPs were accused of murder and could not be released on bail. But the actual court charges which we have seen, concern only accusations of having agitated people to resist payment of taxes and fertiliser debts and to use force if payment was demanded – a charge often set forth and hard to disprove. Moreover, the charge is extended to include banditry and an attempt at destabilising the administration and jeopardising peace and security, after the people allegedly upon such agitation forcefully seized a gun from a kebele security guard.
The number of detainees allegedly members of the Southern Coalition seems relatively high in the southern region. Although many were released after the electoral board had proclaimed that political prisoners should be freed in August 2001, we have many reports on party activists still imprisoned. In these cases, two contradictory stories are again produced to explain the detentions. The Coalition claims that they are imprisoned because of political persuasion, and that the court charges in many cases are based on fabrication, while the Southern Front claims that the detainees have committed illegal acts and cannot be released, even if they are members of a political party. Which story is the most credible? We have had no mandate to visit the prisons and talk to the detained themselves, and it is therefore not possible to get their side of the story. A common claim from the ruling party is that many of the supporters of the opposition are ex-soldiers and unemployed youths seeking material benefit from being party activists and are essentially trouble makers. Even if this claim was true, it does not automatically prove that these people are criminals and must be imprisoned. On the other side, it might be in the interest of the opposition to deny that the detainees are ordinary criminals, and they might exaggerate the problem of political detentions. Criminals who are imprisoned might also have the interest of presenting themselves as party activists, so that they have a better chance of being released.
Although the reasons for imprisonment are a matter of speculation, there are certain conditions, which indicate that the process of detention and court decisions is strongly influenced by the interests of the ruling party. It is a general observation that the police and judiciary lack independence from the local executives in the woreda and the kebele and the local party cadres. This is a problem even acknowledged by the ruling party leaders in Awassa. Hailemariam Desselegn, the regional president, admitted that much more had to be done to separate the party from the other administrative bodies and the judiciary[20]. A common statement from the people is that they cannot differentiate between the police, the court and the woreda/kebele authorities, because they all work for the interest of the ruling party. It is clear that the local executives do not have the right to arrest people, but still there is a widespread belief that it is the responsibility of the kebele officials to make detentions. This apparent political influence makes it credible that political detentions on short and long term basis take place.
Opposition withdrawing from the kebele elections
On the 28th of December 2001, the Southern Coalition held a press conference in Addis Ababa, announcing that they would withdraw from the kebele elections on the coming Sunday. They stated that “to expect a democratic election competition from EPRDF is like expecting a pigeon from a snake’s egg”[21] – there was no point in continuing for the kebele elections because the process was rigged. The Coalition denounced further that the result of the woreda and zone elections should be invalidated because of severe irregularities and that re-elections should be conducted. Their major complaints concerned the treatment of their candidates.
In addition to the specific complaints about the irregularities, the statement about the withdrawal contained essentially the same arguments as that issued after the woreda elections in the other parts in the country in February/March 2001[22]. At that time, six different opposition parties behind statement presented a unified front against the EPRDF. Although it was only one party behind the statement this time, there were some signs of internal strain within the Coalition on the issue of withdrawal. The leadership in Addis Ababa decided to withdraw from the kebele elections, but this decision was apparently not co-ordinated sufficiently with all the parts of the organisation. One of its member organisations, the Sidama Liberation Movement (SLM), intended to continue for the kebele elections, and did partly so. The SLM party leader argued that although they knew that the kebele elections would be rigged, their candidates wished to maintain their candidacy for the coming Sunday[23]. These internal differences indicate that there is a need to strengthen the Southern Coalition party organisation and build internal unity and make the internal decision making process more democratic and transparent, in order to continue being an efficient opposition.
Neither the SEPDF/EPRDF nor the electoral board made any public announcements to refute the accusations that the Coalition forwarded on the press conference on the 28th of December. But the local ruling party representatives in Kambata and Badawatchu claimed that the opposition had withdrawn solely because they had lost in the woreda and zone elections. When the results of the elections were announced by NEB, it was however clear that re-elections would be conducted in 15 polling stations of the region where irregularities had taken place, mostly in Hadiya and Sidama zones. At the end of January, the Southern Coalition made another statement where they repeated their complaints. This led the head of the National Electoral Board, Aseffa Birru, to issue a personal attack on the leader of SEPDC, Beyene Petros. Aseffa Birru warned the SEPDC leader to refrain from defaming and insulting the board, otherwise he would be sued in court. The board described all of the Coalition’s complaints as unfounded allegations[24]. But Beyene Petros rejected the warning from Aseffa Birru as illegal and claimed that he had evidence for the accusations that he had made[25]. These incidents illustrate the fundamental lack of trust between the different actors in the electoral process in Ethiopia. There is generally an absence of dialogue between the actors, and if a dialogue takes place, it is essentially about mutual accusations. The opposition’s boycott of the kebele elections could have led to a public discussion on the conduct of the elections, but due to the polarised political climate, mistrust and hostility are nourished and a constructive dialogue is prevented.
Conclusion: elections as a “zero sum game”
The conduct of the local elections in southern region does not lead to any fundamental re-evaluation of the democratic situation in Ethiopia, but rather strengthens our conclusions made for the previous elections in the country. The EPRDF and its member parties do still not allow competition if it threatens its own position. The stated intentions of the tehaddso/renewal movement have not led to any fundamental changes in the behaviour of the local party cadres and administrators, who are still exceeding their mandate to maintain their positions and prevent the opposition from gaining support. Although the participants in the elections continue to give two fundamentally different stories of the events, one largely positive and the other utterly negative, there is no reason to doubt that the electoral conduct in southern Ethiopia must be dramatically improved to give the competitors equal chances of participation.
Although the national leaders of Ethiopia have another language than the party cadres and local officials at the grass root in southern region, they essentially tell the same story of why the EPRDF always defeats the opposition. Sebhat Nega, one of the most influential politicians in the EPRDF, claims that EPRDF’s repeated electoral victories are a result of the party’s political programme[26]. My observations in the southern region do not support this explanation. As my findings from Kambata and Tambaro have shown, voters are to a very little extent concerned about party programmes in the selection of candidates. Their choice is more influenced by the decisions made by the elders in the community regarding the involvement in electoral politics. They were very much concerned as to whether their choice of candidates will improve or endanger their personal security and chances of survival. When support for the opposition leads to harassment and imprisonment from local authorities, voters may choose to vote for the ruling party.
Prime Minister Meles Zenawi explains EPRDF’s monopolistic position by the fact that the party has based its support on the peasantry, which constitutes 85 per cent of the Ethiopian population. He claims that as long as the population of Ethiopia is as undiversified as this, the support for the party will remain strong[27]. Although my observations in the southern elections do not converge with this view, the Prime Minister’s explanation points at one crucial issue, the relationship between the peasantry and the ruling party. My argument is that as long as the peasants in Ethiopia rely on the state for daily survival, and as long as agents of the ruling party act on the behalf of the state and control their means of survival to the advantage of the party, the people will continue to vote for the EPRDF. As observed in the elections in Ethiopia since 1992, the voters perceive the ruling party as agents of the state and vice versa, materialised through the omnipotent position of the kebele and woreda officials at local level. If the voters do not support the ruling party, they perceive it as an exclusion from essential resources distributed by the state. In connection with the tehaddso within the EPRDF, it has become apparent that leaders of the ruling party are aware of this lack of separation between the different branches of the government. But as the local elections in the Southern Region have illustrated, this awareness is still not present on local level.
One of the explanations on why the allegedly new awareness at higher level has not reached ground is that elections in Ethiopia are still perceived as a “zero sum game” for both the opposition and the ruling party. Electoral victory is seen as a guarantee for survival. If victory is secured, the party in power gains the control of the local administration and thereby the resources distributed by the government. Electoral loss, on the other hand, is perceived as an ultimate exclusion from resources and positions. In the worst case, as experienced by the opposition, the loss means deprived community services, resources and even personal freedom through imprisonment. Evidently, this “zero sum game” makes it very hard to make a conducive atmosphere for fair elections.
[9] Special Issue of the bi-monthly bulletin of the EPRDF “Tehaddso”. [10] See Aalen and Pausewang 2001 “Withering democracy. Local elections in Ethiopia, February/March 2001” Nordem Report, Norwegian Institute of Human Rights, Working paper 2001/07. [11] See Election Officers Manual, April 2000, Addis Ababa, p.137). [12] Interviews with representatives of HNDO Shone and, SEPDC Durame, 22.12.01 [13] A SEPDC observer interviewed on woreda/zone election day in Angacha woreda. [14] Interviewed in Angacha woreda, on woreda and zone election day [15] Information obtained from SEPDC leader in Kambata. [16] Interview with SLM representative, Awassa, 28.12.01 [17] Interviews with SEPDC candidates in Doyogenna town, Angacha woreda 24.12.01, and Shone town, Badawatchu woreda, 28.12.01 [18] See Walta Information Centre 13. May 2000 [19] Special Issue of the bi-monthly bulletin of the EPRDF “Tehaddso”. [20] Interviewed in Awassa, 21.12.01 [21] The headline of the SEPDC press statement, 28.12.01 [22] See Aalen and Pausewang 2001 “Withering democracy. Local elections in Ethiopia, February/March 2001” Nordem Report, Norwegian Institute of Human Rights, Working paper 2001/07.
[23] Interview of Jilma Chamola, Awassa, 28.12.01 [24] See Walta Information Center, 6.12.01 [25] See Reporter newspaper, 6.02.02 [26] Personal communication in Addis Ababa, 14.01.02. [27] Recorded interview of Meles Zenawi by Kjetil Tronvoll, Addis Ababa, 16.01.02.
In the 2001 local elections in southern region, Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) and its southern member party, the Southern Ethiopian People’s Democratic Front (SEPDF), won a great majority of the seats for the zone, woreda and kebele councils. In the zonal and woreda election on the 23rd of December, the opposition party Southern Ethiopian Peoples Democratic Coalition (SEPDC) was totally outnumbered, even in places where it had swept away the ruling party in the national and regional elections in 2001[1]. For the kebele election on the 29th of December, the opposition withdrew their participation, and the EPRDF was winning without any challengers. Thus, it seems like the southern local elections fit well into the pattern of the local elections conducted in other parts of the country in February/March this year, where exactly the same scenario took place.
Not surprisingly, the participants in the election for the zone and the woreda in the southern region in December 2001 described the elections in two fundamentally different and often contradictory ways. The ruling EPRDF/SEPDF described the elections generally as free and fair. They ascribed the victory of the ruling party to people’s genuine support for their policies and programmes, and accused the opposition for immaturity and lack of political capacity. The opposition party, on the other hand, described the election processes as fraudulent and unfair. According to them, the multiparty elections are just nominal, because the ruling party manipulates the process to such an extent that there is no room for real competition. If the elections had been genuinely fair, they claim that the ruling party would have lost ground because of their unpopularity among the people.
Mutual accusations were widespread. But there was no dialogue between the accusing parties and there were few attempts to refute each other’s accusations. In this report, I will present the two stories told, but will also attempt to see if there are events or statements that do not fit in with the polarised versions of the elections. Although it is difficult to assess the credibility of the two stories, I will evaluate them on the basis of my own observations of the elections. This report is based on interviews conducted in Kambata and Omo Shelokko/Tambaro in Kambata-Alaba-Tambaro (KAT) zone, Awassa in Sidama zone and Badawatchu/Shone in Hadiya zone.
The contestants
Southern region is the most ethnically heterogeneous region in the Ethiopian federation, with more than 50 ethnic groups. It is the only region outside Addis Ababa where the opposition has managed to challenge the ruling party. The governing party is the Southern Ethiopian Peoples Democratic Front (SEPDF or Southern Front), a member of the ruling coalition at national level, the EPRDF. The Southern Front has again several member parties, which are based on local and ethnic affiliation, among them the Sidama Peoples Democratic Organisation (SPDO), Kambata-Alaba-Tambaro Peoples Democratic Organisation (KATPDO) and Hadiya Peoples Democratic Organisation (HPDO).
When the Tigray Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF) took power and the Derg[2] evacuated the southern areas in 1991, there was no TPLF-allied southern-based organisation to administer the area. The first administrations were therefore militarily dominated and made up of TPLF-officials. An own southern-based EPRDF member, the SEPDF, was established as late as 1994, with great assistance from the central EPRDF apparatus. Well-known TPLF cadres continued to be present in the region and interfered in regional affairs even after the establishment of the Southern Front. But in the so-called renewal (tehaddso) movement within the EPRDF in 2001, the old leadership of Southern Front and TPLF cadres who had been in the region for a long time were excluded from the party. In some areas, like Sidama, the reshuffle had a dramatic impact on the party organisation. The Sidama Peoples Democratic Organisation’s (SPDO) position in the zone was severely weakened and the opposition party Sidama Liberation Movement, a member of Dr Beyene Petros’ SEPDC, was able exploit the power-vacuum that emerged for their own benefit.
The opposition party, Southern Ethiopian Peoples Democratic Coalition (SEPDC or Southern Coalition), is an umbrella organisation for 15 different ethnically based parties. It was established by Dr Beyene Petros in 1992 and was a part of the transitional government until 1993, when it was thrown out of the cabinet by the EPRDF. Hadiya zone, Dr Beyene’s area of origin, and the neighbouring zone of Kambata-Alaba-Tambaro, have traditionally been the Coalition’s strongholds. For the local elections 2001, the Sidama Liberation Movement (SLM) in Sidama zone apparently also succeeded in mobilising the voters. This organisation was established in 1978 and operated as a guerrilla movement fighting the Derg from its bases in Somalia. When the EPRDF came to power, SLM renounced its violent policies and joined the Southern Coalition of Dr Beyene. But they were not allowed by the National Electoral Board to take part in elections with their own party name until 2001, due to their violent past and that they still had a kalashnikov gun in their party symbol[3].
The Ethiopian Democratic Party (EDP) attempted to field candidates for the local election 2001 in Sidama zone, but was prevented from participating a few days before the first election day. The National Electoral Board cancelled the EDP candidates on the ground that candidates could not speak the native language of Sidama zone. They claimed that the regulations of the southern region said that any person who took a public office in the region had to speak the local tongue. But according to the constitution of the southern region, every person “without any discrimination based on colour, race, religion, political or other opinion” has the right to be elected to any office at all governmental offices[4]. EDP intended to pursue this issue further, but did not succeed in changing the decision before the elections had started[5].
Elections and the concern for individual and communal safety
In the rural areas of Ethiopia most people live on very small economic margins and the most important priority in daily life is to prevent these margins from being reduced. Any changes that might alter people’s abilities to obtain their daily income are considered as dangerous and might have great impacts on the chances of survival. The understanding of elections should take this fact into consideration. If participation in the elections, on one side or the other, is considered as a threat to people’s livelihood, they may want to disengage from it all. If, on the other hand, taking part in the elections is a precondition for securing the daily bread, peasants are likely to take part.
In most Ethiopian local communities, elders (shimagile) play an important role in conflict management and negotiations. Because of the elders’ status and respect, they are in many instances acting as the communities’ actual leaders, in addition to or instead of the formally elected leaders and judicial bodies. They are in many cases seen as the guardians of the communities’ security and stability, and are expected to make decisions that ensure the wellbeing of the citizens. Elections in the Ethiopian context imply an increased level of conflict and a mobilisation of the population that often leads to communal instability. This has particularly been the case in Southern region, where the opposition has been able to mobilise popular support. During and in the aftermath of parliamentary elections in May 2000, there was great instability in particularly two areas of the region, Hadiya and Tambaro. People were killed and detained, and schools and other public services were closed for a period of time. It is apparent that these incidents endangered people’s security and well being, and in many places also reduced their economic margins dramatically. Many people realised that supporting the opposition would imply at least harassment from the ruling party and the administrative bodies, and at worst imprisonment or death. It seems therefore that the experiences from Hadiya and Tambaro have led communities to re-evaluate their participation in elections.
During the 2001 local elections, it was apparent that whole communities had decided to stay away from politics in general and opposition politics in particular, for example in Omo Shelokko woreda (Tambaro) and Angacha town in KAT zone. Leaders of Southern Front, among them the regional president Hailemariam Dessalegn, claimed that the elders had decided to abandon the Southern Coalition because they had realised that the opposition could not keep its promises and that they were criminals[6]. The leader of the Coalition, Beyene Petros, argued that the people of Tambaro were too scared by the intervention of federal police forces in the previous upheavals to continue supporting the opposition[7]. When I visited Tambaro, I only had the chance to talk to the representatives of the ruling party, and they largely confirmed the regional president’s version of the events. They claimed that the violence was caused by opposition activists attacking the woreda and kebele offices, claiming that they had the right to control all administrative offices because they won the 2000 national and regional elections[8]. After this, the people turned against the opposition, claiming that they only caused problems. The question still remains, however, whether it was the opposition candidates’ acts in themselves which scared off the people, or if it was the acts of the federal police who turned against the people which finally made people go away from the opposition in Tambaro.
[1] One such place is Shone in Badawatchu woreda in Hadiya, where the SEPDC won over the EPRDF in the re-election in June 2000. In the woreda and zone election this year, SEPDC only won in one single kebele (Interview Ato Hussein, NEB Shone, 29.12.01). [2]Derg is the Amharic word for committee and was the name of the former regime of Mengistu Haile Mariam (1974-1991). [3] Interview with Jilma Chamola, acting chairman of SLM, Awassa 28.12.01 [4] The SNNPRS Constitution of 1995, article 39,1. [5] Interview Netsanet Demelash, head of EDP in Awassa, 27.12.01 [6] Interview in Awassa, 21.12.01 [7] Interview in Addis Ababa, 17.12.01 [8] Interview with the chairman and the head of social affairs in Omo Shelokko Woreda, Modula, 26.12.01
Interior Ministry representatives will continue checking the eligibility for aliya of some 3,000 Ethiopian Falash Mura, who claim that under a 2003 government directive they should be allowed to immigrate to Israel, the government announced Sunday.
The decision to continue the flow of immigration from the African nation follows more than a year of high-profile protests from the local Ethiopian community and its supporters after Interior Ministry officials declared that all eligible Falash Mura – Ethiopian Jews whose ancestors converted to Christianity under duress more than a century ago – had been checked and approved for aliya.
In January, the ministry recalled its Gondar-based representative.
Despite claims that aliya from Ethiopia was all but over, local community members, representatives of North American Jewry and a growing number of MKs believe that there are still between 9,000-15,000 Falash Mura who fit the criteria. Over the past year, they have demanded the government continue checking their applications.
Sunday’s decision will allow almost a third of those to at least try proving that they fit the criteria, which includes a maternal link to Judaism and relatives already living in Israel.
In addition, the Interior Ministry will now be obliged to determine an official policy on immigration from Ethiopia.
“We welcome the government’s decision,” said a spokesman for the Public Council for Ethiopian Jews, an impromptu committee consisting of former Supreme Court president Meir Shamgar, former Supreme Court justice Menachem Elon, Prof. Irwin Kotler, Ethiopian Rabbi Yosef Adaneh, and other prominent figures, which was set up a year ago to lobby the government to continue bringing Jews from Ethiopia.
“However, there are still thousands more Jews in Ethiopia, currently living in appalling conditions, that appear on the initial Efrati list [the official registry of eligible Falash Mura that the government is now following] and should be allowed to come to Israel but who have still not been checked,” the spokesman continued.
“The committee calls on the government to uphold its 2003 commitment and to continue with the aliya until every last Falash Mura that fits the criteria has arrived in Israel.”
The debate over continuing the immigration of the remaining Falash Mura stems from a 1999 census compiled by then Interior Ministry Director-General David Efrati and Rabbi Menachem Waldman, an expert in the field of Falash Mura conversion.
According to that register, 17,500 people were eligible for aliya. Of that initial figure, 16,000 people have already arrived in Israel, while a total of over 20,000 have actually been checked by Interior Ministry officials.
However, in a previous interview with The Jerusalem Post, Waldman said that some people’s names were taken off the list and that “while it is a useful guide, the list should not override the government’s decision to allow people who can prove their Jewish matrilineal lineage to come here.”
Also, community leaders in Israel claim that the list, which was divided into three volumes – Falash Mura in Addis Ababa, Gondar and those living in the outlying villages – was partially lost, and data on people from the villages is therefore not complete.
The government’s most recent decision will see the arrival in Israel each month of 100 families, a fall from the previous quota of 300.
The Jewish Agency for Israel will continue to facilitate the aliya of those who have been approved and will aid in their absorption here following their arrival.
