The Ethiopian Election – What is it?

In real terms, Ethiopia's Election and the democratic process in general are not meant to produce a parliamentarian government elected by the people and for the people.  It is not supposed to produce a government of what Thomas Jefferson called "a yeoman's” government, or a government by the average people. What is it then?

In a recent interview that Prime Minister Meles Zenawi gave to the BBC's Focus on Africa, he was directly asked how long is enough for him to remain the ruler of the country.  Unabashedly and with extreme confidence, Mr. Zenawi said, "I will remain in power as long as my people wants me."  In light of the confidence that Mr. Zenawi exhibited, it is unlikely that the current opposition amount to anything but a bunch of lightweight candidates ready for a total knock out. They are not any meaningful challenge against Mr. Zenawi.  In that case, one can surmise that Mr. Zenawi will come back as the next prime minister.

It is not, though, because the people will re-elect Mr. Zenawi over any number of opposition leaders. It is simply because the system set up for Ethiopia's so –called democratic transition has an unmitigated bias built in to the system to favor the sitting government and that government is and has been for some time now the EPRDF led by Meles Zenawi.

The system of Ethiopia's democratic government is not meant to produce the type of democratic governments one sees in the Western democracies.  It is neither designed nor fashioned to be a government of one man/woman one vote in a multi party system.

It is meant to be a one-party system "democracy" until the country is ripe and has fully developed what is termed as the “infrastructure” to carry geneuine democratic elections. When that time comes, no one knows.

President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda is one of the main proponents of the school of thought that argues that African countries are not yet ready for a western-style Jeffersonian multi-party democracy.  So concurs professor Samuel P. Huntington of Harvard University, whom the US AID commissioned to have consultation With Mr. Meles Zenawi in 1993.  The consultation was aimed at advising Mr. Zenawi on how to transition to a more "democratic" form of government. The two sides, with the blessing of the US government in the Clinton years, agreed on a framework that a system of one-party dominated democratic government, led by democratically inclined “autocratic” cadres, is preferable to an unpredictable advocates of multi-party system if, and when, the country in question has low-level of social development or no infrastructure to establish western style liberal democracy.

Ethiopia is mentioned here as a case in point where the EPRDF would act as the democratically inclined “autocratic” one-party that would make the center piece of its political objective the democratization of the ancient Ethiopian polity.

So, if we know the game plan, then why is the society put through the agony of election that would not change the reality on the ground?  Why does the West promote such a system that increases “voters' apathy? 

To quickly reflect on this point, it is safe to say that this is not the first case where the U.S promoted elections that it knew to be unserious.  For example, The US promoted a predetermined election in Vietnam during the tumultuous years of the country. And the predetermined winner in this case was the military strongman, General Nguyen Ban Thieu.  The current Iraqi election, although different from that in Vietnam, could also be said to be an election designed more to satisfy the political whims of Washington D.C.

In the upcoming elections of Ethiopia, EPRDF may overwhelming emerge as the victorious party. If that happens, it would get more legitimacy this time around outside the country, simply because some feeble opposition parties have had nominally participated. However, the election as such may not reflect the Jeffersonian democracy that is often practiced in the West. It would be a one-party dominated system of governance, with EPRDF at the helm of a long and treacherous transitional period.

Election Will Break or Make the Somali Region

This upcoming election is very important for the Somali National State for the sole reason that this election, if handled with care and adequate seriousness, may produce the first nominally elected government.

For the last 15 years since the Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) took power in the country, the Somali National State in particular has been mired in an unending instability. As a result, it had seen 7 different presidents non of whom was elected with any sense of fairness.  All of them were invariably handpicked by the central government in Addis Ababa. The only popular president, the late Mohammed Jire, ironically ruled the shortest period.

The upcoming election in the Somali National States has, in addition to the problems already outlined, its own unique characteristics. If again mishandled, the election exercise in the Somali National State would prove to be more futile and a waste of resources, and may in the long run produce only one product: public apathy towards parliamentarian elections.

The single party that has dominated the region's governance - the Somali Peoples Democratic Party (SPDP) – is corrupt beyond description and has descended the region to the lowest point of any government mismanagement. The BBC Somalis section has run a report on 3/2/05, which called the region's government the worst of its kind. In the same report, the BBC had reported that 53 members of the legislative body have signed a petition, which amounts to a “no confidence” vote in the current government of Cabdi Jibriil and the SPDP run by Mohammud Dirir.

Mohamud Dirir	Abdi Jibriil

The region's ruling party is run by a group of people whose only qualification is nothing but their [manipulative] loyalty to Addis Ababa.  It is often said by locals that the current party bosses have only one qualification: they somehow successfully convinced Addis Ababa that they are the only loyal force to the concept of a Federal Ethiopia with an unmatched commitment to combat the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF).

Although far from the truth, Addis Ababa seems to have been gullible enough to heed the propaganda of the SPDP party in its entirety. In return, Addis Ababa has effectively alienated the majority of the Somalis in the region. Most people describe the marriage between Addis Ababa and SPDP as the main culprit in the crisis that is in the making in the region.

However, there has recently been a broad based movement among Somalis, particularly the Diaspora community, to explain to Addis Ababa the problems that SPDP bosses brought on the State. The making of what one commentator referred to a latent civil war is attributed to this unholy marriage between the two.

Sparing the luxury of elections, there are wide spread conflicts in Raaso, Dhagaxle, Ma'ayso. At the same time, Jigjiga and Jinacseni have almost erupted in January of this year, when thousands booed the acting administrator, Cabdi Jibriil, after which time he was recalled back to Addis Ababa for consultation. This was the result of a wide spread disapproval of letting Oromia State illegally hoist its flag in the heartland of the Somali National State, with the blessing of Mr. Cabdi Jibriil.

Moreover, there are reported killings and a slowly building-up of civil strife in Raaso, Doollo and Qabri Dahar zones.

This practice of transferring Somali districts to Oromia bridges one of the most important cardinals of S.P. Huntington's advise to Meles Zenawi in their discussion on the management of one party dominated “democracy.” In the above mentioned consultation funded by the USAID in 1993, Mr. Huntington strongly advised Mr. Zenawi against letting ethnic conflict get out of hand.

Taking into account that 35 people were killed in a Somali-Oromia conflict in Ma'ayso this past February, due to an orchestrated and biased land transfer from Somalis to Oromos, the region is on the brink of massive human disaster. Similar events are in the making in Babile, Nagele, and Jigjiga zones. (There are serious accusations of corruption and bribe exchanged between Cabdi Jibriil/SPDP bosses and Oromia officials for land exchange. The suspicion on how quickly Babile and Janacsani were transferred to the Oromos is making Jigjiga almost ungovernable).

To make matters worse, on 3/2/05, the BBC Somali Section, a station listened by all Somalis in all parts of the world, has reported that 13 people died in a civil war that broke out in Salaxad region between two groups over the control of several districts.

Because of the absence of a credible government in the Somali region, Oromia state, a member of the powerful EPRDF coalition, is out there to conduct land grabbing against the weak Somali region. That is what Somalis call wanton looting or “Dhul Bililiqaysi,” a subject too familiar that Somalis know when they see one.

From Weeping to Wining Results Through Election

To help change the current situation, there are several elders and community leaders from Qabri Dahar, Wardheer, Dhagax Buur, Jigjiga and other regions to speak with the Prime Minister and his government about their vision of change in the Somali National State. This vision includes helping Addis Ababa replace the current acting Administrator of the State, Mr. Cabdi Jibriil and the boss of SPDP, Muhamuud Dirir, with more representative leaders.

Both of these officials will not win back their seats if the upcoming elections were fair and transparent by any credible measure. They both have lost the faith of the people and would only return to the political scene if Addis Ababa weighs their argument more than the region's leaders and all the broad-based voices that we so far heard. Even the army generals in the Somali region have reportedly spoke ill of the current administration in the region.

If Addis Ababa repeats what it had done so far in the Somali region, we can also predict with a credible margin of error the winners of this election.  SPDP handpicked individuals often bribed with embezzled monies would return to the highest offices in this region!

What is Orwellian about the Somali National State and the upcoming elections is that Addis Ababa clearly knows that SPDP leaders and the sitting acting administrator, Mr. Cabdi Jibriil, are corrupt and incompetent individuals. Yet, someone up there in Addis Ababa will bring them back to their offices through a predetermined election.

Yet again, one hopes that Addis Ababa would not want to see this upcoming election to have such a predetermined results for that would take the region one step closer to a wide spread civil war.

We may not judge here what type of governance is fit for a backward country like Ethiopia.  That issue would be debated for sometime to come by academics and movement leaders in Africa and in Ethiopia as well. What we could certainly argue here is that Addis Ababa has not been serious about any form of election in the Somali National State so far.  Even if the Museveni one-party system is to be the form of governance that Ethiopia choses, then it could have recruited a more representative and more competent cadre who are committed, as Samuel P. Huntington advised Mr. Zenawi, to a managed transition to a liberal “democracy,” at least in this troubled region.

It was in 1973, when hundereds of thousands of Ethiopians marched on Churchill road and chanted “Islam! Islam! Min Tayabet Ka Saw Bataach Ya Honebet,” meaning “what stigma is seen on Muslims that they are condemned to a lower status.” Today, many elders and community leaders in the Somali National State are silently saying in their own way: “Somali Etobiyawinan! Min Tayabet ka Qaraw Etobiyawi Liyu Ya Honebat.” or “what is with Somali Ethiopians that they have been treated differently from the rest.”

Somalis are saying that many districts in their regions are being apportioned to the Oromia state in the absence of a regional government that represents the interest of the people and the region. Many even suspect that the resizing of the Somali region is done in cahoots with the leaders that Addis Ababa handpicked for Somalis. Worse, they cannot even change them with or without election.

If the upcoming election in the Somali National State is meant to have any effect, even within the guidelines of a non-perfect one party-dominated system where a committed cadre ensures a fair and transparent election, Addis Ababa must be a little more serious about the Somali State and:

(1) Avoid recycling the very same corrupt individuals and SPDP leaders that have dragged the region in to the currently imminent civil war;

(2) Be serious about elections in the Somali National State and representation of the communities in the region. It must listen to the elders and community leaders that have both the interest and security of the region at heart. These leaders also believe in and would preserve the constitution of the Federal Government while helping choose true representatives of the people of the region.

(3) To give credibility to the current election and to future elections as well, the government must bring criminal charges against the acting administrator, Cabdi Jibriil, the chairman of the ruling party, Muhamuud Dirir, and party Secretary, Ali Qunayo for their ill deeds in the region and for all the souls that could have been saved under a legitimate and clean administration.

It is certain that the Somali region is treated in this election as an after-thought to the national election and is meant not to have any effect in the country's overall politics. 

But even so, Addis Ababa may make the election more serious locally so that the people in the region would pick their own leaders.  After all, as the late Tip O'Neill, former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives said, “all politics is local” and all elections have particular satisfaction when they have impacts on the local question. It is important that Somalis elect whom they want, whether EPRDF dominates the nation's overall elections or not. It is equally imperative that conflicts in the region be averted not by a naftanga (gun-carrying settlers) sent from Addis Ababa, but by the local people who are made in charge of their own destiny through the upcoming election.

By Faisal Roble

Fabroble@aol.com

ews (WDN)Update Jan. 28, 2005

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