From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Fri Sep 25 2009 - 05:59:34 EDT
Ethiopia: 2010 Election and Zenawi's New Game
Etyopian Simbiro
25 September 2009
_____
President Obama has clearly stated, particularly in his speech in Ghana,
that African rulers cannot fool his government easily and he will not openly
support their perpetuation of 'strongmanship'. Secretary of State Hilary
Clinton's trip to a select few African countries also seemed an endorsement
of that message, though it happened in accordance with America's foreign
interest in the region.
Both Obama's speech and Clinton's trip have made it clear that African
rulers must first champion free and fair elections, respect the rule of law
and win the trust of their population should they want any kind of open
alliance with the Oval Office. With Ethiopia one of the US's foreign aid
recipients, the message from the White House must have intimidated Prime
Minister Meles Zenawi's administration.
During Bush's administration, the 'War on Terror' rhetoric worked really
well in favour of Prime Minister Zenawi, who enjoyed unlimited support from
the United States. Today however, he is having a hard time securing
Washington's undivided attention.
The Obama administration has carefully reserved itself from openly engaging
Zenawi's government due to the post-2005 election violence and other
negative human rights records. There is also a huge presence of Ethiopians
in the Washington D.C. area who are preventing Zenawi from having a smooth
ride with Obama. Most of the diaspora Ethiopians heavily criticise and
oppose Zenawi's rule because of his party's monopoly over the economy and
politics. Just recently there was a March 4 Freedom demonstration right in
front of Capitol Hill, condemning the government in Addis Ababa and accusing
it of 'genocide'.
When Zenawi was recently asked about current Ethio-US relations, he defended
his government's position by saying, 'I don't agree with everything under
the sun, let alone with Obama. Do we express our disagreements openly when
we disagree? Yes, we do. Does that create a feeling of tension from time to
time? Perhaps it does. Does that mean that the relationship is fundamentally
weak? No. And there is nothing new to the strains that you seem to notice;
there is nothing specifically related to the Obama administration. If
anything, the coming of the Obama administration may have eased some of the
strains.'[1]
Given the current political insecurity in Ethiopia, having an open alliance
with Prime Minister Zenawi will be a disadvantage for President Obama.
President Obama, before he took power, promised millions, including the
Ethiopian diaspora who voted for him in droves, that he would bring change
to Washington's foreign policy, which affects millions of poor people around
the world. Breaking that promise means becoming another hypocrite - a
typical politician who betrays people's trust.
ZENAWI AND HIS HEGEMONIC PARTY
Zenawi's loyalists may consider him a 'renaissance man' but for those who
oppose his government he is just another 'tyrant'. Those who oppose him are
worried that his party, if not he himself, will cling to power for as long
as possible through undemocratic means. They accuse his government's senior,
junior and low-ranking officials of corruption and exploitation, two
unfortunate obstacles of progress that existed in Ethiopia even before
Zenawi was born.
The fact is that poor Ethiopians are tired of whatever kind of
authoritarianism: 40 plus years of Haile Selassie, 17 years of Mengistu and
now 18 plus years of Meles Zenawi. The ongoing political chaos has weakened
their spirit. It is too much to endure, although the people are partially to
blame for the mess. After all, the rulers did not ascend directly from hell.
Although the elites are to 99.99 per cent loyal to Western ideologies, they
come from within the society and are shaped by its culture. The sad reality
is that the burden is always placed on the poor people. The disempowered
elites run away to safe havens when the worst comes to worst, leaving the
country and the defenceless people to fend for themselves, while the
powerful ones who remain behind exploit the people unrepentantly.
Today's political fight in Ethiopia is still based around ideology, and
remains fundamentally similar to the time when Meles was a militant student.
Economically, the country still heavily depends on foreign aid, forcing some
to conclude, 'it's addicted to aid.' Although Zenawi argues that he will
turn Ethiopia into a 'middle-income economy' soon, a growing number of
children are exported to foreign countries as 'orphans'. Most people in
today's Ethiopia are as poor as they were yesterday, if not more so. People
with a 'middle-class' status barely exist. You are either on top of the
pyramid or at the very bottom of it. So many young people die crossing
deserts or deadly seas in search of a better life. The number of people who
apply for the Diversity Visa (DV) Lottery to fulfil their American dream
doubles every year. Many students who graduate from American or European
universities rarely go back home. Most of those who graduate inside the
country remain unemployed. There are few entrepreneurs; the concept of micro
financing, which has changed lives in Asia, scarcely exists. A few,
associated with the government, monopolise businesses. Doesn't this
disturbing fact eat Zenawi's brain every time he goes to bed?
Twenty years from now, long after I am done with school, I wish to see an
aid-independent, democratic Ethiopia where fair politics reign, and where
people wake up every morning wanting to do something positive in their
homeland instead of dreaming about foreign countries. I also wish my future
children to grow up in a respected country, enabling them to be proud of
their Ethiopian and African identity, not to mention their ethnic heritage
and where they are free to express their thoughts and to criticise their
leaders fearlessly, using their constitutional rights.
Ethiopia still has a huge chance to become a democratic and prosperous
nation in the Horn of Africa. A significant number of South Africa's
population, for example, is still poor; however, South African politicians
and lawmakers have transformed the country from apartheid to a genuine
democracy with the result that South Africa's economy is thriving and their
democratic tradition is blossoming. There is no reason why Ethiopia cannot
follow the South African path should there be dedicated leaders from both
the ruling party and the opposition. If Zenawi and his party open up the
space for a genuine multi-party system and establish a truth and
reconciliation commission, historical antipathy between the various
competing ethnic elites will surely be curbed and the poor will finally have
their peace.
Zenawi, 54 years old, had been giving mixed signals for months that he might
retire from office. However, because his party's members 'love him so much'
and because they see him as 'irreplaceable', they have 'urged' him to stay
in power longer, until his 60th birthday. What a birthday present to a
dedicated comrade, one may say! However, behind this love affair, there
exists a calculated risk.
Zenawi, no doubt, is the political mastermind of the ruling party, the
Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), supposedly a
coalition of four regional parties - the Oromo People's Democratic
Organisation (OPDO), the Amhara National Democratic Movement (ANDM), the
Southern Ethiopian Peoples' Democratic Movement (SPDM) and the Tigrayan
People's Liberation Front (TPLF). However, the TPLF, as the founder of the
other three pseudo-independent parties, monopolises everything. Considering
the EPRDF's present obstacles - Obama's administration, human rights
organisations, growing public discontent, global economic meltdown, and
opposition parties - the presence of Zenawi as prime minister is crucial for
the party's survival. Thus it was the right decision for the EPRDF to keep
its strongman in power. Zenawi explained the party's decision to
journalists, saying, 'In order to ensure policy continuity, and success in
the implementation of the party's platform, the party felt that there was
need for some additional time.'[2]
The EPRDF is determined to win in 2010. Given the difficult situations major
opposition parties face, there is no doubt it will win.
2010 ELECTION
For EPRDF politicians, the 2010 election is expected to be tougher than the
2005 election, which was disastrous, resulting in the government and the
opposition forces blaming each other for the chaos. It was reported that
about 200 people were killed and many injured during the crisis. Opposition
leaders, their supporters, journalists and some employees of NGOs were
thrown into jail and accused of 'treason'. After that election, most
opposition parties were crippled because of their internal litigations and
government interference. Many political prisoners, including the first
Ethiopian female opposition leader, Birtukan Mideksa, still languish in
notorious prisons.
Recently a promising coalition of opposition forces has emerged, the Forum
for Democratic Dialogue (FDD). This coalition seems by far the best
candidate to challenge the EPRDF peacefully. Opposing ideologues have joined
hands to address national and ethnic questions as one voice. This has
already given a headache to the government, which sees itself as the only
'genuine' force in the country that 'cares' about 'ethnic
self-determination'. The FDD, no doubt, embodies the nature of the current
Ethiopian political dynamics; nevertheless, a book cannot be judged by its
cover but by what it delivers. If this new coalition avoids internal
fighting and competitiveness and withstands the EPRDF's intimidation, then
it will definitely become a formidable opponent in the upcoming election.
People for sure will vote for the FDD if it listens to their heartbeat.
Otherwise, if it acts in a 'I know better than you and here I come to rule
you' manner like the EPRDF, then they may be inclined to say the following:
'Kemayaqut Melak, Yemiyawkut Seytan Yishalal,' which means, 'A devil you
know is better than an angel you don't know.'
Opposition parties, unsurprisingly, have several challenges, imposed mostly
by the ruling party. Professor Beyene Petros, the former leader of the
United Ethiopia Democratic Front (UEDF), briefed the media, 'Our
participation in the coming election depends on whether the government is
willing to discuss on the binding law of election. So far the government
isn't interested to sit and talk with us. It just wants to kill time; and at
the eleventh hour, they might say now we can talk. This is their usual
tactic.'[3] Bulcha Demeksa, leader of the Oromo Federalist Democratic
Movement (OFDM), further questioned, 'How can we get ready for an election
when we can't get close to our people and talk to them on what they want? We
don't have money, we don't have offices, and there is dispute everywhere.
This doesn't allow us to get ready for anything.' A member of Unity for
Democracy and Justice (UDJ) party, Temesgen Zewde, repeated the same
frustration: 'The ruling party purposely comes up with laws that draw a line
to our right of participating in [a] democratic election.' In addition to
their internal problems, opposition parties face such undemocratic
strategies of the government, which threatens their existence.
The fact that EPRDF prefers to intimidate its opponents rather than to open
a political space for democratic elections says a lot about its fear of the
inevitable challenge. One of the coalition members, Seyee Abraha, a former
defence minister, wrote to a local newspaper recently saying, 'The events in
Mekelle, Debremarkos and Adama are clear demonstrations of how petrified the
EPRDF is of peaceful struggle rather than armed struggle.'[4] According to
reports, government cadres and security agents in major cities prevent the
opposition systematically from reaching out to the public. Earlier, Negasso
Gidada, the former president under the EPRDF, wrote a letter accusing the
government of harassment after a mob disrupted a public meeting, which the
UDJ organised on 16 August 2009.
But the prime minister, responding to the allegations, recently argued,
'Those parties that apparently are concerned about harassment are not
concerned enough in the devising of the code of conduct that is designed to
put an end to it if it exists or prevent it from happening if it does not.
My feeling is that the intent of some of these individuals is not to contest
the elections in a serious manner. The intent is to discredit the election
process from day one, not to participate in it in any meaningful way.'
THE NEW GAME
In the mean time, Prime Minister Zenawi has engaged himself with a new hobby
after realising that 'the war on terror' rhetoric may not hold water
anymore. Fellow African rulers have anointed him to represent the continent
in the upcoming climate change summit in Copenhagen.
It is difficult, however, to trust Zenawi's genuineness and to believe his
seriousness concerning the environment. Where is he when the very few
factories in Ethiopia poison lakes and rivers with toxic waste? Various
parts of Ethiopia are still prone to famine and drought despite the foreign
aid coming into the country. There is a new law in Zenawi's office that
severely restricts NGOs' humanitarian and environmental activities. Many
indigenous communities suffer from diseases caused by contaminated air and
water. The sufferers still cry for help, though no one listens to their cry.
And now Zenawi is a champion of climate change?
Isn't it an insult to tell poor Ethiopians that their ruler is going to
'fight for Africa' when they suffer from fluoride poisoning, cyanobacteria
(blue-green algae), lung cancer, deforestation and other serious
environmental disasters, which his administration has unsatisfactorily
addressed? How will Zenawi make the case for Westerners to pay for 'raping
Africa' when his own government gives a free ride to foreign companies in
Ethiopia to exploit arable lands and to destroy the environment,
disregarding the cries of vulnerable communities? How many trees are cut
down each year to welcome Chinese, European, Indian and Arab investors? How
many of those trees are replaced?
It is obvious and essential that a poor country like Ethiopia needs foreign
direct investment and improved infrastructure to become self-sufficient;
Zenawi should be commended for opening Ethiopia's frontiers to investors and
for improving the country's infrastructures. However, Zenawi's record
doesn't show that he has scored high on promoting sustainable development.
Though his government prides itself for having very well-researched
environmental policies, it rarely implements them to hold investors
accountable for damaging the environment and for exposing communities to
deadly diseases and homelessness.
Zenawi's new game seems to be just pure hypocrisy. But hypocrisy doesn't
bother Zenawi as long as he can convince the West that he still is a
'progressive African leader'. I will not be surprised if the Obama
administration and other Western leaders fall for this trap. This is not,
however, to say that Africans must not demand compensation from the
industrialised world for suffering due to climate change. I am only saying
that Zenawi may not be the right candidate to represent Africa's interest in
Copenhagen because he first needs to clean up his domestic issues.
It is already decided that Zenawi will represent Africa in Copenhagen, and
may even become 'Africa's champion of climate change' after the summit, but
that will not pacify the public discontent inside Ethiopia. It is typical of
Ethiopian rulers to act as 'internationalists' or 'pan-Africanists' when
domestically they treat their people like commodities. The poor Ethiopians
are used to such pretension and mistreatment; they are tired of it! Zenawi
still needs to open a stage in Ethiopia for a genuine democracy, which he
claims he fought for as a student and later as a leftist guerrilla.
Your Excellency, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, as a young person who wishes
not to grow old and bitter, seeing Ethiopia go astray, and as a citizen, I
demand the following: give power back to its rightful owners, the people!
NOTES
[1] Media quotes are from www.jimmatimes.com, www.addisfortune.com and
www.ethiopianreporter.com.
[2] See [1].
[3] See [1].
[4] See [1].