John Coyne asked me to write about the rash of killings in the run-up to Ethiopia’s national elections on May 23.  Where to begin?
Ethiopia has had little experience with elections. Several powerless parliaments were chosen over the decades, with few voters and minimal consequences. When the Derg fell and the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) was consolidating its power, the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) realized that the invitation they got to participate in government and an election was intended to co-opt them, not to share power with them.  The Oromos — the biggest ethnic group in Ethiopia — turned it down and and withdrew to the political margin where they have usually been.  The government-created Oromo People’s Democratic Organization (OPDO) remained their sole voice, such as it is, in the EPRDF.
Prime Minister Meles Zenawi remains the only leader the EPRDF, the ruling party, has had since before they took over in 1991.  The Tigre People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) created and still controls the EPRDF. Although there are non-Tigreans in the power structure, even in senior positions, the TPLF dominates the party and Meles controls the TPLF.
How to square this with elections?  The answer is simple: you can’t.  By definition, elections are intended to distribute power according to ballot results. In Ethiopia — not alone in this — being voted out is not an acceptable election result. It will not be allowed to happen.
In 2005, Ethiopia was recovering from war and drought.  It had successfully broken its promise and dodged the postwar border decision from The Hague. All four guarantors of the agreement  (the UN, US, EU and AU) looked the other way. There had been several good harvests, foreign aid was pouring in and coffee prices were recovering.
A few small parties emerged to contest the election. Several of them combined to present a meaningful challenge. Â Badly misreading the public mood, the overconfident EPRDF allowed unprecedented public debate on the all-important broadcast media. The public was riveted by the broadcasts and voter registration surged. Â An opposition rally in Addis Ababa just before election day drew a crowd some estimated at close to a million! Â Even if inflated, it was a huge and peaceful assembly. The government’s counter-rally gathered a respectable but smaller crowd.
On election day so many voters lined up that some polling stations were forced to stay open well past midnight. Some estimated that an unheard of 90% of registered voters actually turned out.  Why did they show up in such numbers? What where they thinking?  In a country without a democratic tradition, with low rates of education and literacy, why were so many people willing to stand in line for hours to vote…a concept many probably didn’t fully understand?  And what happened to those emotions?
Many voted against the government.  The EPRDF lost the entire City Council in Addis Ababa and was badly beaten in parliamentary races in many urban areas, where the results became known quickly.  In a panic, the government barred election observers (including the Carter Center) as the majority of the ballots — Ethiopia is 80%+ rural — were counted.  The opposition, without evidence, claimed it had won.  The government, also without evidence, claimed it had won. To no one’s surprise, the government won big.
The streets of Addis were soon filled with uniforms and armored vehicles. I saw them myself, having arrived in Addis a few days after the election, and was there when violence broke out.  It followed a familiar pattern, one that I had also seen in the 1960s when student protesters marched against Emperor Haile Selassie. Angry students gathered, shouting abusive language and refusing to disperse when ordered to do so.  Shots were fired, far more shots than in the 1960s and with many more casualties.  There were several public clashes and altogether nearly 200 were killed.
When the dust settled, tens of thousands had been rounded up and sent to detention camps. Most were soon released.  Many opposition leaders were arrested, charged with treason and released 18 months later in a deal intended to blunt their political careers. The parties they had created were infiltrated, splintered and effectively neutered. One, Birtukan Mideksa, the most popular opposition figure in the country, was rearrested. She remains in jail.
The EPRDF is not going to let history repeat itself.  Under intense pressure, the surviving opposition have tried to mount election  campaigns, but they are small, weak, underfunded and harassed by government supporters.  A few have been killed, including both candidates and supporters. The government claims that one of its people has been killed. Much of the violence is in Oromia, but also in Tigre, where an embarrassing home-province challenge to the TPLF emerged.
The number of victims is small but the message is unmistakable. Â Running against this government is dangerous. Â There are periodic reminders of just how dangerous. With the outcome never in doubt, the courage of the opposition is impressive. The strength of the government’s response reveals its anxiety.
Questions come to mind. What happened to 2005’s enthusiasm?  Forgotten? Stored away for another time? No one saw trouble coming in 2005. Could something similar happen in 2010…after the elections, if not before? The students again? Is the government show of force aimed at them in particular, reminding them of the cost of protest?  The EPRDF’s own leadership — Meles himself — left the campus to fight the Derg…
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Thanks, Shlomo, for the great summary of events and personalities and tragedies.
Thanks. You put me up to it.
The Ethiopian elections may be questionable but elections in Eritrea are non-existant. I realize comparisons are no excuse for less than “free and fair” elections but at least there is some way to express your opinion in Ethiopia. Eritrea continues to be the “North Korea” of Africa.
Well said, Shlomo. Ethiopia is not alone in the discomforting transition to democracy, and Meles is not as bad as some have been, e.g. Robert Mugabe. Still, one always has hoped that somehow Ethiopia would be different, and yet here we are with what will be a most sullied outcome. One question that readers may want to contemplate is how can Ethiopia develop a more open electoral standard that creates an anchor of political legitimacy by which all parties can abide. A tall order indeed and not one to which we are likely to have an answer any time soon.
Agreed, Leo.
Ethiopia also has a lot of good things happening, just not in some areas, conspicuously including ‘Bill of Rights” concerns…speech, press, assembly. But schools and clinics are now found deep in rural areas where all-weather roads have replaced donkey tracks. It’s a dynamic place with serious problems in a tough neighborhood.
And for reasons that must have an explanation that I don’t know, the compounded growth rates the government has been reporting for years haven’t had much of an impact on poverty, and the gap between rich and poor seems at least as big as it was in feudal times.
Thanks. Changes in national political behavior take generations of steady pressure, it seems to me. Even revolutions don’t change deep habits even when the chess pieces on the board get new names. Emperors and tsars become prime ministers.
The first Amharic proverb everyone learned was ‘kes be’kes…’…’step by step the egg learns to walk like a chicken’…proverbs translate badly…sorry!
I could not stop chuckling about Leo’s comment.
Does this look like North Korea of Africa Leo ?
One of the top in Life expectancy ,children health, malaria control over taking many resource rich African countries.
tinyurl.com/36nesjj
tinyurl.com/33xefb2
http://www.rollbackmalaria.org/worldmalariaday/
May be it is one thing to make the right noises for the benefit of sponsoring sugar daddies, and it is another thing to genuinely try to uplift your society from grinding poverty.
I am advocate of genuine democracy, but I have lost belief on the hypocrisy of the so called world community.
Now there is even a coined a phrase “”doing an Ethiopia”, sweeping Africa, what is the worst that can happen,if you blatantly stole elections ?
You can read all about it on the link below. While wondering what could have been, I am happy Eritrea is secure, and doing miracles, rather than going through meaningless empty processes, enriching few criminals.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/may/08/uganda-ethiopia-election
Dan.
So democracy and elections are meaningless, empty processes. Afewerki is a megalomaniac and has turned the place where I served in the Peace Corps into a living hell. No one is safe and secure from random state violence. He has successfully alienated all of his neighbors. The only business being done is the weapons trade. I defy him to let his citizens have a referendum on his reign of terror.