For Ethiopians the elections are not new phenomena. We have been testing the election during the Emperor Haile Selassie, The Derg military regime and under the present regime. In all of them the absences of the basic elements of free and fair election have and continue to be major similarities between all three rulers. When the political space opened, like in the 2005 election, the opposition attempted to mount vigorous challenges to the ruling party, the population got a chance to know who is who and attended the vote station massively without any force. When the ruling party notified their victory on the opposition side their supporters and members were brutally repressed, killed and/or “disappeared”.
Having the past experiences and taking into consideration the current new repression tactics, numbers of obstacles put and untrue propaganda, the majority of Ethiopians have lost a hope of free & fair election during the upcoming May 23, 2010 national election. Now, most Ethiopians are looking forward whether some miracle may come as result of individual effort during the poll day as well as the favorable event that may be originated from the ruling party home-region (Tigray Region) first time opposition parties’ elections paraticipation.
What is the driving force of ruling party to conduct national election? It is clear there are two major reasons:
1. Within the country, justify the ruling system as democratic system and “legalize” their Omni-power in front of any internal opposition.
2. In the international contest, consider them as democratic government to convince developed countries to gent political support and economical aids.
How we can show to the world the mischief, wrong propaganda and use of excessive forces to get their objective of governing forever? It is well known that even so it is not easy the only way is having an internationally and nationally credible witness on the election process.
Witnesses play key roles on making public the fairness of the vote counting and the process of voting in general. When I am thinking on the importance of witness I am wondering why the Carter Center is not participating as witness in the current Ethiopian Election 2010. What is the way US government and public in general get will evaluate the fairness of the present election?
We remember about the President Obama's speeches regarding the African rulers to make free and fair elections, respect the rule of law and win the trust of their population if they want any kind of open alliance with the USA government. If Carter center is not witnessing in this election, do have the Obama administration another means to check unfairness of the election process? When we are at less than a week for vote days nothing is known about except the European Union witness group, African Union election witness group and nationally governments trusted group of person. If I try to evaluate capability of these three groups, the best way is summarizing the public felling regarding to these issues, which are given bellow.
1. European Union witness group has few members nearly 150 persons, which is small quantity compared with the size of Ethiopian territory and populations. EPRDF are well organized to manage this amount of people to do their vote homework
2. African Union election witness group are coming or sent by governments with similar nature where there is no publicly accepted reports from them. They tend to support the ruling party.
3. From the Ethiopian witness, it is very difficult to express ideas against the ruling party and live on the same place on post election.
In addition, EPRDF has made a good preparation to manage wrongly so that the vote become on the side of EPRDF. For examples:
1. As per Dr Beyene Petros at rural population are organized so that the ruling party ensures the winning votes. Organization known as 1 leader to 5 rural peoples. The objective of the organization is ensuring the vote by control of fertilizer, harvest, land .... etc.
2. The media communication is controlled by EPRDF. For the reason of the election the debate was given 20% of air time for the opposition parties and 80% for them self (EPRDF)
3. The people are not expressing them self, they are fearful… probably great majorities will not vote.
4. Repressive laws such as the NGO Law restricting civic society, the so‐called “anti‐ terrorism” law that criminalizes dissent and creates a pretext for suppressing any political opposition have been passed. The opposition parties have been unable to function in any meaningful manner, their members and supporter are jailed, disappeared, tortured and their offices closed/destroyed.
5. The free press has been decimated and many independent journalists forced to exile, jailed or have simply given up and/or exercise fear‐induced self censor.
6. As variously reported by Human Rights Watch, Genocide Watch and others, the government has and continues to be involved in serious human rights violations and crimes against humanity including a possible genocide.
7. The political debates have been conducting by non-neutral chair person while during the 2005 election it was conducted by nationally recognized politically neutral personality.
8. The government on the other hand has been preparing for the upcoming national election in May 2010. Through the use of illegal state power, bribing, intimidation, etc., it has been reported that the ruling party may have already secured every vote to be cast in the election in advance of the election itself.
9. Highly undemocratic practices by the ruling group are currently keeping the opposition not only from the possibility of winning the election but also running freely in the election itself. As recently reported by MEDREK (the coalition of 8 political parties excluded from the ongoing negotiation), their offices are closed, their movements restricted, and their supporters harassed, imprisoned and/or “disappeared”.
10. The judiciary is another problem for it has mainly been a political tool of the ruling party.
For any democratization to take place in Ethiopia, at a minimum, a new mechanism has to be put in place to make sure that the army is restricted from any partisan intervention and the election board stays free from government influences as well as the law be trusted among the poblation and the ruling party members. It is not enough to say that it will be impartial and will remain impartial during the election. Time and again, it has proven to be otherwise. The fact that it is the guerrilla force of the EPRDF/TPLF that was transformed into the current national army is no secret. As such, the top officials of the army continue to be members of the guerrilla force as well as the ruling TPLF/EPRDF.
No Ethiopian needs reminding about the horrors that followed the disputed 2005 election. Nearly 200 protesters killed in the streets by security forces, more than 100 opposition leaders, arrested, convicted of treason and sentenced to life in prison before being pardoned.
One of the opposition party leaders called Merera says a big true, EPRDF now controls all local administrations, and this election will be a struggle to prevent Ethiopia from becoming a one-party state. I think, the EPRDF does not like to be called one-party state, so after gaining the required majority vote they will distribute as they want to others opposition parties.
We are tired of looking the same face again and again 40 plus years of Haile Selassie, 17 years of Mengistu and now 18 plus years of Meles Zenawi. It is clear demonstration that Meles Zenawi is pretending to be another Haile Selassie, another Fidel Castro of Cuba nearly more than 50 years in power that ruining the majorities of Cubans. I am so sorry of being a current generation or citizen of a country governed by dictators’.
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