From: Biniam Tekle (biniamt@dehai.org)
Date: Thu Jun 03 2010 - 09:25:27 EDT
-
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704717004575268492105744822.html
- OPINION
- JUNE 1, 2010
Ethiopia's Embarrassing Elections Stage-managed elections in the east
African country deliver a fourth term for Meles Zenawi.
By ABEBE GELLAW
Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, one of America's key allies in
Africa, is gloating over his "landslide victory" in the country's national
elections earlier this month. The ruling party has claimed to have swept all
but two of the 546 declared seats, which is more than enough to make the
parliament a complete rubber stamp for Mr. Zenawi.
On Tuesday, a few hours before international observers released their
preliminary report on the credibility of the polls, Mr. Zenawi gathered tens
of thousands of his supporters for a victory rally at Meskel Square in Addis
Ababa, and called on the opposition and the international community to fully
accept the supposed verdict of the people of Ethiopia.
The rally was also well-choreographed to condemn "foreign elements,"
especially Human Rights Watch, which had already dismissed the elections as
fraudulent. "Behind an orderly façade, the government pressured, intimidated
and threatened Ethiopian voters," said Rona Peligal, Human Rights Watch's
acting Africa director. "Whatever the results, the most salient feature of
this election was the months of repression preceding it."
Despite growing international uproar, Mr. Zenawi had a different take on the
outcome of the "historic" elections. "As the whole world knows," he said,
"the fourth national elections have taken place in a peaceful, democratic
and credible manner. These elections have been conducted successfully
according to plan," he declared.
His own hype notwithstanding, Mr. Zenawi has never managed to convince
independent observers that elections have been free and fair since he came
to power in 1991 after waging a bloody, 17-year-long guerrilla war to oust
his predecessor dictator, Mengistu Haile Mariam.
It was no surprise that the European Union and U.S. came out quickly, albeit
quietly, to contradict Mr. Zenawi's self-congratulatory victory speech.
While both noted that the elections were largely peaceful and free of
violence, they added they were marred by a narrowing political space and did
not meet "international standards." This is diplomatic understatement at its
most impressive.
If even a modicum of "democratic legitimacy" can be had by stage-managing
national elections every five years, then Mr. Zenawi and his brutal iron
fist will undoubtedly rule Ethiopia for many more years to come. After all,
Ethiopian's multi-party system has been carefully crafted to allow
ethnically fractured and impotent opposition parties to confront the ruling
party's juggernaut, while guarding the incumbent's security, logistic,
financial, political and organizational advantage. In Ethiopia under Meles,
as in the Mengistu era, the state and the ruling party are one and the same.
These fourth national elections were not any different from the previous
three. As usual, the result was a foregone conclusion well before the game
kicked off. The ruling party, the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary
Democratic Front, is a coalition of ethnic parties created by Mr. Zenawi's
minority Tigray people's Liberation Front in 1989. The ruling umbrella group
has managed to spread its tentacles across the country within the last two
decades, and boasts a membership of well over five million—one in six of the
29 million people reported to have cast their votes. Every ruling party
member was ordered to bring at least five other voters to the polls.
The only time the ruling party was on the verge of losing power was during
the third national elections. In 2005, the atmosphere was freer and
opposition parties were allowed to hold unfettered political rallies and
campaigns. The now defunct Coalition for Unity and Democracy party did
extremely well. But the ruling party claimed victory before the count was
completed.
When opposition supporters demanded respect for their votes and held protest
rallies to vent their anger, Mr. Zenawi ordered loyalist security forces to
crack down on dissent. Security forces opened fire in Addis Ababa, killing
193 civilians and wounding nearly 800 others. Opposition leaders,
journalists, and civil society leaders were arrested and charged with
treason and genocide. Over 40,000 opposition party supporters were rounded
up and detained in military camps.
This year, it was clear Mr. Zenawi had learned from his 2005 mistakes, and
took a series of preemptive measures to skew the election result. He closed
down a number of critical newspapers, jammed Voice of America, blocked
critical websites, banned all forms opposition rallies, crippled civil
society organizations, and deliberately fomented divisions in the opposition
camp. The charismatic Birtukan Mideksa, whom many refer to as the Ethiopia's
Aung San Suu Kyi, and other dissidents perceived as enemies of the state,
were locked up.
In 2002, British journalist Jonathan Dimbleby—who famously exposed the 1973
Ethiopian famine—travelled there to see for himself the progress the country
had been making. His ensuing article, "Ethiopia Proves There Can Be Life
after Death," appeared on July 28, 2002 in the Observer, and quotes Mr.
Zenawi as saying: "Africa's downfall has always been the cult of the
personality. And their names always seem to begin with M. We've had Mobutu
and Mengistu and I'm not going to add Meles to the list."
Today, Mr. Zenawi has comfortably joined the list he derided and despised.
By the end of his new term, he will have ruled the poor nation that survives
on food aid for a quarter of a century. For now, he has bought relative
silence from the West by continuing to serve as a key ally in the war on
terror. But in Ethiopia, totalitarian rule remains a serious act of
terrorism that goes unchallenged. Ethiopia's elections have turned out to be
more embarrassing for its Western sponsors than their daredevil African
ally, which shows no remorse over the death of democracy.
*Mr. Gellaw is a visiting scholar at Stanford University's Hoover
Institution, and its Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law.
Earlier this year, he was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic
Forum.*
------------------------------
*Hoover Daily Report*, produced by the Hoover Institution Office of Public
Affairs, is a collection of online news articles by or about Hoover
scholars. This report updates you on the ideas and activities generated by
our scholars that are covered by the media.
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