ጉልቻ ቢቀየር ወጥ ኣያጣፍጥም

 (Changing the stove does not sweeten the dish)

Zeru Hagos  Oct 11 2009

The worst side effect of the democratization process in Ethiopia is that every election cycle oppositions are organized for opposing sake!  Instead of building on what was gained during the election, the oppositions dismantled themselves and temporarily went to hibernation.  They surfaced again positioning themselves for the next election creating yet another coalition as if the nature of their program would dramatically be transformed by forming another coalition.  The people in the pictures were all opposition figures under the Kinjit and Hibret coalition of 2005 election.  Mind you all the coalition has brought is the further expansion of component parties filled with design to deceit and sabotage the coming election.   Their unifying platform and strategy, just like 2005 still remains to oust the current government with no tangible responsible plan or blueprint of governance.

 Today Hibret and Kinjit are nowhere to be found but swallowed by Mederk, yet another coalition with an amorphous alliance! Most of the Mederk leaders are the same leaders from Kinjit and Hibret who see no shame when they simply jump from one ship to another.  Some like Professor Mesfin have decided to oppose the opposition!  These so called leaders need to be told  gulcha biqeyayer wot aytaftim(changing the stove does not sweeten the dish)…what the opposition need is new leaders who can deliver! Kinjit, Hibret and Andinet were really names with no vision to serve the great majority of the people! 

When Kinjit and Hibret were formed the public had high hopes that they would be a formidable opposition that could check mate EPRDF.  The people that voted for them in 2005 envisioned a mature opposition and gave significant support, so much so that the opposition overwhelmingly defeated the EPRDF in Addis Ababa and other major cities. The opposition by many estimate won close to 200 seats in the Parliament. While this did not give the opposition majority win it gave them enough seats to play the game. However, due to the leader’s ineptness and ill advice by their handlers they opted to boycott their seats and instead chose intimidation and insurrection to remove the government.

Although the rhetoric that I am hearing from Medrek seems eerily the same as the then Kinjit and Hibret and the hodgepodge nature of the coalition almost identical with Hibret, many Ethiopians today are being told Mederk is the coalition they should support.  Why would anyone support them today?  What can these leaders do they did not do in the past? What would ARENA leaders do they did not do when they were in TPLF?  What would Dr Merara and Dr Beyene do they did not do in Hibret and what would Gezachew do that he did not do in Kinjit and UDJ?