Now Medrek has used its last remaining life-line, it’s
time to end ‘vuvuzela politics.’
18th
June 2010
I
offer no apology for predicting Medrek’s commitment to peaceful electoral
process of Election 2010 was farcical, from the morrow of its birth by
‘artificial insemination. Please don’t
get me wrong for I am not making any claim to being either a political guru or
a clairvoyant. I was simply putting into
words what was there for everyone to see from hither and yon. Some of you, may recall how I had made an
attempt to track down some of the ridiculous comments being aired by leading
members of Medrek’s top-brass so as to pin-point where it comes at loggerheads
with sheer commonsense, and where it posed a breach of the constitutional order
and the Code of Conduct.
Take
for instance one comment from Medrek’s gaffe-prone supremo, Dr Merara Gudina,
uttered long before a single vote was cast: “what Medrek is seeking is nothing less than a Kenyan-type Government
of National Unity”. And what about
the mother-of-all gaffes – “if Siye
Abreha is not elected in Timben, then it means that the Election is rigged”
– which came out from the mouth of cantankerous Siye Abreha of UDJ. Surely, you do not expect such fulminations
to come out from opposition leaders “committed to free, fair and credible
electoral process?” Add to this Medrek’s
refusal not to be party to the Code of Conduct Agreement as well as its
interminable cry wolf, and what you get is a boundless-ambition-and-no-vision
Medrek going into the election with a Plan B up its sleeve which it intended to
execute as soon as voters have rejected it.
However,
the people’s vote of the 15th May and the May 17th mass
demonstration against any attempt by any quarter to tamper with the verdict of
the electorate, dealt a death blow to its Plan B. All this is history which
Ethiopians can forgive for the sake of peace and democracy, but they cannot be
expected to forget. Now Medrek knows
that EPDRF’s 96% win of the seat in the House of People’s Representatives – and not 96% of the share of the vote, as
wrongly claimed by those intent on portraying Ethiopia as edging toward a
one-party state – is a done and dusted matter, and with both NEBE and the
Supreme Court ruling against Medrek’s appeal for the re-run of the elections,
it is faced with a moment of truth scenario.
Will
it demonstrate respect for voters and a level of maturity by accepting that its
last remaining life-line has failed to bail it out? Or will it woefully back-slide and expect a
salvation to come from of what I like to call ‘vuvuzela politicians’ – the
noisy ‘trumpets’ of the avatars of hate politics within the Ethiopian Diaspora
(Vuvuzela is the noisy trumpets that are plaguing the sound-waves in the 2010
World Cup in South Africa). It can be
safely concluded, then, that Ethiopians have no appetite for 2005 type of
takeover binge. Failure to acknowledge this
perfervid desire of Ethiopians will, no doubt, lead Medrek to yet another bout,
of mortifying defeat.
In
conclusion, though I am not a law student, nor have the Law Courts ever been my
favourite hangouts, I nevertheless want to share with you what Russia’s famous
scientist and writer, the late Isaac Asimov, once said. I only hope that Dr
Merara Gudina, who in the past has publically demonstrated his love for the
sayings of Russian leaders, will take time out and recharge his erudite
batteries by taking stock of Asimov’s prudent observations: “I believe in evidence. I’ll believe anything, no matter how wild and
ridiculous, if there is evidence for it. The wilder and more ridiculous
something is, however, the firmer and more solid the evidence will have to be.”