Ethiopia thwarted time and again neoliberals' fancy of color-revolution   (Muna Jemal Aug 07, 2013) The Ethiopian regime has long been subjected to ideologically motivated harsh criticisms and remarks since the late 1990s when it became evident that it doesn't intend to implement a full-scale privatization, deregulation and liberalization of strategic economic sectors as per the neoliberalism prescriptions (also knows as, the Washington Consensus). The ideological driven onslaught intensified in mid-2000s when Ethiopia made it abundantly clear that it has embarked the democratic developmental state paradigm. Despite the astonishing socio-economic progress achievement of  Ethiopia's development strategy, the neoliberal forces at home and abroad saw it as a “bad example” that should be quashed at the earliest possible opportunity. However, given Ethiopia's increasing capability to withstand aid reduction (as evidenced in 2005-2007) and given the ineffectiveness of routine onslaught by western media, the neoliberal forces were not certain how they can  make Ethiopia's change its economic polices - which they oppose on purely  ideologically ground rather than merit. The revolution in Egypt brought a sudden hope to the global neoliberal forces and their local allies who would cooperate with anyone to bring mayhem and chaos and grab governmental power in Ethiopia. The local elements had become so desperate, especially after the peaceful election 2010 and the landslide election win, that they went as far as openly lobbying Ethiopia’s development partners to stop supporting basic social services. However, this loose coalition of the neoliberals by different names (activists, “journalists”, rights groups, etc) and the local power aspirants made flawed, hasty analyses about Ethiopia as usual. They determined that activities on social networking media – like, Facebook, twitter, etc,  will be the magic bullet that will bring regime-change in Ethiopia. Therefore, the opposition, especially those in the diaspora, opened several real and fake personal accounts, groups, pages on Facebook, to promote their organizations – which have a few members in the real word – and to disseminate unfounded, inflammatory messages. They tried to organize an uprising in Addis Ababa streets (like Tahris) through Facebook, at least four times since 2011. But, nobody turned up on the date they set for street violence. Of course, even on Facebook itself these activities (groups, pages, etc.) did never manage to attract no more than 3 percent of the total estimated Ethiopian Facebook users. And, it was obvious that the numbers showed the size of curious spectators rather than real supporters. Just like a crowd gathered on the street to see a traffic accident. Yet, due to superficiality as well as ideological reasons, such Facebook activities were given several mentions by some western media at the time - as if a real revolution was in the making. However, it was only a matter of time before the hopes of a “facebook revolution” were shattered. To the dismay of the color-revolution aspirants, at a time when many governments had been panicking about such an uprising and started billions of dollar budget short-term subsidy programs to avert the danger, the Ethiopian government was asking money from its citizens for long-term projects such as the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance dam. No better proof of the strength of the political stability! The color-revolution aspirants saw another “window of hope” last year, on July, when the government announced that the late Prime Minister Meles Zenawi was receiving medical treatments. Several overrated analysts and media outlets drew doomsday scenarios, forecasted a power contest in the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) leadership and even a nationwide chaos, also predicted the cessation of the Great Ethiopian Renaissance dam. Some were simply poorly informed, some were in the business of sensationalizing issues. However, many of the informed and resourceful ones were fantasizing a regime-change that brings a halt to Ethiopia's defiant developmental state paradigm that is attracting many African policy makers and scholars. The increasing influence of the Ethiopian model was demonstrated in the meeting of about 600 African experts and Ministers in March 2011, that recommended: “African governments [should] promote developmental States that would transform its political system from rent-seeking to a developmental one; restructure the economy to ensure sustained diversification of the production and export base; and restructure its bureaucratic incentives away from rent-seeking towards facilitative, pro-growth and pro-poor allocation of resources”. Therefore, the sooner Ethiopia's policy innovations are stopped, the better. This is not to say the various neoliberal forces have evil intentions about Ethiopia. It is just that their ideologically-biased eye-glass doesn't let them see the reality on the ground. They are not capable of judging each policy decisions based on its merit, whether it matches the neoliberal prescriptions or  not. They make some blurred theoretical arguments and claim Ethiopia could have done better if she followed the neoliberalism path. That is, despite the fact that Ethiopia's growth rate has been better than most non-oil economies for almost a decade. Similarly, the neoliberals believe the business community should be the king-maker in a country, so as the government strictly adheres to radical implementation of their prescriptions that proved to benefit the few at the expense of the mass. Therefore, in their ideologically-biased analysis, a regime that primarily depends and aims at empowering the laborers, micro-enterprises and the farmers is supposed to be unstable not only economically but also politically. It was natural for them to predict that Ethiopia's political system will unravel following Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's death. However, they all were proven wrong by the Ethiopian people and the ruling party on August 21 (when Ethiopian people learnt that Meles Zenawi has passed away) and the months following that. As would be recalled, the public media read the statement issued by the Council of Ministers which said “with deep sorrow and grief, regrets informs the Peoples of Ethiopia that Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, who has led our country for the last 21 years with great wisdom and far-sightedness, passed away on August 20th at 11:40 pm at the hospital where he was under medical treatment”. The statement was shocking to every Ethiopian. From the news-anchors, who read the statement, to the ordinary citizen, at home and workplace, the news was upsetting, their grief was visible. Many burst into tears blocking traffic on streets in Addis Ababa and elsewhere. Others stared on their TV and radio in disbelief, listening to the same statement again and again, as if they were expecting a correction. The statement was not wholly depressing, however. It noted the comforting fact that: “Meles has left behind a solid democratic and developmental constitutional system. Today, his ideas and vision of change have become the ideas of change for 80 million Ethiopians.” “The constitutional developmental democratic system that has been left to us by a great leader is built on a firm foundation. We will always be proud of his achievements, remain confident in ourselves and nurture the unshakable belief that the efforts at making Ethiopia's renaissance a reality have indeed become irreversible.” The public reaction and the statement from the Council were not simply emotional reactions, both proven themselves again and again in the months following that. Days after the Ethiopian New Year, on September 14-15, the EPRDF Council convened and, as usual, dealt with major national and party issues in a logical and orderly manner. At the end of the two-days meeting, after setting major directions and plans directions, that the Council dealt with the issue of electing new leaders. Even then the Council didn’t rush to allocating positions arbitrarily rather in a scientific and systemic manner common to EPRDF. The Council deliberated on a document titled “the building leadership and the stride of the Ethiopian Renaissance’’, which was compiled by the late PM Meles Zenawi and approved by the party Executive Committee last July. The Council deliberated on capacity building works to nurture and build leadership, to enhance the competence of governmental structure, on consolidating various public organizations and on fighting rent-seeking. The Council adopted the document as a basic document of the party, thus to be discussed at every level and be put into implementation. Finally, in a secret ballot election, the Council elected by unanimous vote, among three nominees, Hailemariam Desalegn as the party Chairman. Demeke Mekonen was elected to serve as Deputy. A week later, on Sept. 21, the House of Peoples’ Representatives convened in an orderly fashion to formally install Hailemariam Desalegne as Prime Minister of the nation. All this happened without a hitch, despite the fact that such a peaceful transition of power was the first in the country's history. In the absence of signs of disagreement in the top leadership and any form of disturbance in the public at large, the misinformed commentators, the pessimist pundits and the regime-change aspirants had all to admit begrudgingly that the transition was smooth. However, that proved to be inadequate to convince the neoliberals that the foundations of the developmental state is firm institutionally and enjoys strong backing of the public. They were soon occupied by another of unrealistic fancy that the system will unravel. Though EPRDF elected a new Chairman immediately after Meles's death and continued its developmental works without a hitch, they kept speculating a power struggle and inter-fight among EPRDF's leaders. Especially, since January, overrated pundits were busy making up all sorts of claims of troubles within EPRDF. But the 9th Congress held in March in Bahirdar city was a moment where EPRDF emerged stronger and unified, and ready to accelerate progress in the developmental path. The Congress, under the theme “with the thoughts of Meles: stronger organization and developmental forces for the renaissance”, was entirely focused on evaluating the implementation of the GTP so far and on how to tackle setbacks and enhance performance. While the commentators at home and abroad were busy making all sorts claims as if the Congress was a closed-room mysterious event, EPRDF showed its confidence by inviting journalists, representatives of mass associations, business men and prominent personalities to observe the Congress. While the pundits were predicting discord among the four-member parties of EPRDF, to the contrary the Congress was attended by 14 sister political parties from foreign countries as far away as Norway to South Africa, and from China to Yemen. Contrary to the grim prediction, permeated by rent seeking mindset, that the EPRDF leadership will battle for position; about 1/3rd of the leadership including dozens of very senior leaders resigned to make way for the new generation of leaders. One would hope that should be the end of the matter. But that is not the case. The neoliberals appear to be eying a new source of “hope” recently. Recently, they are eying an odd mix of political extremists and religious extremists to deliver mayhem and uprising. Since  small party, called Blue party, staged a minor demonstration that was attended by some 4,000 people, they have been speculating if it would grow into something big. It didn't bother the neoliberal aspirants of regime change that, as Minister Shimeles Kemal pointed out at the time, that the party dangerously mixed political and religious issues to attract attention. That is by co-opting the issue of some Muslim protestors who previously held demonstrations as a result of the conflict and contest between Ahbash and Wahabi sects, which is often mistakenly portrayed as a dispute between the government and Muslims. The neoliberals also overlooked Shemelis's cautionary note that Ethiopia is a secular country and political parties are constitutionally restricted from using religion as a mobilizing agenda. In other-words, taking a position between two religious sects is not the proper role of a political party. The same opinion was reflected by Prof Beyene Petros, leader of Medrek party. Commenting about the demonstration to VOA, Beyene said: “It may sound like it is an easy road to ride on; they need to be seasoned.  They need to be addressing these complex Ethiopian political parties within a broader perspective, and not only narrow interests...I see their likes simply pick one line of thinking and then try to harp it.  And that will not be a solution.” Though the neoliberal media deliberately tried to confuse the  real nature of the demonstration by mentioning different issues such as inflation, “political prisoners”, press freedom, etc.; the real picture was not missed to many observers. For instance: One international media pointed out at the time: “What was significant was that the demonstrations attracted the support of urban, Christian youth, who saw the demonstration as a chance to protest against the government. But it was the extreme Islamist elements which made the protests significant. The rally was formally organized by the secular Semayawi (Blue) Party, which received official permits for the rally, but the event was co-opted by the Islamists.” As if misrepresenting the real nature of the matter to the world was not enough, the neoliberals took a step farther. As we learned media statements that came from the party, they had organized meetings in Addis Ababa to discuss whether a color-revolution could happen in Ethiopia and what should be done in that case. It will be naïve to assume that the discussion was intended to gather conduct overall analysis. Most, if not all, western delegations have access to seasoned and reputed global and regional security analysis institutions. They don't depend on a small political party's wishful thinking to gather make assessments of current events and future trends. Indeed, some of the participants were probably attending the meeting in good-faith and upon invitation. But some of them were probably driven by their neoliberal hegemonic aspirations. The discussion on the possibility of a color-revolution was presumably meant to instill and encourage the idea rather than mere gathering of opinions. This adds up to the recent meeting in the Washington held by some neoliberal Congress members inviting two diaspora opposition politicians, who are convicted for terrorism. The agenda was the same: A fanciful talk of uprising and revolt in Ethiopia under the pretext of “hearing”. For some reason, Ethiopia's government chose not to officially denounce these improper forums organized in Addis Ababa and Washington, which are manifestly intended to give hopes to anti-regime elements and an interference in the internal affair of the country. It is strange that the neoliberals are still unwilling to learn from the sufferings they brought on the people of Egypt and Syria through their uninvited interference. However, as the world witnessed since 2011, the developmental state path of Ethiopia has become more and more resilient and the color revolution fancy has proved to be mere an illusion.