ETHIOPIAN
ELECTIONS MAY 2010: THE WAY FORWARD
May 28,
2010
Ethiopia
held national elections on May 23, 2010 for the House of Peoples’
Representatives and the State Councils. The turnout was high and the election
process was peaceful and orderly. Preliminary results indicate that The
Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) has won the election
by a wide margin across the country. Ethiopians in the thousands have
sacrificed their lives in pursuit of democracy, justice, and development—their
sacrifice has not been in vain [2].
Ethiopians must now look to the future to strengthen and build on what has been
achieved as much more remains to be done.
The national
elections of May 2010 was a remarkable achievement showing the rest of the
world that Ethiopia has the capacity of conducting properly organized free
elections. Quoting from the European Union election observation team
preliminary report of May 25, 2010 (EU-EOM), “….The Ethiopian legal framework
appears to provide an adequate basis for the conduct of genuine elections…..”; the team also declared “the National Electoral Board of
Ethiopia (
Some may even
criticize the unusually wide margin of victory by the EPRDF. However, this can
be explained and should not detract from the integrity of the election. First,
the EPRDF in the past five years has delivered unprecedented double digit
increases in economic growth and has managed to cut inflation down to around 7
percent by end 2009. Even more importantly, Ethiopia today is well on track to
meet the United Nations Millennium Development Goals by 2015, indicating
significant improvements in the social indicators, particularly related to
education and health. Second, the EPRDF, after nearly losing the election
in 2005, has done its homework; it has closely consulted with the electorate,
reviewed its strengths and weaknesses, and amended these accordingly. As the
Prime Minister noted at his latest press conference, it has also recruited some
5 million new members who have been unleashed to deliver the message of
development and peace to the voters. The opposition’s membership drive does not
even come close. Third, given the track record, voters most likely wanted
to deliver a clear message to the opposition by showing their impatience with
the infighting and self centered attitudes – for example, one indication is
that none of the prominent political opposition leaders won a seat in the
Peoples’ House of Representatives. In this context, EPRDF’s landslide victory
is not surprising; political parties in democratic countries like Japan and
Mexico have ruled for decades with large majorities – but they have delivered
sustained economic growth and good governance to their electorates.
Hence,
notwithstanding, the EU-EOM preliminary report should be viewed as a clear
endorsement of the Ethiopian national election of May 23, 2010. As judged by
the report, the
·
The EU-EOM report states, the electoral process has been administered in
a professional manner, and quoting the report, “the secrecy of the vote was
respected despite isolated irregularities…”. This
statement essentially means that the secret ballot was valid across the
election process. Hence, the voters’ right to privacy has been respected and
none of the contenders, including the ruling party, has any way of knowing who
voted how. Also, the EPRDF has repeatedly stated publicly and has instructed
party members in its “New Vision” party journal articles that voters
must be allowed to freely exercise their democratic rights. However, even if
there has been sporadic intimidation and harassment by over zealous EPRDF
campaigners, clearly, logic should dictate that no amount of intimidation can
dissuade or persuade the voter as long as the secret ballot process is
respected and implemented across the board.
·
While the EU-EOM report commends the NEBE for overcoming significant
technical challenges, despite limited resources, regarding the election
process, it also points out to the lack of complete polling station lists
affecting the transparency process. With around 32 million registered voters,
an unprecedented turnout, and a very high number of polling stations to
convenience the voters, surely some irregularities are bound to happen. The
important issue is the intent of the NEBE and the Government to conduct free
and fair elections. Election irregularities occur in the most advanced
countries in the world. The 2000 election in the United States is a case in
point – however, no one seriously claims that the US election was undemocratic.
·
The EU-EOM report also alleges that “state resources may have
been used for ruling party campaign activities”. The EPRDF has been accused of
having its own financial resources, if this is accurate, and if numerous
private sector businesses have contributed to the party’s campaign (as has been
reported), it would not make much political sense for the party to make use of
state resources. I would think, under these circumstances, prudence is the
order of the day and we should not underestimate the EPRDF in this regard. Nonetheless,
the advantages of incumbency are clear not only in Ethiopia but also in many
democratic countries. In the United States “pork barrel” politics has always
been part of the election process. This, however, does not necessarily
invalidate democratic elections as long as the secret ballot is enforced-- it
has clearly been enforced in this election.
·
As for the criticism of a “….lack of a level playing field for all
contesting parties”, the EU-EOM report, at the same time, states that “….a
generous amount of free airtime (media) was distributed proportionately to the
different parties”. So clearly, the report must have been objecting to the so
called narrowing of the “political space”; but, this is from the perspective of
the European Union and the United States. This point of disagreement between
the western countries and Ethiopia having nothing to do with how the elections
have been conducted; simply speaking this is a policy issue. The principle of
non-interference by foreigners in national elections is a well accepted
practice in the United States and other democratic countries for obvious
reasons. Ethiopia’s opposition parties and NGOs active in the political field should
not be unduly influenced by foreigners who may have a separate agenda—financing
can be a major source of influence. If the opposition parties have a well
defined program of governance and are able to successfully present and defend this
program to their constituencies, domestic financing should not be a problem (for
example, recently a development NGO collected close to USD 100 million from
private domestic sources).
Clearly,
Ethiopians are on the right track of introducing a democratic culture where
there was none previously. The Ethiopian Diaspora and the Donor Community could
usefully encourage Ethiopians as they build their nation-state on strong solid foundations
of peace and democracy; but if they choose not to they will be marginalized,
for this movement is irreversible. As for the EPRDF and the opposition parties,
these should heed the clear signals given by the Ethiopian electorate and should
strive to meet the challenges of the coming 5 years – peace, development, and
the continued strengthening of democratic institutions.
Thank You
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[1] Comments are welcome to mered_michael@yahoo.com
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[2] Today