The future of Ethiopia’s democratization process
Following the election, the Prime Minister in a speech on Tuesday last week [25th] and when talking to journalists later, made it quite clear that Ethiopia would continue to be a multi-party state. It had, he said, a constitution which explicitly guaranteed the right to organize political parties. More than sixty parties had participated in the May election. The election might have provisionally produced an overwhelming victory for the EPRDF (the final results will be announced on 21st June) but this does not mean the creation of a one-party state. If any parallels should be drawn it would be with the possibility of the sort of dominant party system that operated for decades in Sweden or in Japan, or even Mexico, where one party consistently obtained massive majorities. Single party dominance in a multi-party democracy with the state running an economy in which the private sector has significant room to manoeuvre is by no means unusual whatever name it goes under, social or revolutionary democracy, or liberalism.
Whatever the level of opposition in Parliament, Parliament had a constitutional role, that of oversight of the executive. It was, said the Prime Minister, in the interests of everybody that it should carry out this strictly and critically. He believed Parliament would be able to keep the executive on its toes. Certainly, the ministries do now take their regular reports to Parliament seriously and a lot of effort actually goes into their preparation. The Prime Minister indicated that the government intended to build on the forum of political parties established during the campaign, and he envisaged all key legislative proposals being discussed in the forum before they went to Parliament. This could include for example party financing. He also expected debates on policy to continue in the media.
The Prime Minister made it clear the preliminary results of the election indicated that the majority of the electorate had voted to reject violence, to turn their back on what had happened in 2005. He believed the result showed the electorate was tired of the politics of hatred and vengeance. It was significant that the EPRDF won in constituencies where it had never done well before, but he noted that the opposition also did better in some places, such as the Tigray region, than he had expected. The results did not mean any lack of space for a moderate opposition, though it certainly limited opposition action in Parliament for the moment. He said the voters’ message had been clear enough. The EPRDF had improved its policies and its actions in the last five years, and the voters had recognized the developmental achievements of the EPRDF and the efforts to introduce good governance. It had been given another five year lease. If it didn’t use the time properly, the voters would take it away. If it messed up, it would lose next time and lose on a large scale.
In 2005, the Prime Minister said, the EPRDF had been given a yellow card. It had responded to the implied threat and the voters had recognized their efforts. The EPRDF, in fact, had responded to the public discontent and dissatisfaction demonstrated by the vote in 2005 when the party had been seriously overconfident. This time it had run a strong campaign flooding towns and villages with posters, banners, T shirts and party organizations, and information about its policies and achievements. Voters were able to see that the EPRDF had made significant efforts to provide “quality health care, universal education, housing for the urban poor and the working class, roads and electricity for the farmers” as well as employment for the rural and urban youth and women and help for cottage industries and small businesses. The results were clear enough: the voters felt the EPRDF had proved over the past five years that it was the best choice for good governance, stability and development over the next five years. And there is still much to be done in terms of improving governance at zonal, woreda and kebele levels, in delivery of justice, over corruption, inflation and the supply of information. Conversely the opposition has the opportunity to settle down and actually listen to the voice of the people, and work out their own alternative plans for governance and how to improve people’s lives.
It might be added that five years is quite long enough for any electorate to be convinced, as parliamentary elections frequently demonstrate in western European states. Given what the EPRDF had to offer and what the opposition provided, the electorate chose “the best and most sensible choice” for government over the next five years. The voters rejected the opposition for the splits within its leadership, the lack of leadership, disorganization, the failures to produce serious policy alternatives, and the continuation within some opposition parties of the politics of hate. Many voters felt betrayed by the opposition’s refusal to enter parliament in 2005 or take up control it had won of the Addis Ababa council. Voters, in fact, made it clear they wanted the opposition to put its house in order before they would really vote for them.
The electoral procedure had been impressive with significantly higher registration than in 2005, and an over 90% turnout, with over 2,000 candidates from over 60 parties. There had been some 200 complaints, 45 concerned with threats and harassment (from both EPRDF and opposition); 90 had been promptly resolved by the Forum of Parties. In this context it was relevant that the strongest EU criticism was of a campaign imbalance between a highly resourced EPRDF and a poorly financed and deeply fractured opposition. And the margin between opposition parties was wide because the differences between the parties were large.
In his post-election comments, the Prime Minister has addressed the opposition on the basis that the election was a victory for the electoral process in Ethiopia irrespective of the result. He has focused on those who voted for the opposition because they had made it clear they wanted the opinion of the majority (whatever that might be) to be respected, and for everything to work out peacefully. In this context he said specifically that the widespread arrests claimed by some opposition leaders were simply not happening. Indeed, he was impressed to note that some members of opposition parties had prevented trouble from their own supporters.
The Prime Minister rejected the views of the EU Observer Mission that there was no level playing field, quoting the very different views of the African Union Mission. He noted that neither mission claimed to be able to verify any allegations of intimidation. He also drew attention to the difference between the factual comments made by the EU Mission, which had essentially commended the whole election process, and the rather more political and critical deductions it claimed to have drawn from these facts. The Prime Minister made it clear that for the opposition to contest results in the courts might be one thing; calling for a re-run of the election on the basis of unproven allegations was quite another. He emphasized, once again, that the rule of law must be respected by all including opposition parties.
In response to questions over the comments made by a US Government spokesman in Washington expressing concern that the election had not satisfied all international norms, the Prime Minister made it clear that Ethiopia valued its relationship with the US and believed it was mutually beneficial. Ethiopia was eager to maintain it. At the same time Ethiopia was not a protectorate and it did seem that some in Washington were more immediately interested in the outcome of the election and in a change of government than in the whole long-term process of democratization in Ethiopia.
The Prime Minister was statesmanlike, conciliatory, accommodating and moderate, offering an olive branch to the opposition, and demonstrating that the EPRDF intends to remain part of a multi-party democracy. The election, he emphasized, had given the EPRDF more responsibility not more power. This is something that the party will ensure cascades down through the ranks of party officials to its foot soldiers, and operate through the Regional State assemblies down to local administration in the kebeles.