Cartoon Democracy: Ethiopia’s 2010 Election

Originally appeared in the International Journal of Ethiopian Studies, Vol. 5, No. 2 (Fall/Winter 2010-2011), pp. 27-51

The May 2010 parliamentary election in Ethiopia was a meaningless exercise in political futility. The ruling party ” won ” 99.6 percent of the seats. The final election report of the 2010 European Union Election Observer Mission to Ethiopia (EU EOM) concluded “the electoral process fell short of international commitments for elections} notably regarding the transparency of the process and the lack of a level playing field for all contesting parties.” Meles Zenawi described that report as ” trash that deserves to be thrown in the garbage When the ruling party wins all but two legislative seats, it is ludicrous to talk about a free and fair election, a functional parliament or a loyal opposition. Free and  fair elections minimally require freedom of speech for candidates and political parties, a free press and free civic society institutions to disseminate and communicate with the electorate, the freedom to assemble for political rallies and campaigns, an impartial system of conducting and verifying elections and an independent adjudicatory system to resolve election disputes. These preconditions were conspicuously absent in the May 2010 elections.

The important point in the election process is not the result of the  election. It is not about which party won the election. … I believe that  the people of Ethiopia, beyond recognizing the efforts of the EPRDF and voting it into power have unequivocally sent a clear message to  the opposition parties in our country…

 Meles Zenawi, “Victory” Speech, May 25, 2010

 Electing a Dictatorship

On November 15, 2010, Meles Zenawi ripped the final election report of  the 2010 European Union Election Observer Mission to Ethiopia (EU EOM)  as “trash that deserves to be thrown in the garbage” 1 . He bitterly complained:

“The report is not about our election. It is just the view of some Western neo- liberals who are unhappy about the strength of the ruling party. Anybody  who has paper and ink can scribble whatever they want.” Five years earlier,  Zenawi had slammed the final election report of the 2005 EU EOM report the  same way: “The [EU] statement, in my view, shows that the [EU] mission has  turned out to be something worse than a farce… We shall, in the coming days  and weeks, see what we can do to expose the pack of lies and innuendoes that  characterize the garbage in this report. “2

It is baffling why Zenawi would use such extreme and distasteful  language to describe the months of laborious monitoring work done by  scores of dedicated and experienced EU EOM professionals. Thijs Berman,  the chief of the EU EOM was quick to respond: “One-hundred and seventy  independent observers have been working here in Ethiopia to assess the  electoral process in a very serious and professional way. Anyone who tries to  show contempt for this professional work shows contempt for himself. It is  degrading for the prime minister to react this way.”3 Catherine Ashton, EU  High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy/Vice-President of  the European Commission applauded the EU EOM “for their excellent work and commitment” in monitoring the Ethiopian election.4

The 2010 EU EOM final election report on Ethiopia is a diplomatically-worded document supported by evidence of actual field observations5. The  report made a number of important conclusions that reflected favorably on  the regime and the way the elections were held and organized. The report approvingly noted that the elections proceeded in a “generally peaceful and  orderly manner, with a high voter turnout.” The “Constitution, Electoral Law  and other election-related regulations protect political and civil rights and allow for genuine elections, as well as the freedoms of association, assembly, movement and expression. . . The legal framework provided an adequate basis for the conduct of genuine elections in line with international and regional commitments subscribed to by Ethiopia.” The election board was commended for “administering] the elections in a competent and professional manner given its limited resources [and] overcoming significant technical challenges.”

There was no evidence that candidates were discriminated against, and “candidate registration was carried out in an adequate manner.” The report complemented the media for covering campaign events in a “neutral tone”, although “state-owned media failed to ensure a balanced coverage, giving the  ruling party more than 50% of its total coverage in both print and broadcast media.” The electoral complaint procedures, according to the report, “were significantly strengthened in the last five years.”

The report also pointed out “some shortcomings” in the “training of polling  station staff and in the consistency and coherence of technical information received and aggregated by the electoral authority, such as complete polling station lists, which affected the overall transparency of the process.” It found  that the “freedoms of assembly, of expression and of movement were not consistently respected throughout the country during the campaign period, generally to the detriment of opposition parties.” The “separation between the ruling party and the public administration was blurred at the local level in  many parts of the country.” The Report documented “direct observations” of “cases of misuse of state resources in the ruling party’s campaign activities.”

Other observations indicated that in “27% of cases observed, polling station results were different to those previously recorded by observers at polling stations. In several cases, incomplete or incorrect forms from polling stations were corrected or completed at constituency electoral offices. The transparency of the process was considered unsatisfactory in 40% of observed cases.” The ruling party and its partner parties won 544 of the 547 parliamentary seats and 1,900 of the 1,904 seats in the State Councils. Overall, the EU EOM report concluded that “the electoral process fell short of international commitments for elections, notably regarding the transparency of the process and the lack of a level playing field for all contesting parties.”

The 70-person African Union Observer Mission (AUOM) led by former Botswana president Ketumile Masire was the only other elections observation mission allowed by the ruling regime to operate in the country6. Other diplomatic missions and international organizations were officially prohibited from observing the elections even informally. The AUOM concluded, “The Ethiopian Legislative Elections were organised and conducted in accordance with the constitutional and legal provisions and the rules and regulations governing the conduct of elections in the country and were largely consistent with AU guidelines and standards for the conduct of democratic elections…. It is recognized that 2010 Ethiopia’s Legislative Elections reflected the will of the people.”7

The AUOM report was disappointing as it was embarrassing. Its observations were at best cursory. Most notably, it failed to follow the required observation standards and guidelines set forth in the AU Elections Observation and Monitoring Guidelines.8 For instance, Section III 9 (e) of the guidelines (‘Mandates, Rights and Obligations of the Observers’) required the AUOM to “observe the political parties and groups as well as the population at large in the exercise of their political rights, and the conditions in which such rights are to be exercised.” Masire by his own admission made no such

“The AU were unable to observe the pre-election period”. Under Section V (13), the guidelines mandate that “AU Observers should ascertain that: …(b) all competing political parties have equal access to both the print and the electronic media (radio, T.V.).” Masire said his team “had no way of verifying’ pre-election complaints, including complaints of unequal access to state-controlled media”. Under Section V (B) (d), the AUOM had a mandatory duty to ascertain “the campaign process is conducted in conditions of serenity, and that there are no acts of provocation or intimidation capable of compromising”. Masire’s team failed to make such inquiries. Under Section B (24), the guidelines mandate: “The atmosphere during the campaign should be carefully observed, and among the factors to consider in this regard include … (iv) persistent or reported cases of human rights violations.” Masire’s team did not appear to be even aware of such a requirement, let alone make the actual observations. It is incomprehensible how the AUOM could declare the elections “were largely consistent with African Union regulations and standards” based on mere cursory observations.

 The Run-up to the May 2010 Election

In the run up to the May 2010 elections, with the exception of the ruling  regime, few others had confidence the election would meet international  commitments for free and fair elections. The alarm was sounded months ahead  of the elections when the former president of Ethiopia, Dr. Negasso Gidada’s  issued a report on his visit to Dembi Dolio in Qelem Wallaga Zone of Oromia  Region in Western Ethiopia10. Based on his experiences and observations,  Dr. Negasso claimed that there is “no level playing field” for the forthcoming election in Dembi Dolio, and by implication anywhere else in Ethiopia, to have a free and fair election in May 2010. His personal account evoked the farcical theatricality of a low budget political horror film: The former president shows up for a visit in Dembi Dolio and is promptly shooed away and stonewalled by local state/ruling party functionaries. He is told he cannot hold mass public meetings or engage in other forms of discussion or dialogue with the public. In disbelief, he hastily arranges individual meetings with local businessmen, community elders, teachers, health workers, church leaders, kebele (sub-district) officials, private professionals, university students, NGO employees and members and supporters of the Oromo Federalist Democratic Movement (OFDM). He is horrified to learn that any individual who met or spoke with him could be abused and victimized by local security operatives. He soon becomes aware of the ubiquitous and omnipotent local security apparatus with tentacles planted firmly into individual households.

Dr. Negasso’s account on the “current situation” in Dembi Dolio was downright chilling. He depicted a local party organization nestled within an oppressive security apparatus consisting of layered and operationally interlocking committees (which could be best described as “commissariats”), mimicking Stalin’s NKVD (Peoples Commissariat for Internal Affairs) in  the 1930s. Households, hamlets, villages, districts, towns and zones are hierarchically integrated into a commissariat for the single purpose of coordinating command and control over perceived “enemies of the people”.

There is a vast network of informants, agents and secret police-type operatives who rely on heavy-handed methods to harass, intimidate, gather intelligence and penetrate opposition elements with the aim of neutralizing them. The integrated overlay setup of the local security structure with the dominant Oromo People’s Democratic Organization (OPDO) /Ethiopian People’s Democratic Revolutionary Party (EPDRF) coalition in Dembi Dolio was prototypical of the strategy employed by the ruling regime to consolidate its power in every nook and cranny throughout the country. According to Dr. Negasso, there is no structural or functional separation of political party and public security in Dembi Dolio. The two are morphed into a single political structure which totally controls and dominates the local political and social scene. The special Woreda Town Administration is sub-divided into four large “Ganda” or villages with their own councils, each consisting of 300 members. Each kebele has representation in the Woreda Council, which is further sub-divided into zones and even smaller units called “Gare”.

There are 30 to 40 households in a “Gare” group, which is overseen by a commissariat consisting of a chairperson, a secretary, a security chief and two other members. There are up to 1 7 “Gare” in each zone with branches in every village, schools and health institutions. There is also a larger network of 24 kebeles under a Sayyo Rual Woreda. Public employees, farmers, local youth, women, members of micro-credit associations and others are involuntarily inducted into the security-party structure.

The security network is so sophisticated that it has Stalinesque quasi- directorates consisting of party and security organizations working together to maintain around-the-clock surveillance of citizens and generate and distribute real time intelligence on individual households through an established chain of command. According to Dr. Negasso, the local commissariats have expansive powers of investigation, arrest, interrogation and detention. They maintain a network of anonymous informants and agents who provide tips for the identification, investigation and arrest of local individuals suspected of disloyalty to the regime. They control and regulate the flow of information and visitors in and out of the town. Apparently, they even have the power to deport anyone considered persona non grata from the town. In general, there is little question that the commissariats and the interlocking quasi-directorates engage in repression and widespread human rights abuses against the local population.

One of the common methods of repressive local control described by

Dr. Negasso involves the use of highly intrusive security structures called

“shane”, which in Oromo means “the five”. Five households are grouped

together under a leader of the ruling party who is responsible for collecting

information on the households every day and passing it on to the “Gare”

officials. For instance, the “shane leader knows if the members of a household

have participated in “development work”, if they have contributed to the

several fund raising programs, if they have attended Qabale meetings, whether

they have registered for election, if they have voted and for whom they have

voted.” The “Gare” security chief passes information he has received from

the security network to his superiors right up the chain of command.

According to Dr. Negasso, the OPDO/EPRDF was determined not to

allow any other competitive political organization to function in the area. Any

outsiders “are secretiy followed and placed under surveillance to determine

where they have been, whom they have visited, and what they have said.

He also reported that “local people who had contact with visitors that are

summoned and grilled by security officials. In my case, my brother-in-law, with

whom I stayed, . . . received telephone calls from the Dembi Dolio and Naqamte

security offices. He was asked why I came, whether I came for preparation for

the coming election or for any other purpose.” The mechanics of the ruling

regime’s total political penetration and domination of the political process at

the local level has been documented in the March 24, 2010 report of Human

Rights Watch11:

Since 2005, state resources have also been used to press individuals to

join the ruling party so that they can benefit from access to services,

jobs, and economic activity. Between 2005 and 2008, when the

kebele and woreda (district) elections were held, the EPRDF’s party

membership more than quadrupled, from approximately 760,000

to more than 4 million members in just three years. In these local

elections in 2008, the EPRDF first expanded the number of available

positions on kebele and woreda councils and then won more than

99.9 percent of the 3.5 million seats, thus consolidating its control of

the local administrative structure. The practical implication of this

development is that in an average kebele, one of every 10 residents –

almost one member of every family – is now both a kebele official

and EPRDF member.”

On May 20, 2010, three days before election day, the New York Times reported:

Diplomats, human rights groups and witnesses say the Ethiopian

government is methodically stifling dissent in the prelude to this

supporters, jailing political opponents and possibly killing a few

activists, part of a broader pattern of repression in several of

America’s closest allies in Africa, especially during election time.”

In the run-up to the May 2010 election many commentators, including myself,

offered analysis on the impossibility of a fair and free election in Ethiopia.

The “Election Code of Conduct” Game

The ruling dictatorship of Meles Zenawi had been peddling the idea of

an “election code of conduct” months before the election to manufacture an

atmosphere of fairness and entice the opposition to field candidates. The 28-

page Code13 is a modified translation of the generic election code of conduct

devised by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance

(IDEA). The Code purports to regulate various aspects of the electoral

process and includes prohibitions on the use of violence and intimidation,

corrupt electoral practices and sets the parameters for proper campaigning,

electioneering, use of symbols and the like. It also professes ethical standards

for the parties to uphold. An itemized laundry list of potential violations and

sanctions for violations are provided ranging from “naming and shaming” in

the form of public exposure to outright exclusion from the electoral process.

For certain serious electoral violations amounting to criminal acts, a prison

term is indicated.

To get the various parties to sign off on the “Code”, various foreign

embassies were enlisted to do the cheerleading. Medrek, a forum for eight

political parties, walked out of “election code” talks sensing a surefire trap

down the road as election day neared. There was also some general talk of

boycotting the election in light of the unjust and illegal imprisonment of

Birtukan Midekssa, the first female political party leader in Ethiopian history

and president of the Unity for Democracy and Justice Party (UD JP). Gizachew

Shiferaw, a member of the TJDJP and vice-chairman of Medrek at one point

declared: “Unless we take some sort of remedy toward these political prisoners,

it will be difficult to look at the upcoming elections as free and fair.”14 Medrek

also demanded the establishment of an independent electoral board and an

immediate stop to harassment of opposition candidates and supporters. It

called for the presence of international election observers. Bereket Simon, a

member of Zenawi’s brain trust, dismissed the demands: “We invited them to

a dialogue in the presence of the British and German embassies. We invited

them to join negotiations. They declined. The party who walks away from the

negotiating table doesn’t have a moral right to accuse us of closing political

space.'”5

The idea of an “election code of conduct” was the window dressing the

ruling party sought to use to finesse the international community. It was a

manifestly appealing idea because it pointed to the presence of a level playing

field and an electoral process with a monitoring system. Such “codes” have

been used successfully in different countries. In principle, they are useful and

facilitate elections that are clean, and free from violence and vote rigging.

In Ethiopia, however, they were the foil used to cloak and shroud the dirty

political and electoral tricks the ruling regime had always practiced in the past.

But when the fox is guarding the election hen house, it is rather meaningless

to talk about election housekeeping rules, which is what a “code of conduct”

1. Ultimately, the fox rules the henhouse with an iron fist; and though he may

agree to “fair” rules of the electoral game, he knows that in the final analysis

he holds all the cards and the opposition none. In all of the talk about elections,

the singular objective in the leadership of the ruling regime was buying time

and clinging to power indefinitely while stringing along the opposition and the

international community.

The modified IDEA code proffered by the ruling regime was insufficient

to deal with the type of fraudulent electoral practices that have occurred in

Ethiopia in prior elections and were likely to be repeated in 2010. 16 At the risk

of sounding argumentative, just as the criminal code is designed with criminals

and the criminal classes in mind, Ethiopia’s election code in 2010 should

have been designed with vote riggers, ballot stuffers, and election thieves in

mind. As Dr. Negasso’s reportage and other anecdotal evidence indicated,

the ruling party had a long record of misusing and abusing public resources,

equipment, machinery and personnel for improper electioneering work. They

have improperly used public places to hold partisan political meetings and

election rallies and prevented or made inaccessible such places on the same

terms and conditions to opposition parties and candidates. The ruling regime

completely dominated the print and electronic media, and misused it to

advance its partisan political agenda. There is ample anecdotal evidence and

reports of international human rights organizations showing that members of

the regime have directed local party functionaries to make corrupt offers and

promises of financial payoffs, grants, fertilizers, road and other public works

projects in exchange for votes. Leaders and members of the ruling party travel

throughout the country unobstructed, distribute pamphlets and posters, hold

rallies and meetings at any location of their choice while opposition parties

and candidates are at the mercy of the local police authorities who routinely

deny them permission to engage in ordinary political activity. The ruling party

has used election propaganda to appeal to ethnic prejudices, inflame historical

grievances and passions and heighten tensions among different communities

and groups.

The Impossibility of Free and Fair Elections and  Constitutional Governance in Ethiopia

A free and fair election is possible only where the rule of law prevails

and fundamental human rights are respected. There is no mystery to having

free and fair elections. In theory, there is no reason why there could not have

been free and fair elections in Ethiopia in May 2010 or at any other time. Its

“constitution”, purportedly the “supreme law of the land”, guarantees voters

and candidates (and citizens in general) full freedom of speech, expression and

press and the right to publicly disseminate political messages and information

in the run up to election. The right to vote in a secret ballot is secured and there

are constitutional guarantees of a level electoral playing field by means of freely

operating political parties and civic organizations and an independent, non-

partisan electoral commission. Though there is a constitution that is manifestly

democratic, both in terms of the protections of civil liberties and rights and

structures, it is useless for all intents and purposes because of the absence of an

independent judiciary to uphold it against executive abuse and encroachments.

Moreover, there is a non-fiinctional parliament that rubberstamps the desires

and wishes of the ruling dictatorship. There could be no accountability for the

ruling party in the absence of these institutions. Ultimately, the ruling regime

must be genuinely committed to upholding the rule of law and follow the

constitutional process for the transfer of power in elections free from rigging

and manipulation.

The absence of the rule of law and dictatorial governance in Ethiopia is

borne out in specific examples. Article 9 (“Supremacy of the Constitution”) of

the Ethiopian Constitution provides that the “Constitution is the supreme law

of the land. All laws, customary practices, and decisions made by state organs

or public officials inconsistent therewith, shall be null and void. . . All citizens,

state organs, political organizations, other associations and their officials, have

the duty to comply with this Constitution and abide by it. . . Assuming power

in any manner other than as provided by this Constitution is prohibited.” In

transferring Ethiopian land to the Sudan in 2008, Zenawi violated his solemn

constitutional duties. On May 11, 2008, in response to allegations in the

“media” and among “irresponsible” elements outside the country over a land

transfer deal with the Sudan, Zenawi’s foreign ministry issued a statement

categorically denying the occurrence of any such transfer. When Sudanese

officials publicly announced acquisition of territory from Ethiopia, Zenawi

could no longer keep a lid on his secret deal; and his henchmen began to

backtrack on their initial story by mid-May. They said only preliminary work

on border demarcation had been done, but nothing had been finalized. Within

days, a new lie was invented. They nonchalantly admitted “implementing

prior agreements” concluded by the imperial/Derg regimes with the Sudan.

On May 21, Zenawi publicly described his agreement with al-Bashir17:

“We, Ethiopia and Sudan, have signed an agreement not to displace

any single individual from both sides to whom the demarcation

benefits. . .We have given back this land, which was occupied in 1996.

This land before 1996 belonged to Sudanese farmers. There is no

single individual displaced at the border as it is being reported by

some media.”

Zenawi to this day insists on keeping the actual agreement secret. But his

public statement is a treasure trove of information on the basic terms and nature

of the secret agreement. It is clear that there is an actual “signed” “Agreement”

that deals with several issues: 1) the question of non-displacement of persons

in the giveaway territories, 2) preservation of benefits of all persons affected by

border demarcation, 3) restoration of land rights to Sudanese farmers on land

supposedly occupied illegally by Ethiopian farmers, and 5) cession of lands

(“give back of land”) “occupied” by Ethiopia “in 1996” back to the Sudan.

As a constitutional matter, Zenawi had a duty to make the Agreement public

and share it with the parliamentarians in the “Council of Representatives”.

Article 5 1 , section (4) specifies that one of the “powers and duties of the Federal

government”, is to “determine foreign policy and implement the same. [It also]

enters into and ratifies international agreements.” The general foreign relations

powers of the federal government are divided between executive management

of the foreign policy field, and ratification of “international agreements” by the

parliament. Article 55, section 12, specifically reserves as one of the exclusive

“powers and duties of the Council of Peoples’ Representatives”, the power

to “ratify international agreements signed by the executive branch.” Article

86 describes the “principles of foreign relations” the federal government (the

prime minister and the Council of Peoples’ Representatives) must follow in

conducting Ethiopia’s relations with other countries and international entities.

Sections 2 and 3 provide that the federal government must follow a foreign

policy “based on equality and mutual benefit; ensuring that international

agreements entered into, protect the interests of Ethiopia” and requires “respect

[for] international laws and agreements that respect Ethiopian sovereignty and

are not contrary to the interests of its peoples.” By Zenawi’s own words, the

land deal was an “agreement” between Ethiopia and the Sudan which required

parliamentary review and approval, but remains a secret.

Another example of the absence of the rule of law and unconstitutional

action by Zenawi is the war of aggression in Somalia. In mid-December 2006,

Zenawi denied any direct military involvement in Somalia. In an interview

with the Washington Post, Zenawi explained that he had sent a few hundred

soldiers into Somalia to provide training. “It is true we have troops in Baidoa,

the capital, who are there to train forces of the transitional federal government,

who are an internationally recognized government and who have (sic) officially

asked for support from Ethiopia… Now, if the transitional government does

not want our trainers, we’d be happy to withdraw them. . .'”8 In early January,

2007, a triumphant Zenawi declared that his forces would remain in Somalia

“for a few weeks” while the transitional government stabilizes the situation.

“It is up to the international community to deploy a peacekeeping force in

Somalia without delay to avoid a vacuum and a resurgence of extremists and

terrorists.'”9

In May, 2007, Zenawi told Al Jazeera that he was not only providing

training in Somalia, he had also been invited by the transitional government

to assist in fighting terrorists. “I think we should get the facts straight first. We

did not invade Somalia. We were invited by the duly constituted government

of Somalia, internationally recognized government of Somalia to assist them

in averting the threat of terrorism. We did so.” Even though he had argued

at the outset of the invasion that Somalia was the central front in the battle

against AI Qaeda and international terrorism in the Horn of Africa, he denied

any U.S. role in the invasion: “We did not fight a proxy war on behalf of

the United States. Indeed, the United States was very ambivalent about our

intervention, once we intervened of course the United States and much of

the international community was supportive but in the initial phase before we

intervened, everybody, including the United States was warning us that we

might walk into a trap and a quagmire and that we should think twice before

taking steps.” Recent Wikileaks cablegrams suggest otherwise.20 In October,

2007, he told parliament: “So, rushing to pull out the army immediately

would have entailed a situation for the already dismantled forces of terror in

Somalia to regroup, and thereby to render void the sacrifices already made by

the Ethiopian army.” Zenawi provided no updates on the Somali invasion, the

cost in lives and resources, or any policy role for the parliament. History will

remember the invasion of Somalia as “Zenawi’s War.”

The Somali invasion has never been popular in Ethiopia. “Ethiopia’s

fractious political opposition” sent a letter to Zenawi stating that “the sacrifice

of lives and scarce financial resources had become unbearable.” Bulcha

Mideksa, an opposition party leader, stated matter-of-factly that the Somalis

“resolved to fight against us, and they are fighting, and in my opinion they are

winning.” Upwards of 20,000 thousand of Zenawi’s troops are estimated to

have been killed or severely injured in the Somali war. Amnesty International

has documented massive human rights violations by Zenawi’s troops in Somalia

including extrajudicial killings, torture, rape, beatings, arbitrary detentions,

forced disappearances and collective punishments. Zenawi says it is all a “total

fabrication”.2′ There has been no accountability for what Zenawi has done

in Somalia. Beyene Petros of the opposition United Ethiopian Democratic

Front charged, “The government has irresponsibly refused to account on these

two pertinent issues relating to the Ethiopian army’s deployment to Somalia.

Every country’s parliament, even the public at large, has a right to know what

its involvement is costing in terms of life and resources. We have been kept in

the dark.”22

In the run-up to the 2010 “election” the world witnessed a one-man, one-

party dictatorship pretending to be in competition with parties over whom

it had total dominance. Opposition parties were at a distinct disadvantage.

They were unable to receive and disseminate information to the electorate

freely, access state media on the same terms and conditions as the ruling party,

educate and canvass voters, hold meetings, conduct campaigns freely and

vigorously engage fellow citizens to exercise their right to vote in an informed

manner. The ruling party enjoyed extraordinary legal and political privileges,

advantages, benefits and entitlements because they literally own the legal and

political system. Ruling party members and leaders dominate the bureaucracies,

the courts, the police forces, the army and the local administrative structures.

Most importantly, they own the election commission. In the 2010 election, the

leaders of the ruling party served as prosecutors, judges, juries and executioners

in all matters relating to elections.

When the ruling party wins 99.6 percent of the legislative seats, it is

ludicrous to talk about a free and fair election or having a functional parliament

or a loyal opposition. With such total control of the political process, there

are no interests to be balanced or constituencies to be served other than those

of the ruling party. The parliament is merely a rubber stamp of executive

authority that is used to give the false impression of democratic governance.

The executive is not accountable to the judiciary or to the parliament, nor does

the parliament have the power to dismiss the government from office through

a vote of no confidence. As I have observed elsewhere, “You can jazz up a

bogus election in a one-man, one-party dictatorship with a ‘Code of Conduct’,

but to all the world it is still a bogus election under a one-man, one-party

dictatorship. You can put lipstick on dictatorship to make it look like a pretty

democracy, but at the end of the day, it is still an ugly dictatorship!”23

Victory of Dictatorship Over Democracy

On May 26, three days after the election, Meles Zenawi in a victory speech

(an event billed as a public protest against Human Rights Watch for its critical

report on the regime), boldly declared that he will complete his quarter century

in power. It will be business as usual; but he promised there will be a change in

style, form, appearance and public relations in the post-‘election’ period: “Hide

the iron fist in a velvet glove. Speak softly and carry a big stick.” That was

the theme of Zenawi’s grotesquely Churchillian speech. Churchill said, “In

war, resolution; in defeat, defiance; in victory, magnanimity”. In the ‘election’

battle, Zenawi was resolute. For months before election day, he had threatened

to prosecute opposition leaders for their “inflammatory” and “hateful”

campaign statements calculated to “incite violence”. A month before the

election, he even threatened to burn them at the stake if they withdrew from

the elections at the last minute and agitated the youth to demonstrate in the

streets. He threatened, “If my estimation is correct, some of you are walking

this direction [boycott the vote] I think you are making a huge mistake because

to light the fire and at the last [moment] to go into hiding, would not be good,

because to light the fire and [be] behind it, and also to fight and use the blood

of children, that would not be something that is useful.” In his defeat – that is,

the complete loss of credibility that comes from winning an election with 99.6

per cent of the seats – Zenawi was defiant. He told the West to back off and

respect Ethiopia’s sovereignty. In his 99.6 per cent electoral “victory”, he was

magnanimous – ‘let bygones be bygones’ (yalefew alfwal).

Zenawi’s velvet glove/big stick strategy is based on a simple idea of to-

tally demoralizing and humiliating the opposition, hoodwinking the Western

donors and simply fooling the people. His velvety message was that he “does

not want to be forced to embark upon the business of tracking down people

committing crimes. I would like to appeal to some opposition parties … not to

force the Government to take measures against them”. He seemed to be carry-

ing a chip on his shoulder from the drubbing his party got in 2005, when the

opposition humiliated Zenawi’s party, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary

Democratic Front (EPRDF), by wining nearly every seat in Addis Ababa. It

was the opposition’s turn to be humiliated. Zenawi said, “It is to be recalled

that in the last election, five years ago, we, the EPRDF lost every seat in the

capital due to our failure to achieve our goals.” In 2005, the opposition accused

him of rigging and stealing the election; it was time to return the favor: “We all

know the destructive role some political parties have been playing so far. [They

have] attempted] to mar and discredit the polling process. They have tried to

cause delay by instructing their observers to arrive late at the polling stations.

They have tried to disrupt the queues, make all sorts of shouts and cries, …

[and even] sen[t] in their members with grenades to detonate among people

queuing at polling stations … We have also observed successful and unsuc-

cessful attempts by members of some of the opposition parties to snatch away

ballot boxes and burn the votes of the people.”

Zenawi extended an olive branch to his vanquished opposition wrapped in

condescending cordiality and paternalism. He promised to allow them to have

input so long as they behave and pull no punches: “We make this pledge to all

the parties who did not succeed in getting the support of the people, during

this election, that whether or not you have won seats in the parliament, as long

as you respect the will of the people and the country’s Constitution and other

laws of the land, we will work by consulting and involving you in all major

national issues. We are making this pledge not only because we believe that

we should be partners … [but also] you have the right to participate and to be

heard.” The message was unmistakable. The opposition will be put on a short

and tight leash and their scope action will be closely monitored for progressive

discipline; and the iron fist will be unsheathed from the velvet glove and the

big stick pulled out to drive that point home whenever necessary. No political

prisoners will be released, including Birtukan Midekssa.24 More will be added.

There will be no independent press. Civic society organizations will not be

allowed to operate freely. Judges will remain in the back pockets of the ruling

regime. Justice, and pieces of the country, will be up for sale to the highest bid-

der, and on and on. Business will be conducted in the same way it has for the

last 19 years!

International Reaction to the May 2010 Elections and How the

 West Aided and Abetted in Democricide in Ethiopia

The “preliminary statement” of the European Union Election Observation

Mission Ethiopia 2010 stated: “The electoral process fell short of certain

international commitments, notably regarding the transparency of the process

and the lack of a level playing field for all contesting parties.” The White House

issued a statement expressing “concern that international observers found that

the elections fell short of international commitments. We are disappointed that

US Embassy officials were denied accreditation and the opportunity to travel

outside of the capital on Election Day to observe the voting.” Johnnie Carson,

the assistant secretary of state for African affairs in the state department told

the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs that “we note with some degree

of remorse that the elections were not up to international standards … The

[Ethiopian] government has taken clear and decisive steps that would ensure

that it would garner an electoral victory.” Even Herman Cohen, the former US

assistant secretary of state who served as “mediator” in the so-called May 1991

London Peace Talks which resulted in the establishment of the Zenawi regime

decried the outcome: “This time opposition media and opposition groups were

not given fair time on the media and opposition media tends to be suppressed

and in that sense I don’t think it was a fair election.”

Zenawi appeared nonplussed by Western donors’ manifest repudiation of

his election victory. He pleaded: “We have seen those we believed were friends

and partners behaving like king makers and an appeal court for Ethiopia’s

politics. Our proud people would still like to extend a warm welcome of

friendship and partnership. We say to you: Please give due respect to the

decision and the sovereign power of the people to elect their own leaders.”

Zenawi’s strategy in dealing with the Western donors has always been the

same: He is the only game in town. The donors have no alternatives to him

because there is no viable opposition, principally because he had wiped them

out. The donors want stability above all things and will tolerate anything he

does. They don’t really believe in democracy and human rights anyway; they

believe only in advancing their national interests. They do not have the guts

to take any action against him because he will threaten to cut them off and

go with the Chinese. In any case, they have never taken any serious actions

against him and never will. He regards them as a bunch of hypocritical, forked-

tongue, double-dealing and double-talking windbags. America is not going

to do anything because of her preoccupation with terrorism in the Horn of

Africa. To ease the criticism on the donors, he will give them diplomatic cover

by touting that he has achieved “double digit economic growth”, built roads,

schools and other infrastructure. In any case, if push comes to shove, he will

attack them by claiming that they are interfering in the country’s sovereignty

and affronting the Ethiopian people.

If truth be told, Zenawi would not be necessarily inaccurate in his view.

The US, Britain and the European Union have poured in tens of billions of

dollars of aid to support his regime for nearly two decades while pontificating

about democracy and human rights endlessly. They took no action when he

passed a so-called press law criminalizing free speech and the free press after

the 2005 election. They just moaned and groaned about it a little. They took no

action when he passed a so-called civic society law that effectively banned civic

organizations. They have taken no action against him despite a nearly two

decade uninterrupted record of gross human rights violations and criminality.

All they have done is dump the blame on the opposition: “There is no viable

alternative in the opposition.”25 They know full well that the opposition is

subjected to daily threats, intimidations, arbitrary arrests and detentions and

violence, yet they have mustered the audacity to blame them for being “not

viable”. As I have argued previously, the Western donors have entered into a

conspiracy of silence to see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil of Zenawi.26

The role of the West in maintaining the current dictatorship has been

pivotal and reprehensible.27 Zenawi has successfully charmed Western donors

into believing that he is not only the savior of Ethiopia but also the continent.

He has trumpeted highly questionable economic growth rates and development

and proffered a faux federal system as the solution to the country’s political

problems. The West has turned a blind eye to the notorious fact that Zenawi is

the sole power with unlimited decision-making powers. In a recent “Briefing”,

Prof. Kjetil Tornvoll correctly points out that part of the problem for the

still birth of democracy in Ethiopia has to do with the midwifery Western

governments have provided in legitimizing the anti-democratic actions of the

Zenawi dictatorship28.

 

Donor-country diplomats, especially, are charmed by this formal

façade of Ethiopian politics and always place high hopes in the

promises offered by the political leadership. When asked about the

political state of play in Ethiopia, they point to the improvements

in the sphere of parties, the legal framework or the media, the

reduced level of public violence, the absence of civil war, the relative

scarcity of random killings and abductions of opponents, the prudent

macro-economic policy, and the liberalization of the economy and

the political system. In this, the despised Derg dictatorship (1974-

91), and perhaps the disarray in neighbouring Somalia, is still the

measure. This approach tends to underestimate the authoritarian

patrimonialized system in place. This limits democratization and

reform and, in effect, tends to perpetuate the rule of a party and an

elite that cannot afford to relinquish hard-earned power.

Manufacturing Democracy in Ethiopia

Conventional political science would explain what happened in Ethiopia’s 2010

election in terms of neopatrimonialism and personal rule, or prebendalism

in which “state offices are regarded as prebends that can be appropriated

by officeholders, who use them to generate material benefits for themselves

and their constituents and kin groups…”29 In a prebendalist political system,

rulers cling to power by sustaining and balancing the interests of a network

of patrons, clients, supporters, and rivals. Nepotism, corruption, tribalism (or

ethnicity), and clientelism are said to be constitutive elements of the prebendai

state.30

In his “Briefing” explaining the 2010 Ethiopian elections, Tronvoll

explores three seminal questions to explain the internal mechanics of Zenawi’s

prebendai state31: 1) Whether the opposition’s “radical setback” and the

“total victory of the EPDRF” could be explained by occurrences during the

election or preceding the election. 2) Whether the “outcome of the following

independent election represents the genuine will of the Ethiopian electorate

and 3) Whether the ruling EPDRF party is as “popular” as Zenawi claims it is.

Tronvoll suggests that there has been “significant political institution building”

and growth of the “public ethos of democracy” in Ethiopia since the rise of

the Meles dictatorship32, but the

the process is still closely controlled by the ruling Tigray People’s

Liberation Front-Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic

Front (TPLF-EPRDF), and has a high ingredient of rhetoric not

backed by practice. In conditions of political insecurity and contested

legitimacy, a network of political and economic control was built up

by this party from its circle of trusted people, loyalists, and former

comrades in the armed struggle. Thus, a selective hold on politics

and economics in Ethiopia was established. There is a new, party-

affiliated business class, and the non-party-affiliated business people

regularly complain of unfair and non-transparent competition and

preferential treatment. Most of the political decision-making seems

to occur outside the cabinet of ministers and the parliament, as is

evident at crucial moments. . .

Tronvoll further explains the vertical integration and entrenchment of the neo-

patrimonial state of the ruling TPLF/EPDRF33:

Their political-economic stakes are now great. Many people in

positions of power from the federal level in Addis Ababa to the

k’ebele (local community) level are appointed because of loyalty

to the party; they have income, privileges, and jobs to lose and will

not voluntarily give them up, because unemployment, insecurity, or

poverty is waiting. An old saying in Ethiopia is: ‘He who does not

“eat” while in power, will regret it when he is out’. This still holds. So

next to substantial ideological differences. . . there is a deep economic,

if not survival, logic behind the political process in Ethiopia. The state

resembles a domain of personalized power and resource competition

through the instrumentalization of vertical loyalties among special,

strategic constituencies. Resource competition, although not

explaining all, goes a long way in accounting for Ethiopia’s exclusivist

and conflictual political dynamics. It must be said that the TPLF-

EPRDF has done much to realize economic reforms in Ethiopia but

did not complete its political agenda, which included entrenching

power and transforming Ethiopian political culture (towards ethnic

politics), social structure (neutralization of interest groups based

on private business, or ‘narrow nationalist’ regional identities), and

public mentalities (eliminating, or at least containing, the influence

of religion in public life, balancing and co-opting Christianity and

Islam, and inculcating ethnic consciousness).

The fact of the matter is that the dictatorship that rules Ethiopia today is a

classic African kleptocracy, “a state controlled and run for the benefit of an

individual, or a small group, who use their power to transfer a large fraction

of society’s resources to themselves.”34 To describe the regime as another

manifestation of African prebendalism is to refuse to call a spade a spade.

As I have argued elsewhere35, in Ethiopia publicly-owned assets are acquired

by regime-supporters or officials through illegal transactions and fraud. Banks

loan millions of dollars to front enterprises owned by regime officials or their

supporters without sufficient or proper collateral. Businessmen must pay huge

bribes or kickbacks to participate in public contracting and procurement. Those

involved in the import/export business complain of shakedowns by corrupt

customs officials. The judiciary is thoroughly corrupted through political

interference and manipulation as evidenced in the various high profile political

prosecutions. Ethiopians on holiday visits driving about town complain of

shakedowns by police thugs on the streets. Helen Epstein has sketched out the

nature of the kleptocratic state in Ethiopia.36

George Ayittey argues that Africa has been transformed into a collection

of “vampire states”: “What obtains in many African countries cannot be

called a state or government. It is a ‘state’ that has been hijacked by a cabal of

crooks and gangsters… The system of governance prevailing in Africa today

is a crises producing machine: agricultural crises, debt crises, environmental

crises, population crises and so on…”37 Free fair elections in “vampire states”

or kleptocracies cannot occur because legislative and judicial institutions are

weak, formal institutional rules such as constitutions are ignored and there

are no meaningful and effective ways of holding politicians accountable. The

kleptocrats deliberately make institutions weak and dysfunctional to allow

them to escape accountability and respond to the needs and demands of

citizens.

The 2010 Ethiopian electoral farce had ample precedent elsewhere in

Africa. Robert Bates38 has shown that in Ghana and Zambia kleptocratic

regimes systematically transferred “resources from the population to the

ruling groups, while at the same time ensuring their political survival.” In

Bates’ study, the Ghanaian government heavily taxed cocoa producers, while

at the same time subsidizing their inputs of seeds and fertilizers. The subsidies

could be allocated selectively as a potential reward for not attempting to

change the status quo. Zenawi’s regime similarly used Safety Net Program

payments, emergency food assistance and other aid to reward its supporters,

while marginalizing those it considered disloyal or supportive of opposition

elements.

Kleptocrats rely on divide and rule strategies to maintain their power.

They bribe and politically compromise politically pivotal groups and set them

against each other to ensure their grip on power and stave off any credible

challenges. Zenawi has been successful in preventing diverse opposition groups

from coming together and working cooperatively and challenging his rule by

providing selective incentives and punishments. In the run up to the election,

he raised all sorts of boogeymen to scare the people including the threat that

victory for the opposition means the return of the hated military Derg. Zenawi

understands that the relationship between opposition elements is fragile and

takes every opportunity to exploit that to his advantage.

 

Having an Election in a Dictatorship is Like Putting Lipstick on a Pig

The bottom line about the 2010 election in Ethiopia is that it was a

meaningless exercise in political futility. As I have previously argued, one

could put lipstick on a pig to make her look pretty, but at the end of the day

she is still a pig39. By the same token, one can have an election in a one-party

dictatorship and call it democratic but at the end of the day, a dictatorship is not

a democracy nor a rigged election free and fair. In 2010, the ruling dictatorship

of Meles Zenawi jazzed up a bogus election with a “Code of Conduct”,

imported African and European Union election observers, pretended to have

public debates on state-controlled media and went through the motions of a free

and fair election. In the end, he won 99.6 percent of the parliamentary seats.

The inescapable fact is that there could be no genuine democratic elections so

long as the dictatorship of Meles Zenawi and his party remain in power. For

historical and ideological reasons, that dictatorship has determined that it has

a divine right to rule under the guise of democracy. The dictatorship will not

give up power they have gained through the barrel of the gun by letting others

take it at the ballot box. They also do not believe in peaceful political change

through elections.

Over the past two decades, the nature of political power and domination

in Ethiopia has changed very little. Formal institutions of government are in

place but the real decisions are made by a “government within a government”,

a core group of leaders of the TPLF and loyalists of Meles Zenawi. There are

effectively two set of ‘governments”: the real one consisting of Zenawi and

his cohorts and the one for show complete with a rubber stamp parliament,

principally for the benefit of Western donors who pump billions into the

economy supporting the regime.

The Opposition in the 2010 Election

What happened to the Ethiopian opposition in the election of 2010?

Zenawi will argue vigorously that he defeated them by a margin of 99.6

percent. If that were the real “defeat” for the opposition, there would be little

cause for concern. Losing a sham election is the equivalent of losing one’s

appendix. Unfortunately, the opposition parties and leaders suffered a grievous

loss of collective credibility in the eyes and hearts of the people by making

a public spectacle of their endless bickering, carping, dithering, internal

squabbles, disorganization, inability to unite, pettiness, jockeying for power,

and by failing to articulate a coherent set of guiding principles or ideas for the

country’s future.

In the 2005 election, there was a unifying spirit among opposition

leaders and parties. Because the opposition created a united front, they were

able to trounce the ruling dictatorship in a free and fair election. What was

monumental about the 2005 election was not only the fact that the opposition

thumped the ruling party, but they did so with overflowing and overwhelming

public enthusiasm. On May 7, 2005, a week before elections that year, the

opposition was able to hold a rally in the capital for an estimated 3 million

people. On May 15, over 26 million people voted freely giving the opposition

a decisive victory in the parliamentary elections, including a clean sweep of

seats in the capital. That election was stolen by the ruling dictatorship after

hundreds of unarmed protesters were massacred and shot in the streets and

thousands more imprisoned and disappeared. In 2005, the Ethiopian people

put their lives and livelihoods on the line.

Where did the people go in 2010? They did not vanish merely because

Zenawi had unloosed his trigger-happy goons on the streets. They did not

show up because they had lost faith in the leadership of the opposition. When

Zenawi herded the opposition leaders into his dungeons after the 2005 election,

the people kept faith with them. They kept them in their hearts and minds and

thoughts and prayers. Did the opposition leaders keep faith with the people

after they were “pardoned” and released from prison in 2007? That is perhaps

the hardest truth for the opposition leaders to face and accept. I have heard it

said anecdotally hundreds of times. The opposition leaders have deeply and

sorely disappointed the people. In their words, deeds and conduct, they have

failed to uphold and sustain the people’s dreams, aspirations and longing for

justice and democracy. The people feel betrayed and abandoned40 by many

opposition leaders in whom they placed so much trust. Tronvoll convincingly

argues41:

[A] culture of fear has been reintroduced into Ethiopian politics after

the unprecedented ‘liberal spring’ of the 2005 campaign. The violent

and widespread crackdown on the opposition after the 2005 elections,

in combination with new restrictive government policies and alarmist

rhetoric, have aroused trepidation among most Ethiopians and

revived old memories of the political purges during the Red Terror

campaign of the 1970s. Consequently, the preferred individual

political strategy is one of disengagement and apathy, shying away

from politics in order not to become a victim. Since the rural elite all

suffered after the 2005 display of opposition support, and had been

subjected to massive strategies of cooptation and party enrolment,

their choice was clear – and opposition ‘defeat was inevitable from as

early as autumn 2005’.

Zenawi knows the opposition and how they operate very well. His

condescending and patronizing public statements over the years suggest that

he views opposition leaders to be his intellectual inferiors: He can outwit,

outthink, outsmart, outplay, outfox and outmaneuver them any day of the

week. He believes they are dysfunctional, shiftless and inconsequential, and

will never be able to pose a real challenge to his power. In his speeches and

public comments, he shows nothing but contempt and hatred for them.42

At best, he sees them as wayward children who need constant supervision,

discipline and punishment to keep them in line. Like children, he will offer

some of them candy – jobs, cars, houses and whatever else it takes — to buy

their silence. Those he cannot buy, he will intimidate, place under continuous

surveillance and persecute. Mostly, he tries to fool and trick the opposition.

He will send “elders” to talk to them and lullaby them to sleep while he drags

out “negotiations” to buy just enough time to pull the rug from underneath

them. After his “election victory”, Zenawi extended an olive branch to the

opposition wrapped in his inimitable condescending cordiality, magnanimity

and paternalism. In other words, he will set up a “kitchen cabinet” for the nice

opposition leaders to come in through the back door and chit-chat with him.

But they will never be allowed to get out of the kitchen and sit at the dining

table.

From Bushcraft to Statecraft

I have expressed my views on the limitations of the ruling regime in Ethiopia

and its leaders on numerous occasions in the past43:

The dictators of Ethiopia are trapped in a historical time warp. They

have clutched the reigns of state for two decades and ostentatiously

display the trappings of political power and wealth. But they have

not been able to transform ‘bushcraft’ into statecraft … In their armed

campaign against the Derg junta, decision-making was left in the

hands of the few. The few leaders exercised raw, brute power over

their followers and the communities they controlled. They silenced

dissent and criticism ruthlessly, and leaders who disagreed were

marginalized, labeled as traitors and removed. Everything was done

in secrecy. Power was understood not as a public duty but as a means

of self-enrichment, politiceli patronage and intimidation. Leadership

meant the cult of personality. The best they have been able to do is

to transform the ‘politics of the bush’ fighting the Derg into a one-

man, one-party state, whose guiding motto is, ‘What is good for the

TPLF/EPDRF is good for Ethiopia!’

The transition from “bushcraft” to statecraft has eluded Zenawi and his

regime since its takeover of power in 1991. Democratic statecraft requires

an appreciation, understanding and application of basic democratic

principles such as the rule of law, separation of powers, checks and balances

and constitutionalism in the governance process. The dictators have little

experience with or practical understanding of such principles. They never had

free elections in the bush; and it is no wonder that they were totally surprised

when they got thumped in the 2005 elections. Upholding the rule of law is

absurd to them because they believe themselves to be The Law. They scoff

at civil liberties and civil rights as Western luxuries because they have never

experienced a system where the powers of government are constitutionally

subordinated to the rights of the individual. In short, it is wishful thinking to

expect from them the kind of statecraft necessary for democratic governance

based on the rule of law. In 20 1 0, it was clear Mr. Zenawi had learned important

lessons from his 2005 mistakes, and subsequently took a series of preemptive

measures to skew the election result completely in his favor. He shuttered

critical newspapers, jammed the Voice of America, blocked critical websites,

banned all forms opposition rallies, crippled civil society organizations, and

deliberately fomented divisions in the opposition camp.

Zenawi always argues that Western-style democracy is not possible in

Ethiopia. Foreign pressure to produce such is improper and unworkable,

he proclaims. But the point is no kind of democracy is possible in Ethiopia

because the prerequisites for democratic governance have been destroyed.

Zenawi’s regime has used repressive media and civil society laws to neutralize

any meaningful opposition or activity by dissidents and opposition elements.

It has built an elaborate Stalinist organization that penetrates every nook and

cranny of the society, which by 2008 had reached some 3.5 million members

at the local administrative levels and expanding its party members by millions

more. For the past two decades, he has made it impossible for a democratic

culture to grow, rooted out the seeds planted in 2005 and made a travesty of

the institution of representation by creating rubberstamp parliaments, buying

votes with foreign aid, herding citizens into local level organizations to vote

and destroying all notions of electoral, judicial and legislative accountability

through a system of personal rule based on a kleptocratic structure. When

the ruling dictatorship uprooted the seeds of democracy, it unwittingly left

the seeds of its own destruction to sprout up. The people’s expectations for

democratic governance can never be extinguished. The dictatorship in Ethiopia

will not be able to withstand the first major wind of popular uprising; and it

does not have the ideological or political platform to overcome a major crisis.

Ultimately, Ethiopia’s cartoon democracy under the regime of Meles

Zenawi will offer Zenawi and his ruling party neither legitimacy nor the

consensus they crave to democratically lead the nation. The lesson Zenawi and

company should learn from their cartoon democracy is that their dictatorship

is very fragile and will wither away and collapse as soon as Zenawi is no longer

on the political scene. There is today great disillusionment and cynicism in

Ethiopia about the domination of one-man and one-political party for nearly

two decades. The economy is in complete shambles and Zenawi is carting off

business men and merchants to jail for price gouging and economic sabotage.

Zenawi can stay in power through foreign aid and the financial support of the

multilateral banks and brute force. But in a post-Zenawi era, it is very possible

to realistically imagine a pluralist democracy in Ethiopia not unlike those in

the West.

Notes

1 “Meles Clashes with EU about Elections Report”, Voice of America, November

15, 2010. http://www.voanews.com/english/news/usa/Meles-Clashes-with-EU-about-

Elections-Report- 1081 36234.html

2 “Ethiopia Official Condemns EU Report,” Associated Press, August 29, 2005.

http://nazret.com/blog/index.php/2005/08/27/ethiopia_blames_eu_for_protests

3 See fn. 1.

4 Statement by HR Catherine Ashton on the Legislative Elections in Ethiopia, EU

High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security, Brussels, 25 May 2010, IP/ 10/607,

http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/10/ 607&format=HTML

&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

5 http://www.eueom.eu/ files/pressreleases/ english/ final-report-eueom-

ethiopia-081 12010_en.pdf

6 “The Arrival Statement of the African Union Observer Mission to the Ethiopia

Legislative Elections 23rd May, 2010, Issued at the AU Observer Mission Secretariat Addis

Ababa, Hilton Hotel, 18th May 2010. An AU Pre-Elections Assessment Mission had

arrived in the country in early February and met with officials of the ruling regime.

7 “Preliminary Statement of the African Union Observer Mission to the

Ethiopia Legislative Elections 23rd May, 2010, Issued at the AU Observer Mission

Secretariat Addis Ababa, Hilton Hotel, 26th May 2010.

8 http://www.africa-union.org/News_Events/ Calendar_of_%20Events/

Election%20Democratie/ELECTION%20OBSERVATION%20%20MONITORING%20

GUIDELINES.pdf

9 Ibid.,

10 Gidada, Negasso. “No Level Playing Field for the 2010 Election,” October 12,

2009, http://www.ethiomedia.com/adroit/4222.html

11 “One Hundred Ways of Putting on Pressure,” Human Rights Watch, March

24, 2010. http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2010/03/24/ one-hundred-ways-putting-

pressure-0

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All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

50 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ETHIOPIAN STUDIES (V:2)

12 Mariam, Alemayehu. “Ethiopia at the Crossroads of History,” May 22, 2010. http://

www.huffingtonpost.com/alemayehu-g-mariam/ethiopia-at-the-crossroad_b_586125.

html; see also ffa. 25.

13 http://www.gadaa.com/partyagreemnet03009.pdf

14 “Ethiopian Opposition Says It May Boycott Elections,” Bloomberg News.

October 10, 2009. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=agdO

Aq2GuwtY

15 Ibid.

16 The 2009 Model Code of Election Conduct of India (Model Code) offers arguably

the best archetype that could be adopted for elections in Ethiopia. The Model Code is “a

unique document that has evolved with the consensus of political parties themselves and the

Commission implements and enforces it with the aim of providing a level playing field for

all political parties and ensuring free and fair elections.” It is comprehensive and addresses

nearly every potentially disruptive and unfair election practice that could undermine

confidence in an election outcome. It disapproves of actions and messages by any party

that creates ethnic hatred or communal tensions, prohibits the use of inflammatory rhetoric

based on personal attacks and false allegations; it strongly discourages demagogic appeals

to communal feelings and divisive propaganda for votes; and it prohibits and penalizes

corrupt and illegal practices such as bribery, voter intimidation, violation of election laws,

improper use of public property and resources for partisan advantages.

17 “Demarcation of Ethiopia-Sudan border “will not displace anybody”, Agence de

Presse de Africaine, http://www.apanews.net/apa.php7article64247

18 “Transcript: Interview With Meles Zenawi,” The Washington Post, December

14, 2006. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/ 14/

AR2006121400820.html

19 “Ethiopians to Stay in Somalia,: British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), January

2, 2007. http://news.bbc.co.Uk/2/hi/africa/6224163.stm

20 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alemayehu-g-mariam/ethiopia-so-

what_b_798882.html

21 “Collective Punishment: War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity in the

Ogaden Area of Ethiopia’s Somali Region”, Human Rights Watch, June 11, 2008.

22 “Unified Ethiopian Opposition Seeks Troop Withdrawal From Somalia,” Voice

of America (VOA), October 2, 2008. http://www.voanews.com/english/news/a-13-2008-

1 0-02-voa39-6660 141 7.html

23 Mariam, Alemayehu. “Putting Lipstick on a Pig, Ethiopian Style,” The Huffington

Post, February 1, 2010. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alemayehu-g-mariam/putting-

lipstick-on-a-pig_b_4441 70.html

24 Birtukan was released in October 2010. Mariam, Alemayehu. “Birtukan

Unbound,” The Huffington Post, October 10, 2010. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

alemayehu-g-mariam/ethiopia-birtukan-unbound_b_757501.html

25 Mariam, Alemayehu. “Of Elections and Diapers in Ethiopia,” Pambazuka News,

June 3, 2010. http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/64929

26 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alemayehu-g-mariam/western-diplomatic-

omerta_b_45 3003 .html

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All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

CARTOON DEMOCRACY: ETHIOPIA’S 2010 ELECTION

27 See e.g. Mariam, Alemayehu. “Speaking Truth to Strangers”, The Huffington

Post, June 14, 2010. http://www.hufFmgtonpost.com/alemayehu-g-mariam/ethiopia-

speaking-truth-t_b_6 1 0743 .html

28 Kjetil Trionvoll, “Briefing: The Ethiopian 2010 Federal and Regional Elections:

Reestablishing the One-Party State,” African Affairs, Advance Access published November

26, 2010. http://www.ethioobserver.net/Ethiopian_2010%20federal_election_state.pdf

29 Joseph, Richard A. , ( 1 987). Democracy and Prebendai Politics in Nigeria: The Rise and

Fall of the Second Republic , Cambridge University Press.

30 See e.g. Jackson, Robert H. and Carl G. Rösberg (1982). Personal Rule in Black

Africa. University of California Press. Bratton, Michael and Nicolas van der Walle (1997);

Democratic Experiments in Africa: Regime Transitions in Comparative Perspective. Cambridge

University Press; van der Walle, Nicolas (2001). African Economies and the Politics of

Permanent Crisis , 1979-1999 . Cambridge University Press; Sandbrook, Richard (1985). The

Politics of Africa ‘s Economic Stagnation. Cambridge University Press; Herbst, Jeffrey I. (2000).

States and Power in Africa: Comparative Lessons in Authority and Control. Princeton University

Press.

31 See fn. 28.

32 Ibid.

33 Ibid.

34 Daron Acemoglu, James A. Robinson, Thierry Verdier , “Alfred Marshall Lecture:

Kleptocracy and Divide-and-Rule: A Model of Personal Rule”, Journal of the European

Economic Association, Vol. 2, No. 2/3, Papers and Proceedings of the Eighteenth Annual

Congress of the European Economic Association (Apr. May, 2004), pp. 162-192.

35 Mariam, Alemayehu. “Africorruption, Inc.”, November 26, 2010. http://www.

huffingtonpost.com/alemayehu-g-mariam/africorruption-inc_b_367268.html

36 Epstein, Helen. “Cruel Ethiopia”, N.Y. Review of Books, May 13, 2010. http://

www.nybooks.com/articles /archives/20 1 0/may / 1 3 /cruel-ethiopia/

37 Ayittey, George. Africa in Chaos , N.Y.: St. Martin’s (1999), pp. 185; see also Chap.

5, “The Vampire African State”.

38 Bates, Robert H. (1981). Markets and States in Tropical Africa. University of

California Press.

39 See fh. 23.

40 Mariam, Alemayehu. “Speaking Truth to the Powerless, The Huffington Post,

June 7, 2010. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alemayehu-g-mariam/ethiopia-speaking-

truth-t_b_602507.html

41 See fn. 28.

42 Mariam, Alemayehu. “Meles Zenawi – Waiting for Godot to Leave? AllAfrica.

com, March 4, 2010. http://allafrica.com/stories/201003041003.html

43 Mariam, Alemayehu. “How to Reinvent Ethiopian Politics,” Pambazuka News,

January 21, 2010. http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/61623

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