Electoral Politics and the Future of Ethiopian Democracy

I. Regime Change and the Original Promise: The twin missions

The post-1991 political metamorphosis in Ethiopia has been the “remaking of Ethiopia”, a political process that can be characterized as an antithesis of the “making of modern Ethiopia” in the second half of the 19th century. As articulated by the architects of the “remaking of Ethiopia”, the twin missions of the new political trajectory are: ending of ethnic domination by creating a nation state of equals and ending of centuries of autocratic/authoritarian rule by democratizing the Ethiopian state and society. The introduction of multiparty democracy and the “free and fair” elections thereof are expected to fulfill the role of a midwife for both goals. To this end, several elections were held since the change of regime in 1991- nearly all of which were non-competitive elections - far short of meeting international standards for democratic elections.
The Ethiopian experience at the democratization of state and society raise both theoretical and practical questions such as: Can elections by themselves guarantee successful democratic transitions by acting as a midwife? Do multi-party elections lead to national consensus or further political polarization? Is multi-party democracy a product of national consensus or vice versa?

II. Multiparty Democracy and “Free and Fair” Elections

Since both the popularity and acceptability of one-party state as a source of legitimacy of governments have been relegated to a less important place with the near retirement of socialist democracy as a competing global ideology, the role of multiparty democracy as source of legitimate and accountable governments are no longer debatable. Even known notorious dictators instead of resisting the popular wind of the day are quick to adjust themselves by starting to seek legitimacy in multiparty elections - in certain cases even by manufacturing loyal opposition parties.
Judged in this light, most hoped for democratic transitions elsewhere in Africa are failing to pass the acid test for multiparty democracy, i.e. genuine “free and fair” elections. In this connection, Felix K.G. Anebo has noted in the wider African context five years back that “Of the 190 African heads of state since independence only 20 relinquished power voluntarily and less than 10 stepped down in a democratic transition: the bulk simply retired after long years in office” (p. 41)..
As the empirical audience clearly shows, what is central in the problematic of democratic transitions across Africa has been the question of accepting the rules of the game for “free and fair” elections and allowing the organization of credible elections by the incumbent regimes. In this regard, several theoretical and practical questions can be asked and answered. The most critical questions are:
- What constitute the rules of the game of “free and fair “elections?
- Is there any universal standard for the conduct of “free and fair” elections?
- When is an election is said to be “free and fair"?
- Why elections are needed and/or what is the goal of elections?
- Who can organize acceptable and credible elections?
Some of these questions can be easily answered at both theoretical as well as practical levels - as academic and practitioners generally agree that elections are about choice - choices between parties and policies. Put differently, elections are about giving citizens alternatives - the opportunity to choose between leaders, parties and their alternative policies. Here as Felix K.G. Anebo (p. 76) has persuasively argued:
Elections represent a way of making a choice that is fair to all – one which leaves each electorate a reasonable hope of having his alternative elected. The use of elections, therefore, implies the existence of several possible alternatives from which to elect, and that within the electorate, different groups and individuals are likely to indicate their political preferences by voting for one or by the other alternative. By serving this function, elections and their results confer legitimacy to those who emerge as winners. The winners’ party is to be determined by the number of votes it commands. Such a government can claim rightly that it is ruling for and on behalf of the people who elected it in accordance with democratic principles

III. The May 2005 Elections as a Political Earth-quake for the EPRDF Regime

True to Dahl’s observation, the May 2005 Ethiopian elections are the best example of a ruling party persuaded to hold elections, but upon realizing it is not winning in a fair game quickly moved to manipulating election results to stay in power through the instrumentality of a partisan Election Board created for the job. In fact, this is what has put to a severe test both the future of electoral politics as well as the future of multiparty democracy in the country.
What should be clear from the outset is that, after several years of non-competitive elections Ethiopia made a great leap forward in the direction of “free and fair” elections with the May 2005 national and regional elections. The leap has been made possible as the result of a combined national and international pressure which forced the EPRDF regime to open up the political space in a manner unknown in the country’s long recorded history, which needs to be analyzed at some length.

- The road to the May 2005 Elections
The repressed Ethiopian opposition, after having drawn lessons from years of failures, made two critical decisions to overcome its fragmentation by creating two major coalitions as well as stopping boycotting elections – both of which helped it to mobilize the populace to actively participate in the elections. Subsequently, the two grand coalitions were created in good time before the elections pushed five major preconditions central to the level playing field, and aggressively worked for their acceptance by the EPRDF regime. These are:
The restructuring of the NEB to make it a truly neutral arbiter;
Freedom of movement by political party leaders and members;
Strict neutrality of the government security personnel from election affairs, especially their stoppage of harassment of members and supporters of political parties;
Reasonable access to the government controlled public media by the opposition and
Presence of international observers.
In the face of mounting national as well as international pressures, partly confident of its structure of control over the country’s peasants and partly counting on the relative weakness of the opposition, the EPRDF regime accepted the presence of the international observers; partially allowed the access to public media by the opposition; created a relatively relaxed situation for members and supporters of political parties to freely agitate and organize mass rallies in much of the country. However, the EPRDF leaders, who very well know their narrow support base, adamantly refused the restructuring of the NEB, which left the EPRDF both a “referee and player”. At any rate, when the opposition upon realizing that the EPRDF leaders were not moving on the central issue of restructuring the NEB and the donors’ pressure reached its limit it wisely accepted the offers on the table and moved fast to the election campaigns.

- Candidates’ Registration and the Campaigns
Both candidates’ registration and the election campaigns had never been smooth. Hundreds of candidates were intimidated and forced to withdraw while hundreds of opposition members and supporters were detained and some were even killed. But, the unprecedented national debate over key election issues between the ruling party and the opposition and the massive mass rallies across the country by the opposition parties, etc; moved millions for the history-making event. Television programs were eagerly watched and radios were listened to by the public while the turn out for opposition rallies was astonishingly high. As the result, the country’s hitherto repressed opposition as a whole was able to break its isolation and galvanized the support of millions with the genuine rising expectation that engulfed the nation; people came out in force to vote for the candidates of their choice. In most places voters waited for several hours to cast their votes. In fact, the turn out of 26 millions was a record high in the country’s history of elections (see EU-EOM, 2005).

-The Elections Day and after: From Rising Expectation to Rising Frustration
Despite mass arrests and harassment of opposition members and supporters at the eve of the May 2005 elections, as well as forcing away of party poll watchers to open the way for fraud, the elections day passed relatively peacefully. But the Prime Minister who had a better grasp of the overall situation and expected trouble, declared a semi-state of emergency in Addis Ababa which was practically applied throughout the country by the zealot cadres.
On the morrow of the elections things started to turn for the worse when with the shock of losing Addis Ababa nearly 100%, the ruling party declared its victory in the major regions of the country and claimed to have won enough seats to form the next government. Arguably, the ruling party’s strategy was both to pacify its bewildered cadres on the one hand, and to prepare the ground for the intended massive rigging in the vote counting - without which it became impossible to win elections - on the other. Surprisingly, the declaration of victory by the incumbent was made even before 50% of the votes were counted. Subsequently, using the hand-picked partisan election executives throughout the country, massive tampering with counting of votes took place in many constituencies, which led to 299 cases of complaints of irregularities, which is more than 50% of the total constituencies.
As the results of the incumbent victory continued to trickle in even after weeks of the Election Day, the opposition continued to challenge the results and the frustrated populace started to react. And, in the chain of events, from June 5 – 8, 2005, first the university students of Addis Ababa and then the larger populace of Addis Ababa came out in their thousands to demand the investigation of the massive election fraud. The EPRDF leaders, who neither prepared to share power nor to give up power, responded with a massive show of their military muscle. And in what can be termed a post-election systematic state repression, tens of people were killed; thousands were wounded while several thousands herded to prisons (see ibid.).
Despite the agreement brokered by the diplomatic community between the government and the two main opposition coalitions on how to address the more serious irregularities - the said agreement did help very little to narrow the rift between the contending parties. No less serious, the EPRDF used the agreement to regain lost ground in the first round of the election by bringing in - through the back door - the defeated big fish from the government in the rerun largely boycotted by the opposition. The attempt by the opposition to avert the alarmingly tense situation by proposing a National Unity Government, which was to include both the major opposition parties and the incumbent - was also frustrated by the outright rejection of the EPRDF before it took off the ground. Another attempt by the diplomatic community to bring to a negotiating table the government and the opposition was killed by the government side at the agenda setting level as the EPRDF leaders refused to include the main agenda item proposed by the opposition - the restructuring of the National Election Board (NEB) in the discussion.
The emerging academic consensus regarding the crisis of the Ethiopian state after the May 2005 elections also points towards the intransigence of the EPRDF regime for peaceful transformation. Both Ethiopian and non-Ethiopian academics are converging in depicting the EPRDF as a road block to Ethiopia’s hoped for democratic transition. For instance, Clapham (2005), one of the keen observers of Ethiopian politics since the last days of Emperor Haile Selassie has underlined that “the EPRDF has now reached a stage at which it is almost impossible to imagine winning a remotely fair election against any reasonable plausible and effective opposition”. He has further argued that “It [EPRDF] has lost ‘the mandate of heaven’ and has envisaged three possible scenarios, i.e. that “The EPRDF government might leave power peacefully ---; The government might leave power violently;--- [and that] The government might succeed in retaining its hold on power, in the process converting itself into an overtly repressive regime ---”.
Clapham's conclusion raises two important theoretical questions: (1) can one group alone - at that with a narrower political support base sponsor a successful democratic transition without committing - what I call for want of a better term - political suicide – similar to “the Marxian class suicide” in history; (2) is it democracy which allows “free and fair” elections or ‘free and fair’ elections which produces democracy?
A Somali academic, Abdi Ismail Samatar has also reached the same conclusion regarding the Ethiopian reality after the post-May 2005 elections. For instance, he has written among others:
TPLF’s instrumentalist political agenda and practice contradicted the rhetoric of liberation and regional development. The PDOs which the Tigray party spawned won provincial elections in 1992 and dominated federal parliament ever since. Two subsequent elections reconfirmed a new pattern of supremacy in which TPLF held all organs of political and military power. Such manufacture of puppet parties beholden to federal authorities and pseudo-elections doubly undermined regional autonomy from the center and accountability of leaders to their communities. TPLF’s practice to unseat and appoint any regional authority at will has completely alienated the public from the system of governance, and has turned local authorities into sycophants who serve their masters and themselves. The dominant federal party’s obsession with retaining power in spite of its narrow popular base has deprived the country of an opportunity to gain a civic footing, and has unnecessarily heightened ethnic political identity (p. 5).
To take the emerging academic consensus seriously needs a fundamental rethinking on the part the EPRDF leaders that their hegemonic aspiration neither has been helping the creation of a national consensus, a sine quo non for building democratic institutions such as the Parliament, an independent National Election Board as well as an independent judiciary. Put differently, the EPRDF leaders ought to start learning that both democratic legitimacy and democratic institutions can come only from the ballot box, not the barrel of the gun, and stop defending its authority by the use of the latter.

VI. Quo Vadis Ethiopia?

As the second anniversary of the eventful May 2005 elections is approaching its sequel is still rocking the country. No less disturbing, there is no workable modus vivendi even between the opposition groups in the parliament and the governing party while the court case of those opted to boycott the Parliament is yet to be settled either way. Still worse, the more militant opposition groups working outside the legal framework appear to have continued their anti-government activities unabated. The confrontation with Eritrea and Ethiopia’s involvement in Somalia are sapping the meager resources of the country. The fissure created as the result of the May 2005 elections is also creating more visible cracks within the politico-security structure of the regime. To put more precisely, loyal army officers, senior judges, diplomats, parliamentarians, etc.; have been defecting. Journalists, civic society leaders, the youth, opposition members and supporters are running away. All are accusing the government for serious human rights violations, which is not helpful for the image of the EPRDF regime.
Major Problem 1: Democratization without national consensus. What I can call, for want of a better term, a bad beginning is that, following its impressive military victory the EPRDF leaders quickly moved to the “remaking “of Ethiopia without creating a national consensus over the basics of state transformation, a badly needed action for countries like Ethiopia where there are contradictory perspectives regarding the interpretation of the past, the understanding of the present and the vision about the future. Contrary to the expectation of many, the EPRDF set the rules of the game and invited others to accept the rules fixed by one party. To date neither there has been any real negotiation over the original rules set by the EPRDF nor did the EPRDF fully respect its own rules. What is happening is that, the EPRDF easily changes the goal posts at any stage of the game and at any time of its choice.
Major Problem 2: Perception of the EPRDF leaders towards the opposition. Judged by their actions, the EPRDF leaders appear to have never envisioned a role for opposition parties. If at all they have envisioned one, it appears, not to include winning of elections. Put differently, they have never considered opposition parties as partners in the building of democratic Ethiopia. More disturbing is the ease with which the EPRDF leaders characterize major opposition parties with significant followings by giving them tags such as chauvinists, narrow nationalists, or servants of the neftegnas and their determination to divide and weaken the opposition including by using naked force.
Major Problem 3: The determination of the EPRDF leaders to use the emerging institutions to promote their partisan interests. The major institutions, which are supposed to act impartially and promote democratic governance such as the Election Board, the Parliament, the judiciary, the police, the army and the civil administration as a whole are not fulfilling and not allowed to fulfill their duties impartially as per the provisions of the country’s constitution. The end result is no separation of power between the three branches of government while there is strong fusion between party and state like the old socialist days. Consequently, what is being institutionalized is what can be termed a “shadow state”, i.e privatization of the state and its institutions - so as to make them work for the survival of the leaders than delivering the public goods for the citizens fairly and equitably.
Major Problem 4: Fixing Elections: The EPRDF leaders have developed a culture of fixing elections, which sometimes include outright harassment as well as manipulation of election results by using such mechanisms as massive tampering with vote counting, manipulation of numbers, damping or burning the votes of opposition candidates, etc. In fact, the importance of the May 2005 elections is partly to expose such frauds of the EPRDF regime both in the eyes of the citizens and the international community.

The series of lectures, organized by the Addis Ababa University, Friedrich-Ebert-Foundation and Goethe-Institute, with speakers from both the Ethiopian and international community in Addis Ababa, provides a podium for open dialogue on democracy issues. Capital is the media partner of this series.