This isn’t by any means an attempt to belittle the sacrifice and commitment of individual members involved in party politics. This is about the absence of a trailblazing organized movement that could command sizeable followers. Time is ticking away, and the incumbent is having a head start running hundreds of miles. This is a clarion call to deny PP another uncontested lease on political power.

The appetite of opposition political parties was supposed to be whetted by the prospects of the looming 7th General National Election. Unfortunately, they are in a state of endless hibernation. Actually, a few are busy hunting office space and defrauding the NEBE to have an undue share of the funds at its disposal by registering ghost female and disabled members. The truly ‘active’ ones issue press statements expressing their dismay at selected improprieties of the incumbent, taking their cues from TIKVAH or al-Ayn or BBC Amharic. That is their idea of being an opposition party—expressing discontent just like a view opposite the Editorial (Op-Ed) column of a newspaper. They were supposed to reflect on the structural framework that has given rise to the said impropriety.

They are never heard holding town hall meetings. Forget about conducting meetings to acquaint the public with their programs; they are too lazy to make their existence known. For a country with more than 53 national and regional parties and a few Fronts and Coalitions, their collective silence is deafening. They are waiting for the public to come to their offices to buy their ideas. They don’t even put up a sign that reads ‘we are open—under new management’; you know, something like በአዲስ መልክ ስራ ጀምረናል፡፡ Occasionally, journalists break into their exclusive zone and try to get them to say something—anything—otherwise they don’t like to be bothered.

They were supposed to keep definitive issues like the need to revise the Constitution alive. One would expect them to organize symposiums on how to settle inter-state territorial disputes between Regional States. You would expect them to engage scholars to express their views on the legitimacy and consequences of Ethiopia’s quest to have a tiny vista into the wide open Sea. By now, we should have been able to sample and review their respective takes on the ways to keep GERD diplomacy on the right track. As potential candidates to assume leadership of the country, one would naturally want to learn their takes on the threats to the territorial integrity of the country and how to preemptively address the imminent danger.

Corruption has become a national security threat judging by recent developments reported by public and private media alike—as well as ECHR. Courtesy of Meseret Media, it has recently come to our attention that anytime at Bole International Airport terminal, anybody could kidnap you, lock you up, and demand ransom money, threatening to accuse you of sympathizing with armed rebels. Unless one complies, chances are he would rot away in the said prisons until legitimate authorities get to free him after a year or two.

Behind every mega project lurks a team of smooth-talking cadres defrauding funds and stashing away public resources. Opposition parties should go a step further and examine the causes that have given such a blatant sense of entitlement and audacity to the culprits. In an exemplary effort a couple of years ago, EZEMA tried to carry out both financial and performance ‘audit’ of the Condo Project in the country. It is a laudable, noble endeavor. If opposition political parties had the interest, they could have easily secured funds to conduct independent studies to expose the visible dangers of state capture in the country. Instead, they ‘reflect’ on individual acts and news items. They were supposed to work on the broader, inherent, comprehensive, and systematic enabling circumstances that had allowed rampant corruption to reign large.

Most important of all, they should be pressing the government to publish the assets of higher officials as required by law.

The judiciary is yet walking on all fours. By some accounts, at its best, practicing law has become more like playing Russian roulette—a game of chances, particularly in cases before lower and regional courts. Increasingly, stakeholders are demanding that judges should take or retake exams, as the Ministry of Education is trying to do when it comes to teachers. Opposition political parties should be joining hands with professional associations whose resources and efforts are misplaced and help them refocus. This is an ancient nation with an invaluable tradition of law and justice of ecclesiastical and secular origins, receptive to the idea of the rule of law. How come reforms wouldn’t just take root? In all fairness, knowledgeable lawyers are out there in great abundance, yet the justice administration system of the country couldn’t just get out of the woods. This irony should be studied, and the broken links should be exposed. There is a 27,000-strong willing army of practicing private lawyers to lend a hand if political parties knew how to involve and engage them.

Some opposition political parties are already enfeebled by their desire to safely stay on the banks of the river. They have reserved their absolute right to have the will to point fingers at those who have tried and failed. They are your quintessential ሙሴ ኒይት—you know, like Molotov. Zewedie Reta tells this story about Mr. Molotov’s persistent opposition to whatever the United Kingdom and allies would have to say at the League of Nations. He wouldn’t even care to hear them out; as long as the proposal was tabled by the West, he would dismiss it out of hand, bellowing ‘nyet!’ Hence the nickname Mister Nyet or Mister No. (I believe ‘Muse’ is the Habesha corruption of the French word Monsieur.) Apologizing for the digression, one can easily identify ‘the nyet political parties’ in the country. Their culture of political nyetism—or political nihilism—won’t serve the country any meaningful purpose in the absence of some credible alternative. These groups of opposition parties release a protest brief, copy it to the international community, and thereby assume that the latter would take care of the rest.

The quest for having a window to the sea has been an enduring question ever since the Ottoman Empire controlled and sealed the Red Sea coast in the mid-16th century. Letters addressed to European monarchs by our kings never failed to mention this horrible injustice the Turks had visited upon us. It is unfortunate that the case has been adjourned for 500 years by the court of the collective conscience of the international community. However, when it comes to the fate of landlocked countries, I have reason to believe that the rest of the world community secretly sympathizes with Ethiopia and Bolivia more than with others. In an eerie contrast to West African nations, which were conveniently given access to the Atlantic Ocean even if by a narrow strip, Ethiopia and Bolivia are denied the naturally available vast stretch of coastline within the visual distance of the naked eye. Chile has over 6,000 kilometers of coastline along the Pacific coast, but it dispossessed the little shoreline Bolivia had just to increase its share by a few more hundred kilometers. Even under such circumstances, the two countries have worked out a mutually beneficial arrangement that has quelled the conflict for some time.

Thus, the Premier isn’t alone in decrying the denial of natural justice when he lamented the close proximity of 5,000 kilometers of idle coastline and the inability to access it. Opposition parties should have gone a league ahead and worked to groom ‘port access’ experts like Nile Basin scholars. There are knowledgeable retired politicians who would be able to vent their accumulated regrets. You know folks like Tefera Waluawa, who had candidly told Ato Meles that the latter had gambled away Ethiopia’s opportunity to have access to the sea. The way Bereket tells it, Tefera was oblivious to any counterargument. “We could blame it on the irritating cold breeze coming from up North if you really want to know the truth,” he had reportedly told off Bereket. They could provide such ex-leaders with conducive forums to learn from their experiences, mistakes, and failures. They would only be too happy to oblige, judging by the words of scholars like Dr. Yacob and politicians like Geberu Asrat and Abebe T/Hymanot.

God Bless.     

 The writer can be reached via estefanoussamuel@yahoo.com