A T H U N D E R O U S V O I C E OF A U N I F E D C H O I S E (Genenew Assefa)
Alas, the people have spoken, and spoken in a resounding voice, perhaps portending for better or worse, a similar pattern of vote tally for several elections to come. In any event, whatever ramification the future may have in store, one thing can be said with certainty in relation to the May 24 voting. If nothing else, the record-high voter-turnout and consummate civility with which citizens exercised their right to vote in a multiparty election merits celebration, though the outcome neither warrants pomp nor vainglory. To the contrary, the sheer disproportionateness of the vote-count calls for sober reflection free from airs of vanity, lest success breeds self-limiting complacency. If not, resistance to internal renewal at the risk of terminal detachment from the social forces of change and the pioneering conscious agents of transformation.
However, modesty at a moment of arresting feat of electoral sweep only adds respectability in the eyes of the Ethiopian people known to respect unassuming acceptance of awards of merit as they are reputed for their silent scorn of showy exhibition of success. Most informed Ethiopians in fact recall, often with sardonic irony, how even a fleeting moment of fame inflated the arrogance of the few who rose and fell from the commanding height of authority, passing on to the next in line their unbridled contempt for the powerless many. Humility in the wake of triumph, on the other hand, yields greater public trust, credibility and voters' confidence, the crucial ingredients of an effective election campaign strategy. Witness how trust built over successive periods of tenure in office lent credibility to the incumbent's campaign promise of five more years of continuous forward thrust beyond the next phase of growth and transformation.
Although impressive, the massive vote of confidence vested on the elected party is not, in figure of speech, a blank check. Nor license, as it were, to revel in smug complacency in the face of lingering issues that cry out for prompt remedy. Indeed it is a sign of modesty to measure the landslide victory as a time-bound mandate subject to repeal should hubris rear its head, as it often does, in times of spectacular victory. A potent antidote against potential relapse to conceited uppity is again humble recognition that the plebiscite as no more than a conditional consent, predicated on a paired set of popular expectations. Each a testament, as it were, to the crosscutting popular allegiance to the federal democratic order wherein the diverse peoples of Ethiopia live in mutual respect and harmony. From this self-evident truism, it is only a small step to quickly deduce that voters expect the ruling party to, more than ever, uphold, protect and defend the hard-won federation. With renewed commitment no less, backed by credible political will to fulfill the constitutional promises of civil liberties, gender equality and greater parity among nations and nationalities. For it is decidedly the protection of these fundamental rights which sustains the enduring peace, political stability and the progress the country is making in the fight against deep-seated misery ---the ultimate determinate of state instability.
In this connection, it is useful to note the coincidence of the timing of the May 24 election and the violent conflagration in the near-abroad. Countries torn asunder by sectarian violence, sparing no-one not least vulnerable Ethiopian residents and immigrants alike, caught in the furnace of warring factions of burning lands. Peace and stability, therefore, must have weighed heavily on voters' minds as the Election Day approached whilst violence raged within the orbit of Ethiopia's regional horizon. Surely in the meantime voters must have attentively followed the election debate to determine which of the competing parties deserve their voice, particularly from the vantage point of their most concern. Apparently voters were swayed by the party that in their eyes has the right policy mix to sustain and augment the country's peace dividend. This is understandable as countless many have come to savor the country hard won peace, mindful of the implications of the absence of political stability. Casual post-ballot public conversation attest to the weight given to stability as a big factor of choice in the 2015 election, particularly to first generation voters in Ethiopia's multiparty elections. Arguably, relative to the population born after the 1990s or those who reached the legal voting-age thereafter, stability may well have been the tipping point of the vote for older citizens. Citizens, that is, old enough to recall the perils that this country endured during the terrible years of bloodletting amid criminal abandonment of rule of law. Such is certainly the frightening memory the defunct totalitarian system left behind, particularly on elderly women who bore the brunt of the social and emotional burden of the near-two- decades of genocidal reign of terror. As it happens, like those who lived through Ethiopia's nightmarish years, the younger voting generation is no less unnerved by the ordeals that women and children are going through in outlaying countries sucked into the vortex of incarnating violence. Both voting generations of Ethiopian citizens admit that concerns of safety and security loomed large in their thoughts as the polling day, May 24 approached. Vote indeed they did in numbers to boot, to the party that struck them most fit to govern and most equipped to safeguard the country's long spell of peace and stability.
However, by far the most important factor why voters pinned their hopes on the incumbent has to do with EPRDF's proven track record of living up to the promises of equal distribution of the increasing gains of Ethiopia's right-based development strategic policies. This much can be inferred from a quick disaggregation of the massive vote cast to the EPRDF by income category. This to say that any social breakdown of the aggregate vote is certain to reveal that low-income rural and urban voters take to heart the party's pledge to stamp out poverty as the last but penetrable redoubt of the nation's worst enemy. Indeed never before the advent of the EPRDF has any government ever defined the national interest of Ethiopia as nothing other than the interest of the people, nor has any state ever identified poverty as the country's erstwhile enemy with which no compromise is possible. Admittedly placing emphasis on the enemy within may well serve as the first line of defense against any adversary. But taking the war to the enemy's stronghold i.e., rural Ethiopia and the urban slums of the country is a daring feat which sealed an unbreakable bond between the poor and the EPRDF. Undoubtedly lifting millions of paupers out of misery in a short time-span of barely fifteen years or so deserves applause. Even more praiseworthy is execution of 12 successive annual double-digit growth rates by a non-Tiger political model. Herein, lays the positive aspect of the secret behind EPRDF's landslide victory in arguably the best organized multiparty election to date.
The negative aspect of the factor, so to speak, which accounts for EPRDF's ballot sweep in two consecutive elections, is equally telling as it is instructive. If nothing less, the preceding and present election outcomes reflect mass rejection of hate politics and extremism as a threat to the nationality- based constitutional democratic order. Without which, needless to say, the fast track transformative change taking place across every regional state of the Ethiopian federation could not have been possible. This is borne out by the unity of choice expressed in the May 24 vote which, among other things, stands as signal of voters' disavowal of hatemongering and bigotry of both the chauvinistic and narrow-minded strand.
Sadly, however, these mutually exclusive, but equally anti-democratic inclinations were occasionally visible in the campaign activities of at least a few of among the fifty-two opposition parties that run for the House of Peoples' Representatives. Nonetheless, though some parties exhibited these dangerous tendencies, none were excluded from generous state grants of campaign financing, equitable allocation of public media space plus time slots for campaigning and political advertisement. Side by side with these positive measures, repeated calls were made on the public to guard the election process against any form of unlawful behavior. This has certainly paid off since weeks have lapsed since the voting day and the announcement of the provisional result without any sign of vote-related flare-ups in the air. Not, as it were, for any lack of desire on the part of at least certain parties prone to view elections as an occasion to flex their political muscle at the expenses public order. But none of these parties could successfully reenact the 2005 post-election subterfuge so long as the people remain vigilant against deliberate instigation of disorder under any pretext. All in all, the fact that the vote was held in orderly fashion with no hiccup so far is an indication that much thought has gone into the preparation of the 2015 vote per the constitutional imperative of conducting periodic faire and free multiparty elections.
However, pundits prone to judge African elections by preconceived outcomes, rather than by the integrity of the process, have already started second-guessing voters' motive for throwing their lot with the EPRDF. Typically, the so-called impartial election experts would have the world reject the 2015 vote as fraught with innumerable hitches, including human rights violation, suppression of reporters/bloggers and denial of access to multiple external election observers. It is the sum of these deliberately constructed impediments, then, according to the experts, which massively tilted the playing field of the May 24 balloting in favor of the incumbent. The upshot, we are told, could only have been yet another travesty of democratic election.
Hence, despite their far-remove from the actual scene, the experts insist that on their testimonies alone the world ought to denounce the 2015 election as a rigged outcome. This call for denunciation of the fifth-round multiparty Ethiopian election on insupportable ground to boot can only be intended to simulate a scenario for a regime change. By means, no doubt, similar to the series of color-coded revolutions that undid many an elected government in Eastern Europe. In this connection, the case of Ukraine, Georgia etc, is a clear enough warning that grave consequence follow in the wake of a negative US/EU verdict on any election, particularly in emerging democracies of the South. A vivid illustration of the frightening consequences of such a conspiracy has recently come to light, thanks to Borzyskowski's 2010 rigorous case study of several countries, including Ethiopia. His finding shows that ''International condemnation can spur violence by shifting the loser’s incentives to fight: the condemnation ... serves as a focal point for mobilization.''
No wonder the Ethiopian public is leery of such mobilization as it conjures up memories of the 2005 post-election violent disorder. Fortunately the wind was quickly taken out of the 2005 explosive flare-ups by the combined force of the state and the vigilant public. Besides, the outcome of the 2015 election itself is a clear indicator that the public dreads disorder most, regardless of whatever grievance may be cited as the underplaying casual factor. Recall, if you will, how the general public recoiled in horror at the organized disturbance timed to coincide with the recent mass rally held to denounce the beheading of Ethiopian refuges at the hands ISIS terrorists in Tripoli.
In any event, much can be said in refutation of the negative commentaries on the 2015 election which only emboldens sour losers to challenge the result in the streets. But for brevity's sake, suffices to raise a few piercing questions only to show that none of these commentaries, summarized above in three main groups, holds water. For starters, leaving aside the timing, one must ask what bearing could the detention of one reporter and a few bloggers possibly have on the outcome or the process of the 2015 vote? Indeed the claim begs question in light of an election where contending parties freely transmitted their views through public radio, television and print media? Surely no-one could have better framed the message that opposition parties conveyed to the voting public than their own communication experts. Granted, as it turned out, voters were unimpressed by the contents of message they heard from the horse's mouth, so to speak, as none of it spoke to their real concerns. Voter disinterest in what the opposition parties have to say could not be newsflash, considering that none spoke to the issues pertinent to the electorate. It is, therefore, safe to say that the outcome of the vote would not have any different even if the said reporter and bloggers were free to campaign on behalf of any of the opposition parties they might have fancied fit to replace the incumbent. Admittedly, one could question the evidence of the charges brought against the bloggers and the one reporter held in custody months before the 2015 election. But no review of the case that led to their disbarment from public life can yield explanation why the overwhelming number of voters chose the EEPRDF over the opposition parties. Contention to the contrary, to put it mildly, is ludicrous --- full stop! As neither the language nor the content of what freelance reporters and social-media activists choose to post bear any resonance with the interest of the mainstream voting population. A glance at their social media output is enough to conclude that they are uninterested in rational argument and balanced criticism just as they care less about constructive engagement. Most in fact disseminate visceral hate, though these bloggers are unanimous in condemning the EPRDF as an enemy of the free press. There is an Orwellian twist to this condemnation coming from those entrenched in venomous vitriolic, poisonous rhetoric interspersed with calls for the violent overthrow of the duly constituted federal republic.