Thank God I left this continent man it is too fucked up
EM
On the 49th Parallel
Thé Mulindwas Communication Group
"With Yoweri Museveni, Ssabassajja and Dr. Kiiza Besigye, Uganda is in anarchy"
Kuungana Mulindwa Mawasiliano Kikundi
"Pamoja na Yoweri Museveni, Ssabassajja na Dk. Kiiza Besigye, Uganda ni katika
machafuko"
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Sunday, June 07, 2015 5:57 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [Mwananchi] Ethiopia: Making sense of 100 percent election victory
No way any country in the world can have a 100% turnout but again we talking
about Africa here....
Ethiopia: Making sense of 100 percent election victory
Messay Kebede
2015-06-03, Issue 729
http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/94830
The 24 May election was worse than a sham. In turning the poll into a process
of complete elimination of the opposition, the government and the ruling party
have loudly told the Ethiopian people that any hope of change through peaceful
means is just an illusion.
According to the National Election Board of Ethiopia, the result of last week’s
national election is that the EPRDF (Ethiopian People's Revolutionary
Democratic Front) has achieved a complete victory by grabbing all the
parliamentary seats. The same board and the Ethiopian government qualified the
result as a triumph of democracy, which leads one to assume that in today’s
Ethiopia the progress of democracy is measured by the size of exclusion of
opposition parties from parliamentary participation. In 1995, the process
resulted in 75 seats to various opposition parties; then it evolved to one
representative in 2010; until it has reached the present stage of advanced
democracy with zero representative from the opposition. Bravo to the EPRDF! Be
it noted that this novel interpretation of democracy seems to be endorsed by
the American government through the authoritative voice of Wendy Sherman, the
Under Secretary for Political Affairs (go to
http://www.diretube.com/ethiopia/under-secretary-of-state-wendy-sherman-talking-about-ethiopia-video_851c48f3b.html)
The only step remaining to achieve the apex of democracy is the banning of
opposition parties, obvious as it is that they have become obsolete.
On a serious note, last week’s election appears very enigmatic to many
observers. For one thing, in view of the creeping discontent in the country,
which is even expressed outwardly here and there, in view also of the paranoia
of the regime showing an unprecedented level of mobilization of its repressive
forces to intimidate voters and stifle dissenting voices, a complete
parliamentary victory strikes by its utter impossibility. There is only one
possible conclusion: not only the election was not free and fair, but it was
also subjected to fraudulent practices, such as stealing or eliminating votes
supporting the opposition.
The question that comes to mind is the following: if neither the people and
opposition parties give an iota of credibility to the official result, nor for
that matter the officials and the cadres of the ruling party themselves––since
they used all repressive and fraudulent means to eliminate the opposition––in a
word, if nobody lends any credibility to the official outcome, why is the
ruling party going through such a costly, time-consuming, and utterly useless
exercise? What is the expected gain?
Can we say that the election serves the purpose of renewing legitimacy? But how
can a government renew legitimacy by claiming an unbelievable victory? Who
falls for a score of 100 percent? What about the international community?
Perhaps, but again provided that you come up with something believable, and 100
percent is not believable. Accordingly, such a score defeats its purpose, if it
is legitimacy.
This is what is most perplexing: a lesser score (say, for example, of 80
percent) would have gained some credibility without, however, endangering the
hegemony of the ruling party. Indeed, why not leave some seats to the
opposition? So long as the ruling party retains an overwhelming majority, the
opposition does not present any risk. What is more, the presence of the
opposition, however negligible, would give some sense to the voting process in
the parliament.
There is more: in turning the election into a process of elimination of the
opposition by all means necessary, the government and the ruling party are
loudly telling the Ethiopian people that any hope of change through peaceful
means is just an illusion. This is none other than forcing the people to seek
other means, namely, violent forms of struggle, such as uprisings and armed
struggle. It is hard to understand why a government would push its own people
to violent methods.
If, instead of renewing legitimacy, a score of 100 percent only succeeds in
cornering people to violent means, why on earth would a government adopt such a
detrimental policy? We only saw negative sides. Where is the gain? The huge
enigma here is that, unlike most dictatorial states, the regime in Ethiopia has
recognized multiple opposition parties, even if it has restricted their
activities to what it deems tolerable. While the general rule for dictatorial
regimes is to ban opposition parties altogether, the Ethiopian regime
recognizes them except that it does not want them in parliament. Since in both
cases the result is the same, the behavior of the Ethiopian regime may become
intelligible if we get hold of the reason why even dictatorial regimes that ban
opposition parties organize elections.
Where no opposition parties exist, the purpose of election cannot be the
achievement of victory. As there is no contest, the claim of victory would be
simply surreal. By contrast, single-party regimes are concerned with the number
of people who come out to vote, the issue being to get out the maximum number
of voters by all means necessary. Clearly, the objective is not to gain the
majority of votes; rather, it is to demonstrate force. Elections are meant to
show the extent of the control of the government and the ruling party over the
people. The less the people like the regime, the higher is its need to show the
maximum electoral score, thereby displaying its invincibility. The message is
then clear enough: even if you do not like the regime, there is nothing you can
do about it. As such, it is a celebration of defiance, a parade, a showoff of
political force.
It seems to me that the dominant party in the governmental coalition, the TPLF
(Tigrayan People's Liberation Front), has perfected the meaning of election
under dictatorial rule: unlike one-party dictatorships, it recognizes
opposition parties, allows them some freedom of maneuver, only to deprive them
of even one seat in the parliament as a manifestation of its absolute hegemony.
This is none other than an extreme form of political bullying, as in the case
when a child donates his toy to another child and takes it back after some time
as a way of showing his dominance by aggravating the frustration of the other
child.
The ultimate goal of this political bullying is, of course, the inculcation of
submission through the sense of hopelessness. While in democratic countries,
elections establish the legitimacy of states through the exercise of popular
sovereignty, in dictatorial regimes, like that of the TPLF, they are periodical
rituals displaying the submission of the people. To the extent that these
elections raise and then dash hopes for change, they renew the sense of
hopelessness of the people, and so deepen their resignation.
* Messay Kebede is professor of philosophy at the University of Dayton, Ohio
(USA). He previously taught philosophy at Addis Ababa University (Ethiopia). He
is the author of five books: Meaning and Development (1994), Survival and
Modernization—Ethiopia’s Enigmatic Present (1999), Africa’s Quest for a
Philosophy of Decolonization (2004), Radicalism and Cultural Dislocation in
Ethiopia, 1960-1974 (2008), and Ideology and Elite Conflicts: Autopsy of the
Ethiopian Revolution (2011). He has also published numerous articles in
professional and nonprofessional journals.
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