Legality and justice in the election standoff in Ethiopia
Open letter to Ambassadors’ Donor Group (ADG)
At Loggerheads: Legality and justice in the election standoff in Ethiopia
“The ADG reiterates its support for the electoral process in Ethiopia, and underlines the importance of the June 10 Joint Declaration by political parties in which they committed to use only the established legal electoral mechanisms, including the courts, to determine the outcome of the elections and affirmed their commitment to abide by the results…We call on all parties to approach this new chapter in their political history in a spirit of exclusivity, through constructive dialogue and avoiding violence, and thereby help ensure that the country emerges form these important elections with a deeper commitment by Ethiopians of all views to the democratic process and a peaceful future.” Walta information Centre, August 12, 2005 (http://www.waltainfo.com/Conflict/BasicFacts/2005/Aug/state1.htm)
1. Fulfilling the conditions for peaceful democratic transition
We appreciate your support and call for the emergence of a democratic process and a peaceful future in Ethiopia. We believe also that the Ethiopian people value your support and share your call for a peaceful and democratic future in Ethiopia. We in the Network of Ethiopian Scholars (NES) would like to see the emergence of two essential conditions in Ethiopia before we can confidently say the current election has brought about a peaceful and democratic situation:
a) To witness for the first time that the voice and vote of the people matter to determine the outcome and sustain the future political dynamics of the country,
b) To implant political development in the country where the parties believe in the tradition and culture of seeking to govern through free, fair and just election processes without relying on military force to bend and distort the will of the people.
In other words, we would like to see the parties submit to the unforced will of the people, ready to take power with humility and responsibility if voted in, and equally willing to exit gracefully when they are voted out. It is only when these conditions exist that we can say that the opportunities for democratic transition also obtained in Ethiopia. The recent election, unfortunately, has not brought about these two critical pre-conditions to say that at last Ethiopia has crossed the Rubicon.
The Ethiopian people have demonstrated that they are prepared to create the democratic process and exercise their voice and vote to bring the parties of their choice. What we do seem to see is that the ruling party is not ready yet to acknowledge what the people have attained.
2. The abuse of justice under the official enforcement of legality
First, given that CUD and UEDF are the major parties that complained of voting irregularities, the NEBE seems to have gone for punishing the complainers and the complaint by decreasing even the seats NEBE acknowledged to them in the first place, and increasing the seats for EPDRF.
On June 6, 2005, the NEBE announced that EPRDF won 268 seats, CUD alone won 115 seats, and UEDF also won 57 seats. After CUD and UEDF mainly complained about the unfairness and irregularities in the election, NEBE claimed to have undertaken an investigation that brought the following numbers. On August 9, 2005, EPDRF won 296 seats that are up 28 seats, CUD 109 seats, reduced 8 seats and UEDF 52 seats, reduced 5 seats.
Is it fair for the international community to endorse such action by NEBE to take seats from CUD and EUDF and award it to EPDRF as legal and just?
Second, with regard to NEBE’s decision to re-run election in 31 constituencies, it has turned out that 75 percent of the re-run is going to take place in constituencies demanded by EPRDF. Given that the opposition parties have been the ones who expressed dissatisfaction, what does it mean to convert their complaints into seats for EPDRF? This is what seems to have surfaced as established legal electoral mechanism. And as you can see it does not need a rocket scientist to show that the electoral process has been operating in Ethiopia in a dangerously partisan, unfair and unjust manner.
Third: Assuming that the tampering of the legal process can be redressed through the courts. Here again there is a big snag in the legal and constitutional system in place. If the chairman of NEBE can wear a number of hats that creates a strange overlap between the legal electoral mechanism and the court process, how can justice be done? We recall that the chairman of the election board is also a President of the Supreme Court, and also President of the Constitutional Inquiry Commission. All these essential powers are thrusted upon one person by Meles, the leader of the ruling party.
In this sense it appears that there is clear contradiction between what is legal and what is justice. The established legal mechanism has been forcibly steered and manipulated to bring about electoral injustice. It looks there is a big conceptual crisis to differentiate between what is legal and what is justice under the current election impasse in Ethiopia. Under this ambiguity what does the request by the donors group to follow the legal process mean?
Fourth: With regard to the expected operation of the parliamentary process, it is obvious to all concerned that the outgoing parliament has quickly put into ?law’ various rules and regulations that would make it impossible for the opposition parties to participate in parliament with vibrancy and without fear of disqualification. They have been stripped of power to request for an agenda or pass critical judgment on the policies and behaviour or action of the ruling party.
Fifth: The ruling party has been reported to begin harassment of those who did not vote for it. It has actually used the opposition complaint for investigation to mount a re-campaign in areas where the opposition had strong showing by alternating the stick and carrot. It has reverted to its usual behaviour and habit in punishing the electorate who rejected its rule by denying public budget allocation and curtailing powers and responsibilities where it lost. We want to recall a report made by the Norwegian observers group in connection with the 2000 Ethiopian election, which demonstrated in detail and empirically the punitive measures taken by the ruling party toward the electorate that did not vote for the current ruling party. The danger that the ruling party will sustain this assault against the people is real, unless agreed procedures are in place and mounted to stop them from carrying out such anti-people and anti-democratic measures and dis-incentives.
Sixth: The attitude of the ruling group to the invitation of independent observers both locally and internationally has been at best unwelcoming. The ruling party accepted the presence of external observers after mounting pressure from the donor groups. All know that NEBE barred domestic civic association groups from observing the election. When the Ethiopian civil society groups won in the court at the final hour of the election, it was too late for them to send their observers at such a short notice. The court delayed the decision up to near the polling days, thus effectively disqualifying them from performing and observing the election whilst claiming that it has dispensed ?justice!’ This is, of course, true to form- a deliberate intrigue to align the courts with regime interests by putting domestic observers in a state of disarray, disorganisation and confusion.
3. Making Injustice ?Legal’
We believe in your suggestion that constructive dialogue is vital to ensure a peaceful democratic process. That presupposes the prior existence or agreement to stimulate honestly and responsibly a peaceful democratic process in Ethiopia. The ruling party wants to mix democracy with force, law with injustice and wishes to call and sell that as the “ democratic process.” Ideally, it should be the first to invite dialogue in the interest of peace and stability. Instead, it is the opposition groups that have opened the door for dialogue. The ruling party leader prefers dictation to dialogue: he has replied arrogantly to the opposition parties to their call for national reconciliation: either submit to the ruling party dominated process, which they have shown to be unjust and unfair, or go for armed struggle or into oblivion inside or outside the country. The hubris of this statement is buttressed by the way the ruling party has relied very much on donor support and the military in the country and is prepared to degrade the call made by parties that have the popular backing of the people who voted for them. The diktat by the ruling party leader is nothing but disrespect for the people relying more on the arms and money from outside than the voice of the people that must never be ignored.
To the credit of the opposition groups, we appreciate that they are committed to bring about democratic transition in the country and they are prepared to submit to election and be guided by the voice and votes of citizens. We wish we could be able to say that of the ruling party which has shown not such a clear commitment to the democratic process. For the ruling party democracy is a game, a tactic to keep donor funding flowing. In this election and before, it has relied on the gun and continues to challenge and tempt the opposition parties to pick up the gun if they wish to unseat the regime. The fact that the leader keeps trotting the opposition parties simply betrays his lack of either any commitment or shallowness to the democratic process or even the well being of the Ethiopian people.
It is thus no wonder that the call by the opposition parties to enter into constructive dialogue fell on deaf ear. Their call for a national reconciliation government has also been rejected. It is not simply the rejection by Meles, but the way he rejected it that is truly dangerous. Meles in a TV interview in the morrow of the opposition call for a government of national concord said that he has no interest to work with the opposition parties. Even if the EPDRF were to be a minority party, Meles would not be willing to work with the opposition and talked as if he does not care that the opposition parties have popular support, and the country desperately needs to rely primarily on a united people that has reached a broad consensus through an intelligent dialogue to undertake the arduous tasks of tackling its major problems from poverty to Eritrea.
4. National Reconciliation is Unavoidable
The call for a national unity and reconciliation Government must be pursued in Ethiopia whether Meles rejects it or not. The country desperately needs to pass through a period of reconciliation. Besides the fact that the country and the people must come to terms with all the wrongs inflicted on them with so many unspeakable cruelties, there is also a critical point related how current politicians within the ruling group keep using the wrongs to pursue their narrow political advantage and power needs. One of the reasons is that Meles is still using the terrors of the previous regime to commit his own current terrors and the perennial threat from him to act to crush and burn any time he feels threatened or panics. They still pull out the past by choosing moments to distract attention from the current focus to bring about authentic and genuine democratic transition in Ethiopia. This politics of official blackmail of using the past terror to continue current abuse must be stopped for good. There is indeed a much deeper reason related to overcome a cruel period from pressing into the present and the future in order to come together and deal with all the challenges now.
We understand that Ethiopia badly needs stability to tackle its enormous destitutions and deprivations, but stability will not evolve through the current ruling party manipulation of interpreting legality and constitutionality with such evident self-serving egoism to spread apathy and hopelessness by denying citizens of their vote and voice. If the people feel that their vote and voice are irrelevant and meaningless, they certainly become disinterested and passive participants to find the solution to their problems with self-motivation and self-definition. External resources from donor community and state interventions can help, but not at the expense of de-motivating the citizenry. Peoples’ motivation is primary to solve problems. Donor money, and authoritarian and power driven state action alone would not solve destitutions; Ethiopia’s enormous difficulties will not be solved without genuine and motivated efforts and the real participation of the people. Democracy is a sure motivator; a way of life that converts persons into active citizens capable of creating a learning society that can transform the situation of depravation by eradicating the twin scourges of poverty and authoritarian rule.
4. Concluding demand
We are writing to call upon you to continue putting maximum pressure on the regime not to rely on donor money and the gun to intimidate, harass and kill the citizens and the opposition parties who are committed to bring about democratic transition, justice and reconciliation.
We call upon you to support the call for national reconciliation that Ethiopian opposition parties, civil society, the press and a large number of people outside and inside Ethiopia are promoting. National reconciliation is an idea whose time has come. It is a necessary condition to move forward Ethiopia as a people and nation and put behind all the memories of terror from being used to create distortions on the road to solving the country’s key problems.
We call upon you to join the Ethiopian people to facilitate its implantation as a sure mechanism to rectify the legal and constitutional deficiencies that has been overlooked by your call as the quote above fully shows, and the June 10, 2005 agreement of the parties have fudged also. Subsequent events have fully demonstrated that the ruling party and the NEBE- allies at many levels-have dangerously undermined the democratic process.
We call upon you to side with justice and defend the democratic process and the inalienable rights of the Ethiopian people to get their voices heard and their votes to matter.
We call upon you to support a non-violent citizen movement until justice is redressed in Ethiopia.
Professor Mammo Muchie, Chair of NES-Scandinavian Chapter
Berhanu G. Balcha, Vice- Chair of NES-Scandinavian Chapter
Tekola Worku, Secretary of NES-Scandinavian Chapter
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