Ethiopian election: A mockery of democracy
By Afura Burtukana*
“Democracy is the rule of the stupids by the stupid” The Great Greek Philosopher Plato
“Democracy is not a good system of governance, from what we have it is the best” Winston Churchill
Feb 24, 2006 — Democracy 101 teaches that democracy is the rule of the majority, where by the right of the minority is respected, based on the one-person-one-vote principle. The other principles of democracy are, limited term of rule and autonomous authority. These are not new ethos to Ethiopia. That ancient country of three thousand plus years of history which is a mosaic of ethnicities with different language and colorful (across the spectrum) culture, has developed through out the years its own unique system of governance. The Gada system of the Oromo ethnic group is just one. Geda as an indigenous system of governance where by elected officials Aba Gada (President), Aba Dula (Chief of Army), Aba Hori (Treasurer), and nine Hayyuus (Judges ) assume office for non-renewable eight years term. Note that the officials are elected and they are elected for a non-renewable term. The Afar gave autonomous authority to each of the four regions (Two in Ethiopia and Two in Djibouti) which are called Sultanates. Each sultan is chosen from alternating segments in each of the four sections of the Afar. The Sultan is the religious, as well as the political, leader of his clan of the Afar. Note again that the four regions have autonomous authority and Sultanates are elected alternately from each of the regions. Parallel to the western constitution, the basis for a democratic system, Ethiopia had the Fetha Negest which is translated to be the Law of the King or The Canon law. Until it was replaced by the modern constitution in 1931 it was used as the official supreme law of the country. The modern constitution declared in 1931, by Haileselassie I, has the Fetha Negest as its roots.
Like many other dimensions of the country, Ethiopia was not able to capitalize on and build the traditional systems of democratic governance. Just like we ?decided’ to take a ?long break’ on the civilization, which was one of the pillars of the world in ancient times, we ?decided’ or rather our traditional indigenous systems of governance were usurped by people of our own. Though the emperor declared a constitution as a gift from him to the people, which by itself defeats the very essence of democracy and the rule of law, in practice he was acting as ?elect of God’ and did not abide to the ?canon’ law. The only Law that was understood by the Dergue, which also had a constitution, was the rule of the gun. As a group of Junta Militant which snatched power away from the people by way of the barrel, they choose (or probably were compelled) to side the communist left camp (of which many of them had little or no understanding). The current regime of EPRDF, the inception of Marxist Leninist League Tigray which was baptized by Albanian Communism and believe in the extreme left principle of class struggle manifested by their ethnic based federalism, were guerrilla fighters who only knew the language of power emanating from, just like its predecessor, the gun.
Centuries have elapsed since the people of Ethiopia have been deprived of their freedom. Freedom to exercise their basic right of feeding themselves, getting basic education, getting primary health facilities; freedom to exercise their political right of electing their representatives and being administered by their own choice; freedom of making speech, demonstrating, gathering etc; freedom of their economic right to own land and other properties and sale or pass it to others as they wish; freedom which is not a gift or present from any government but which is passed to us from the Almighty God, for those of us who are believers, or a natural gift for those who are not. Deprived from all these Ethiopians are left to suffer from drought and recurring famine, to be the poorest of the poorest and dangle down at the bottom of the development ladder. Ethiopian backwardness is not, as it is portrayed, simply due to natural calamities but rather owes to human factors, most importantly, governance. Drought and famine are not that difficult to contain if the right policies are adopted. It takes a government who is responsible and who has the incentive to be responsible to adopt those policies. The incentive for a democratic government is the vote of the people that keeps it in power. An autocratic government lacks that incentive hence the appropriate policies. As Amartya Sen, the Noble Price winner in Economics in 1998 clearly puts it in his book: Development as Freedom, 1999; freedom is both the means and end for development, it is both the instrument and the ultimate achievement.
The saying is that, every nation will have a government it deserves. It is up to the people to put in to power and dictate the government they wish to have. It is also up to the people to say no to any other form of government and/or governance. All the way along, Ethiopians have said no and are still saying that to the consecutive governments that imposed themselves on them. It took a revolution to put the emperor down and an armed struggle to get rid of the Dergue. The paradox, yet, was that it was the very ones who fought for freedom that turned around and become even worst than the one they replaced. This time around the struggle peaked picking up a new tone. The way to sustainable freedom, the tone professes, is only through a nonviolent struggle. This tone was able to win the hearts and mind of the mass and they rallied behind it. People believed, wholeheartedly, that they can make a difference, that their vote counts, and so turned out to vote overwhelmingly in a fashion which took every observer, including the ruling party, the oppositions and foreigners, by surprise.
There is an unofficial, but general, understanding by the West that the standard of democracy African’s, specially, deserve is at a lower bar. The argument, emanates from the belief that it took quite a time for the west to be as ?civilized’ as they are now and the rest of the world should also take that time. Others argue that, the nature of the governors in Africa is that it requires a forceful move to get rid of them. So, the argument continues, it is wiser to push them bit by bit and probably reduce the casualties. Samuel P. Huntington, on his book “The Clash of Civilizations: And Remaking of The World Order, 1996”, predicts that the next conflict between nations and nation states will be over civilizations and not specifically over resources. Francis Fukumaya in his book “The End of History and The Last Man, 1992” also indicates that due to the end of the ideological war, hence the end of history as we know it, one of the other sources of conflict between nation states will be wisdom and philosophy of the world out look depicted through the culture of different nations. The implication here is that the West might not be inclined to see, let alone, help other ?styles of living’ succeed and compete with the western style/philosophy. The West Vs. The Middle East and the West Vs. Confucianism of China are cases in point.
Some Ethiopians and Ethiopianists also follow the same line of argument and talk about conspiracies by the West against a democratic system/ development in Ethiopia. Officially (almost), diplomats of The US put factors like, stability (conflict with Eritrea) in the Horn of Africa and combat against terrorism as reasons for wanting to retain the status quo, meaning let the incumbent stay in power. They are posed to believe, somehow, that the current regime is their best bet for the above causes. The cause of the people, freedom and development, democracy is set to be secondary. The US, which is the leader of the nations of the West, which built its nation based on the great principle of freedom to individuals, is taking a double standard and trading democracy for the US interest when it comes to nations like Ethiopia. This is a mockery of democracy.
What Meqdes Mesfin, the daughter of Mesfin Woldmariam, said when she addressed the people on the great demonstration for “Human Right and Democracy” on February 1 2006 in Washigton DC, is worth quoting here. “We are not asking you to fight our fight; we know how to do that very well, what we are asking you is not to support the ruling regime and make the fight any harder than it already is.”
* Afura Burtukana is an Ethiopian based in the USA, he can be reached at [email protected]