Sour Grapes and Sweet Lemons.

Desta Berhe

04/13/08

The current hot news stories about Ethiopia deal with the local elections and the usual reactions of the opposition parties about the ‘unfairness’ of the process. The reactions of the international human rights crooks follow the same line. It makes one wander what the opposition parties are asking for. Unless one wishes the Ethiopian political process to function in some sort of weird way that favors underdogs so that the weak parties win, it is difficult to figure out what and why is EPRDF being blamed for. EPRDF shouldn’t have 4 million plus members to contest for every seat available? The main problem with the oppositions is that they stand against the important policies/programs that make EPRDF strong, which inherently are key issues any party should adapt to be viable in Ethiopia. Moreover, they couldn’t set their feet out Addis Ababa to organize supporters throughout the country. Other usual foul cries are simply excuses to deceive anybody to give them the benefit of doubt so that they hangout in Addis Ababa. Following are important ‘rules of game’ in the Ethiopian political struggle, which the oppositions are playing against.

Engaging all the people: Currently, the viability and survival of national parties depend on the level and commitment of their programs (and policies) to engage all people in the country fairly. Member parties of the EPRDF coalition function independently within their states. It is known that they have similar programs emanating from a single ideology. Heavy handedness of EPRDF on the member parties would be running over the very ideals of revolutionary democracy: democratization takes root easily in smaller unit of sovereignty where all people shall have the opportunity to participate in the process. I believe that it is this fundamental ideological standpoint that makes EPRDF to show no interest in including the state parties form Afar, Benshangul Gumuz, Gambela, Harari, and Somali to its coalition. The stand of EPRDF to leave the parties in these states to function on their own is very appealing to those parties as well as the people they represent. It ensures the engagement of people in the sociopolitical process.

Hence, any other national or coalition party would have a very tough duty to have even more appealing political programs that engage all the people of Ethiopia. Having an ethnic-blind national party is possible. Nonetheless, I think it would be difficult for such kind of party to win political power in the foreseeable future. We, Ethiopians have to transform ourselves to provide a favorable setting for such kinds of parties to be viable. And that transformation takes time. Till then, we will keep singing ‘Yesemiyenu Kokeb’.

Empowering nations, nationalities, and peoples (NNPs): Prescription of democratic ideals to peoples (a tendency shared by Western influenced citizens) would shatter the possibility of democratizing our society based on indigenous attributes (ideals, culture, interest, history, etc). Since democracy is built from within, NNPs are the only stakeholders in the process. Moreover, their unique and shared attributes will be brought into play in that process. This ultimately leads to the emergence of NNPs-based political struggle, thus parties. The argument that NNPs-based politics (as others would call it ethnic-politics) is a problem to creating a strong Ethiopian state is like saying democratization is not good for creating a strong Ethiopian state. Moreover, the argument implies that some Ethiopians are more concerned about building a strong Ethiopian state, thus have more to give.

The building of a strong Ethiopian state is in the interest of all citizens. In theory, there could be several approaches to achieve that collective goal. Nonetheless, there wouldn’t be many practical approaches. And any approach that alienates the participation of all NNPs would take us nowhere. All NNPs have to be engaged in developing their shared culture, ideals, interest, etc towards which all gravitate. The transformation of Ethiopian political thinking to gravitate towards dealing with our most important shared attributes, leaving our ethnic identity for granted, is a long process. I neither see a shortcut nor imagine any sort of jump over.

UEDF, and NNPs-based national opposition party, would have been a formidable challenger of EPRDF had it run its business EPRDF style. In UEDF, groups of political elites from the various NNPs established a party resembling EPRDF. Nonetheless, they didn’t pursue the next step: recruiting supporters at the grassroots level. Thus, they ended up having few thousand candidates in an election with nearly four millions seats to grab. In this process, we don’t see unfairness. We see the opposition parties missing the requirement of the game long ago. Simple.

We have also politicians and political parties that emphasize on our shared culture, ideals, interest, etc. The problem is that we are yet to create a society in which such kinds of political alternatives to be practiced and political parties to function. EPRDFites are well aware of this. One of the documents produced during the 2000 TPLF crisis states that in a long political process, revolutionary democracy evolves to liberal democracy. That is, the socioeconomic reality and political consciousness that will lead to the birth of liberal democracy as we see it in Western societies will be created under revolutionary democratic ideals. [If we indeed need Western style democracy at all.] Democratization and enlightenment of our society will lead to the understanding that our ethnic identities are inalienable attributes, to be issues in political dispute.

Unfortunately, NNPs-based politics emanating from revolutionary democracy (which is incidentally congruent with indigenous African democracies) became a trigger for the establishment of national parties that antagonize NNPS-based politics. To foolishly antagonize EPRDF, they put impassable roadblock in front of themselves. The irony is that the very roadblock those political parties placed in front of themselves is going to be removed by EPRDF so that they can pass. But, they have to hangout behind the roadblock for a while singing ‘Balegariw Balegariw Tolo Tolo Nidaw’. Complaining about the unfairness of an election makes no sense.

Benefiting all the people economically equitably: In his recent article, Ambassador Tesfaye Habisso gave us a detailed account of why land must remained at the hands of the public. The issue of land ownership is the ‘big bang’ of Ethiopian politics. ‘Land to the Tiller’ was the driving slogan that led to the demise of Emperor Haile Selassie I. Land was the most important bid that helped the Dergue stay in power for 17 years. A change of policy in the public ownership of land will not be a simple exercise. It will have far-reaching consequences. I believe that as the market governs the land, productivity will increase. The question is that, is that increased productivity guarantee the well-being and survival of citizens better, and a political stability? Now? No!

A policy (and a Constitution) that keeps the land at the hands of the public and forbids market forces out of it guarantees those who work and depend on it to obtain excellent support from the government. Thus, when EPRDF maintains the public ownership of the land, by default, it is ready to deliver the citizens who depend on it with all the assistance they need to make a decent living. As other alternatives for over 4/5^th of the citizens to make a living are beyond the horizon, this is a charitable policy. Land is the only resource that is shared equitably among the citizens.

Even though there is a theoretical justification for letting the land to be governed by the market, there should exist a major transformation before doing that: A transformation from subsistence agriculture to other economic sectors upon which people can make a living and the nation can function. This transformation takes a good deal of time. Opposition parties ranting for private ownership of land should know that they are working against their own interest. Those who strive to upset this equitable ownership of land will have no opportunity to get a grassroots support in the rural communities to match EPRDF. This makes them far short of having sufficient number of candidates. Boycotting an election or complaining about its unfairness is a post-hoc justification for hypocritical reasons. It is the ‘Sour Grapes and Sweet Lemons’.