The successfully completion of the referendum on Sidama statehood last week has taught many positive lessons to the political actors who are now leading the ongoing political transition. The National Electoral Board of Ethiopia (NEBE) has emerged from the referendum with it head held high for its impartial, patient and mature handling of the process leading to the referendum and during voting day. The successful completion of the process has proved that the NEBE is capable of handling such a complex task as organizing a referendum on a crucial question of nationhood that had remained a bone of contention for many years.
The road traversed by the NEBE was complex and the assignment it has taken unprecedented in recent history. This is the first time that the NEBE has organized a referendum and overseen its successful outcome since the establishment of the federal state. The question of Sidama statehood and the journey from its birth to the present had also been contentious if not sometimes marred in bloody confrontations and political crises. Yet, the ENBE has courageously addressed it even if there was no precedence to rely on in such an exercise.
The creation of the tenth Ethiopian region was a unique and unprecedented experience indeed which will have deep repercussions for the federal system itself. The Sidama referendum has, perhaps for the first time, proved that the federal system in place for more than two decades now has not only the legal and constitutional bases for the correct handling of contradictions that might arise between the regions and the central government. It has also established a standard by which similar demands would be handled in the future.
It is therefore a giant step away from the traditional behavior of the central authorities that were trying to enforce a unitary system of government on peripheral regions and failed miserably. In fact, the Sidama referendum can be taken as a new way of handling the contradictions between the centralizing tendencies of the federal government and the autonomous tendencies of the periphery.
By managing the Sidama referendum, the NEBE has, for the first time proved that it is becoming a neutral institution capable of relying on its intellectual and ethical resources to move away from the influence if not domination of the executive and assume an independent, self-confident, and impartial attitude from the preparation to the execution of the referendum. This is something that deserves appreciation in so far as in the last thirty years or so the NEBE had always been a tool or stooge of the executive branch of government and was required to act according to a script written by the executive branch of government. As the script was badly written, the acting was often horribly off target, spoiling the show during all the five elections that have so far taken place in Ethiopia.
By successfully discharging its duties during the Sidama referendum, the NEBE has proved that it will never follow old scripts to stage new plays. And this is a moral, intellectual and ethical resource that will certainly be used during the forthcoming May 2020 election. The Sidama referendum was in a way a testing ground for NEBE and a kind of test balloon for 2020. It has proved, beyond any shadow of doubt, that NEBE can remain neutral, independent, ethical and professional in managing this election. Its neutrality has been hailed as a success by observers, human rights groups and all interested parties, which are a morale booster and a confidence builder for the institution.
The fact that the Sidama referendum was carried out without violence and major complication proved that peace and security can only be secured by the real people who are directly concerned and involved in such a democratic exercise whereby the elites played a marginal role. With more than 2 million people taking part in the election, the process was indeed democratic. It was peaceful because it was democratic and the real people, perhaps for the first time took their destiny into their own hands and emerged the real winners.
In the meantime, the process has made it evident that the NEBE can effectively handle, organize and manage any election in the future. This is also an encouraging event for all those who doubted the capacity of the NEBE to manage an election and created a sense of confidence in the real actors behind elections.
The Sidama activists and movement should also be commended for remaining calm and for accepting the outcome of the process. They are also expected to help the transition from a region into a state in a calm, farsighted, and ethical manner and with the direct participation of the people. Above anything else, the peaceful completion of the Sidama referendum is a morale-booster for this very reason. The lesson is clear: no one should die for demanding and exercising their rights that are enshrined in the federal constitution.
The executive branch of government is also bound to learn one or two lessons from this process. Executive meddling had always been the bane on Ethiopian politics, leading not only to intractable controversies in the past but also to losses of lives and gross human rights abuses.
By taking hands-off attitude during the Sidama referendum, the executive branch has spared itself of severe criticism of human rights abuse that was the standard response in the past from domestic and international human rights groups. Whether the executive branch of government would also remain neutral in the forthcoming election 2020 is something yet to be seen. However, all indications are that it might remain so if the experience of the recent Sidama referendum is something to go by.
The Sidama referendum may also have a positive impact on the morale of the people, the doubters as well as the confident ones. Many people may assume that elections may turn out to be political disasters with serious consequences and this is true if we go by past experiences both in Ethiopia and elsewhere in Africa.
Election frauds have led to violent confrontations on many occasions. Election rigging is a notion that found currency in Africa and led to many crises. The 2007 elections in Kenya and the 2005 elections in Ethiopia stand out as good examples of how not to conduct democratic elections. A one hundred consensus on an election by all the actors may be impossible to achieve. But, there is a well-established international standard by which any election is judged democratic or not.
For an election to be up to international standards, all the actors, i.e. those who organize the elections, those who take part in them and those who oppose them are expected to adhere to these standards. The problem in Ethiopia in the past, as far as elections were concerned, was defined by attempts by the executive to legitimize them according to its own standards. The state was the judge, the jury and the executioner in all the elections that have so far taken place in this country. And that was, by the way, something that accelerated the demise of the former EPRDF regime when popular resentments reached tipping point some three or four years back.
In this way, elections are crucial is deciding the fate of a nation and that of a government. It is also crucial in securing peace and stability. The Sidama referendum has once again proved these theses. Had the referendum been bungled, things could go horribly wrong.
The fact that all the actors and mainly the real people who have a stake in it have accepted the outcome proved that if elections are properly handled, there will be no major problem during or in the post-election or post-referendum period. A referendum on any statehood may sometimes be messy even by European standards because nationalism may also be messy unless properly handled or managed. The nationalistic fervors in Spanish Catalonia can be taken as one example among many where nationalism may complicate the search for nationhood. Similar flashpoints in European countries have also led to serious political impasses.
Joseph Stalin, the infamous author of the so-called national question used to say that giving democracy to the nations would remove all causes of conflicts. Yet he did not live up to his words and the Soviet Union imploded because of the absence of democracy and the perpetual rule of the one party state. When we look retrospectively now, what may realize is that Stalin might have missed the point about the difference between real and fake democracy, between genuine universal suffrage and elections controlled from above and inevitably lead to disaster.
The lesson for Ethiopia is clear. Let there be no fake democracy and fake elections and things will be alright. Let there be no fake institutions that pretend to conduct elections and there will be no protests and no bloodshed. Let there be no attempt to cheat the masses and they will inevitably punish such a regime.
And let the successful completion of the Sidama referendum serve not as a model but as an inspiration for conducting free and fair elections in this country. And let Sidama’s transition from a region into a state be smooth, ordered and free of violence as the referendum was.
The Ethiopian Herald Sunday Edition 1 December 2019
BY MULUGETA GUDETA
