When the corona virus pandemic started to make its presence felt in Ethiopia, the country was facing a difficult period of ethnic and nationalist inspired conflicts, displacements and threats of a general political implosion. Many churches and mosques were burnt down by groups of fanatical religious zealots with divisive agendas. Political parties both in government and the opposition were subjected to internal splits and external pressure and extremist ideologies seemed to be taking the upper hand.
Obviously there is hardly anything good that could come from a pandemic like the present one. But COVID-19 had deeply changed the political scenario in Ethiopia by turning public or government attention away from the bloody conflicts of the last two years since the onset of the transition period. The pandemic had the curious effect of stopping all the above threats and conflicts because of its menacing presence. No one was spared from the anxiety and deep concern about the spread of the virus and politics retreated to the background of national life.
In the last two or so years since the start of the transitional political hundreds if not thousands of people were killed during senseless ethnic or nationalist based conflicts inspired by media agitation or so-called activist groups. COVID-19 is a deadly pandemic but in the last two months, it has taken the lives of less than ten people. Many commentators and analysts agree that had the violence of the last two years continued for the last two months many more people could have been killed senselessly and the situation could have degenerated badly.
This is not however to say that given the choice, people could prefer the pandemic over the ethnic-inspired violence. Not at all. In the long ran, the pandemic could prove more devastating than any conflict although both the pandemic and political conflicts could be equally devastating to the economy and social life. The choice could not be between two equally evil phenomena. Yet, as things stand now, the pandemic has caused less disaster than the ethnic conflicts that consumed the lives of innocent people and threatened to engulf more communities in their wakes.
On the other hand, the pandemic has given the government a breathing period because in the pre-COVID days, it was largely busy putting out one fire of conflict after another, thereby stretching its resources that could otherwise be used for productive purposes. By the same token, the pandemic has deterred many potential cases of destabilization and violence by opposition groups that were slowly abandoning he peaceful and democratic alternative.
Thus the pandemic has not only changed the role of the government from one of being a fire brigade to one of being the nation’s ‘surgeon general’. It has also stopped the government’s plan to go ahead with preparations for the August 2020 election. Even at the initial stage of the election process, the government has spent money, time and energy to put in place the logistics of the election. It has spent so much time and human energy to go ahead with the pre-voting process leading to August 2020. In this way, COVID-19 has a dual and contradictory impact on government activities. On the one hand, it has cut short the security threats while on the other hand it has temporarily postponed the long quest for a truly democratic election.
If there is another impact of the pandemic, it is the fact that the post-COVID period has witnessed a kind of rapprochement between opposition parties and the government. Opposition parties that were divided over the government’s plan for the coming election could come together and rally behind it in the fight against the pandemic. Many opposition parties were not only opposed to the government. They were also divided among themselves not only over the election plan but also over many things pertinent to ethnic and nationalist-based strategies and practices.
The pandemic has forced many of them to abandon their previously hostile attitudes but also brought them together against the pandemic. Groups that were engaged in violence in some parts of the country have stopped their activities following negotiations between government officials and leaders of the movements. Yet, the main factor that forced them to enter into negotiation or agreement with the government was the impossibility of carrying out their agendas in the midst of a pandemic that claims the attention and concern of all the communities. In this way, the groups were forced by the pandemic to temporarily stop their destabilizing activities that could have claimed additional lives.
Although those parties are forced to abandon their violent strategies due to the advent of the pandemic, the general consensus is that most of them are now following the path of a negotiated settlement than forcing the government accept their unilateral political alternatives. The main point of dispute is of course the election plan put forward by the government and now interrupted by the pandemic. There is now a broad division between parties that are more or less insisting on holding the elections a month before september 2020, or before the present government outlives its constitutional mandate, and those who put forward alternatives such as forming a transitional authority composed of all parties or a care taker government that would be formed through negotiations.
The government on its part has come up with a plan for settling the electoral disputes through proper interpretation of the constitutional provisions pertinent to the election. It is to be recalled that this move has been endorsed by the country’s parliament that is still the supreme authority on the matter. The office of the president of the supreme court last week entertained a national discussion on the issue by involving legal experts, lawyers and intellectuals both here at home and abroad. The discussions were directly transmitted via electronic media although the general public could not be involved directly in the discussions simply because the issues are complex and sophisticated or because they are not directly relevant to immediate public health and other concerns.
Opposition parties on the other hand largely question the validity of the government’s plan for constitutional interpretation as a way out of the looming legal and political impasse. In a way, COVID-19 pandemic has thus provided enough time for the parties to sit down and think with cool heads and work out jointly agreed alternatives. Unfortunately, a consensus is far from being achieved at this stage because the legal issues are so complex that they require expertise and solid legal grounding in order to attain some degree of agreement not only between government and opposition parties but also among opposition parties themselves that are already polarized on many issues. The fact that each opposition party often thinks that its position or ideas are the right ones while the other positions are wrong has led to further polarization instead of cohesion. As a result of this attitude it has often been impossible to reach a middle ground among opposition parties let alone between the ruling an and opposition parties.
Party politics in Ethiopia is a very recent phenomenon. It dates back to the 1970’s following the Ethiopian revolution that brought about all the political differences into the open and forced groups of intellectuals to articulate their views through political parties. The first parties were more or less coming from the Leftist political spectrum because it was inspired by the Ethiopian student movement that had a left-leaning political tradition. However, the emergence of modern political parties has been interrupted by the military regime that abolished their existence and established a one-party dictatorship.
The post-1991 period was more favorable to the re-emergence of old and new parties but when they did emerge, they changed their forms and contents by switching from Left-leaning political tendencies to ethnic or nationalist tendencies that led to more conflicts and sabotaged the democratic process that in turn led to the forced dissolution of many parties and to the exile of others. This was a very daunting period for the growth of party politics in Ethiopia. As it happened in the 1970s, political parties faced the fate of further weakening, dissolution and disappearance although many of them tried to stay alive by going underground or into exile.
The new reform program launched two years ago by the transitional government now in power has no doubt created another opportunity for the re-emergence of former parties or for the creation of new ones. However this process, although positive in essence has also many challenges because most of the parties have nationalist agendas with varying degrees of militancy and an appetite for extremist violence. In place of ideological or class-based parties came ethnic and nationalist parties to reclaim the political space or impose their agendas by any means possible.
It is often difficult for nationalist parties to come in terms among themselves or attain consensus with the ruling authorities because they often lack pragmatism, flexibility as they often play the “winners take all” game. They show a tendency to monopolize power and refuse to share it with parties or groups with similar political agendas within similar ethnic or nationalist constituencies. That is why a single national entity is often represented by half a dozen parties or groups with similar objectives but divergent strategies and tactics. This is also basically what makes Ethiopian party politics unyielding for compromise and often complicates the political equation.
The coming four or five months are expected to be crucial for Ethiopian politics because compromise and consensus among the parties would lead to a more positive outcome while lack of consensus would further complicate the transition and the electoral process. With more luck and hard work, the Ethiopian public is expecting a positive outcome that might usher in a new political culture of democratic power bargaining in the country and the end of a long authoritarian and repressive political history. The search for common grounds between government and opposition parties is bound to continue until this vision will be realized sooner rather than later.
BY MULUGETA GUDETA
The Ethiopian Herald Sunday Edition 24/2020
