Ethiopia is set to hold general elections for members of the federal parliament and regional councils on June 5, 2021. It will be the sixth one and another chance for Ethiopia to transit to democracy and change. There was hope that Ethiopia would embrace democracy for the first time when the Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front, a coalition of four ethnic political parties, took power in 1991 and introduced multiparty elections. It was not to be. The front had so far steered five sham general elections and ruled the country with a rock hard fist for close to thirty years.
Over the last three years, the government has taken political and legislative reforms that may contribute to a widened political landscape thereby coming up with a more competitive election. For example, the electoral board which oversees the polling has been re-established and being an impartial body.
Miskir Desalegn, a third year political Science and International Relations student at Addis Ababa University said, “The upcoming election is coupled with three fundamental bottlenecks that need to be addressed. One, political parties are scrawny, scrappy extremely volatile. Two, it will take place amid the cataclysm in Tigray, one of the 10 regions of the country. Three, the prevalence of confrontations and unprecedented group attacking here and there have remained societal threats though situations a bit are improving at present.
The good things emerge following the reform are several exiled opposition politicians and political parties are allowed to operate inside the country though solely few have been well exploiting the opportunity. According to Miskir, there were more than 130 political parties at the beginning many of which were weak and volatile. The majority were not active in elections or any political movement. The new law requires re-registration on the basis of standards such as proof of endorsement from voters and districts.
There is advancement in the case of having independent institutions, too. The Federal Supreme Court and the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission are now led by prominent professionals apart from setting up an independent and impartial electoral board. The first two particularly have worked for the advancement of human rights and social justice for many years.
“Promisingly, a new law on civil society organizations has helped nongovernmental organizations, professional associations, and conglomerates engage in the advancement of human rights and democracy. These include civic and voter education, capacity building for political parties, human rights institutions, and courts a well as assisting the government pinpointing drawbacks that cause public grievance,” he added.
As learnt from Miskir, Ethiopia has had regular elections since 1991. However, none of these elections has offered most Ethiopians a meaningful choice. The one which was conducted in 2005 was with the notable exception as it helped opposition emerge to participate in the elections, but botched to usher in a well-ordered transition based on peaceful multiparty competition.
The very problem right now in the country is that ethnic political parties use extreme ethnic propaganda to win public confidence with a view to having the support of the ethnic groups they claim to represent. They are also unlikely to seek political compromises.
The lack of security in some constituencies has also been posing an additional challenge to the general elections. To reverse such a daunting challenge, raising public awareness through CSOs, coordination of contending political parties themselves and the general public at large matters the most.
29th August, 2020 was basically set to conduct the 2021 elections. However, it was pushed ahead by the House of Peoples’ Representatives following the COVID-19 pandemic. This led to an extension of the mandate of the federal government. Of course, the postponement of the election has resulted in civil unrest.
This time political parties and politicians started criticizing the activities done by the government considering it as an illegitimate one. The Tigray Peoples’ Liberation Front, for example, the leading political party which peculiarly governed the regional state of Tigray for 30 years, opposed the extension. Furthermore, the fronts junked the legitimacy of the federal government and even said there is no formal government beyond 5 October, 2020.
The upcoming 6th general elections are yet another historic chance for Ethiopia to hold free and fair elections. Through democratic competition, Ethiopia can avert conflict, strengthen its democratic institutions, and begin the transition to democracy. That is why it is recurrently said that the upcoming election is a matter of survival.
To promote peace and stability in the region, the African Union has put on pressure so that human rights violations are investigated. Most importantly, it should work closely with the federal government to provide assistance and give professional advice so the government can take appropriate measures under the auspice of the rules and procedures adopted by the African Union.
“Much support is needed for Ethiopian civil society organizations to be much more proactive in liaising with the international civil society community to help the country use the existing mechanisms of the African Union to lobby African governments so they behave in a more democratic way and prioritize the public interest, “he added.
Mulumebet Fekadu, an election executor at Arada Sub city on her part said, “So long as the upcoming election will fulfill the expectations and standards we all deserve, I still believe that it will be a turning point, given that it will give everyone the same opportunity at the ballot, irrespective of ethnic or religious stance and will allow all of us to allow a legitimate government to come to power.”
She further said politically, our country has to see the emergence of a strong multi-party system so that parliament is no longer controlled by an all-powerful ruling party, with a wide diversity of perspectives reflected in policymaking, and recognition of civil society as a key partner in setting national agendas.
According to Mulumebet, at the federal level, the political party or coalition of parties that wins an absolute majority in the HoPR forms and leads the executive branch and approves the appointment of the Prime Minister and members of the Council of Ministers. Likewise, she added the political party or coalition with a majority in State Council appoints the chief president or administrator and regional cabinet members.
Asked about the way to conduct the elections, she stated that for the purpose of the electoral system, Addis Ababa and Dire Dawa Councils are considered as regional State Councils. In principle, general elections are supposed to be conducted throughout the country. Only one HoPR member is elected from each constituency while more than one member of a regional State Council may be elected from a single electoral constituency based on the decision of the region.
As to her, a political party may operate in Ethiopia only upon registration and issuance of a certificate of legal personality by NEBE. A political party is barred from registration if it has foreign nationals as members; its symbols, objectives, and rules set off violence and hatred; or it excludes persons from being members or supporters on the basis of ethnicity, religion, social status or identity.
“Since this Africa’s second most populous nation with 10 regional governments and over 110 million citizens bedecked with a multilingual, multicultural and multinational scenario, the federalism system is an incomparable classification to accommodate all the required elements though its foundation depends on the taxonomy a winning party prefers centering the interests and preferences of the mass,” she said.
All the polls, be they are competitive or non–competitive ones, have served as the central arenas for struggle and help citizenry define the laws, rules, actors, parties, resources, policies and strategies of politics—the political landscape has now relatively been made quite wide so.
BY MENGESHA AMARE
The Ethiopian Herald may 11/2021
