Election 2021 is in full swing in Ethiopia. The campaigns are in full swing. What started as a lukewarm process with low registration turnout is now gaining more momentum. The candidates are making their presence felt both in their campaign promises and their advertising actions. Major streets and squares are adorned with the pictures of the major candidates and their party emblems.
The contesting parties are making their programs known to the potential voters through slogans and pictures. Radio airwaves are loaded with programmatic speeches by candidates from the governing as well as the contesting parties although the public response is somehow measured if not tepid. Most of all, the visual arts have come to promote the election campaign now more than any time before.
The election hanky-panky, the passions and emotional outburst of 2005 are no more the order of the day in this election. In 2005 the single national political focus was on the general election. Now, many issues are sharing public attention; ranging from the Nile issue to internal displacements and the threats of economic sanctions by the US and the West’s unexpected change of mind concerning the reforms in Ethiopia and crisis in Tigray.
However, memories of election 2005 are still fresh in the public mind. The young people in their teen years who fought heroically against TPLF dictatorship back in 2005 are now young adults looking for better days ahead. The young adults of 2005 are now family men and women in their thirties. Meanwhile, a new generation of young and pragmatic youths and reformist politicians succeeded in toppling the TPLF tyranny in 2018 and they are now waiting to enjoy the fruits of its efforts.
The collective memory of 2005 is one of violence, threats coming from the then ruling EPRDF and media-triggered and emotional expressions of anger from the public. The emotions and passions rwere so powerful that the public imagination was fired by the prospects of radical democratic change for most of the pre-election period. Unfortunately, election 2005 started with great hopes for democracy and justice and ended in bloodshed taking the political and historical clock back and ushering in a 13-year hiatus characterized by state terror, indiscriminate persecutions and killings, mass arrests and exiles of dissidents and journalists in particular.
Election 2005 has obviously left deep scars in the collective public psyche. In the final analysis, the main battle was fought not with billboards, slogans or words. Art had no place in that chaotic contest. The issues were decided with guns and bullets and the winners were obviously those who controlled the machinery of state violence.
Opposition candidates had no opportunity to make their presence felt in public through the use of huge billboard as they do during this election. They could not display their banners or their pictures in public. They were rather relegated to darkness and anonymity that required great dedication, endurance and perseverance. These are the winners of the 2018 reforms that brought political exiles back to the country, freed political prisoners and made promises of democracy and stability. There is still much to do to make the reforms holistic and truly functional.
However, the events that followed the reforms showed that democracy is not a gentle morning walk in a rose garden. The ugly monster of conflicts and bloodshed reared its head and claimed hundreds if not thousands of victims. Almost all democratic reforms started in Ethiopia with sweet dreams of liberty and social justice.
Yet, they were often forced into the abyss of bloodshed and mayhem by forces with hidden agendas. Those forces who appeared united around the ideals of democracy and peaceful transition changed the rules of the game as they campaigned in favor of ethnic violence and later on reaped the harvests of hatred, extremism and intolerance. Those ugly events brought memories of the aftermath of the 2005 aborted democracy.
In brief, Election 2005 had no place for public information or proper campaigning as we know it elsewhere in the world. Even by African standards, elections in Ethiopia were a one way traffic and dull as far as the use of public information techniques were concerned. The ruling party was doing everything possible to cling to power while opposition parties were thrown in jails, persecuted or fleeing for their lives. Some of them were forced underground while others fought in complete anonymity and with whatever tools at their disposal.
However, election 2005, although short on artistic displays of pictures, banners and photograph, was nevertheless strong on substance. It was a make or break time for Ethiopian democracy. Opposition parties could well articulate their programs and win the hearts and minds of electors. Words were more important than pictures and billboards. And the electorate was ready for the changes that were going to take place in the country. Unfortunately, it all ended up in fiasco and it was back to square one once again. It has taken almost two decades since 2005 for parties to face another opportunity for relatively free campaigning and the chance to make the transition from opposition to government.
This does not seem to be the case now as the pre-election time proved peaceful. The Ethiopian public is now tired of the turmoil of the post-2018 period. A kind of “violence fatigue” seem to have set in. This is not to say that there is no politically-motivated violence in the country. Far from it. There are acts of violence here and there around the country. However the violence was not or is not triggered by the election. It is not election-inspired violence. Yet, the violence is related to ethnically motivated actions inspired by extremist or nationalist politicians who have taken up arms to execute their plans by force.
As far as the election is concerned, it is important to make a distinction between violence by ethnically motivated extremists and election-motivated violence. The former kind of violence is indiscriminate, irrational, blind and widespread. So far, there is no violence in connection with election campaign. True a few people were reportedly killed after the start of the electoral process. However, they were the victims of random violence whose motives remain murky, the killers unidentified and their motives still remain mysterious. Overall the process remains largely free from acts of violence and it is the hope of the general public that it will remain so until the end of the process.
Election 2021 seems to be fought over the media and through artistic mediums like photographic displays, banners and colorful billboards. Music and poetic lyrics also blast over the huge players and microphones. Music, slogans and anthems have always been the catalysts of popular uprisings in Ethiopia, starting from the time of the student movement down to this day. The Derg was a huge fan of revolutionary songs, music and poetry.
Music accompanied soldiers at the many fronts across the country. Patriotic songs blasted from tanks and armored vehicles. Theatre groups staged their plays for soldiers at the fronts. Poet Laureate Tsegaye G/Medhin, perhaps the country’s greatest national poet and playwright staged an Amharic version of Brecht’s “Mother Courage” and theatre lovers formed long queues at the gates of theatre houses. The Revolution started with songs and dances and ended with bloodshed, cries of agony and tears of tragedy.
The EPRDF that shared many of the ideals of the self-proclaimed communist state of the Derg, was also a keen practitioner of songs and slogans. However, the arts in general were largely used as tools of political deception, before it committed political suicide and lost everything it stood for in the past.
Election campaigning involves all the tools or elements of artistic media. What it lacks so far is the glitter and substance of the spoken word. Most contesting parties in this year’s election are newcomers to the political scene and those that are experienced have lost some of their past sparkle. Few of them have a well-articulated and clear election manifesto or election strategy.
Their arguments are heavy on ethnic issues and light on economic agendas. Others are focusing exclusively on the old and beaten approach of blaming the ruling party for all the ills that the nation is facing at this time. They do so by absolving themselves of some of the serious mistakes they committed in the past and during election 2005 in particular.
There is a Chinese saying that goes like, “It does not matter whether the cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice” By the same token what counts most in this election is whether or not the contesting parties deliver democracy to the people. This is perhaps the gargantuan challenge all the parties face since modern party politics started in Ethiopia.
BY MULUGETA GUDETA
The Ethiopian Herald June 6/2021
