BY MULUGETA GUDETA
Culture is something that changes through a long gestation period. The term culture may have different meanings for different people. Generally speaking, culture encompasses the entire range of the political, economic, social habits that are formed through a long process of interconnected development. In its narrow definition, culture may focus on a narrow conception of the common traditions such as the marriage and death rituals, the common habits and way of thinking of a group of people living in a locality. Political culture is only one of the many cultures or traditions people of a region or a country develop and share in their long interactions.
The recent democratic elections in Ethiopia and the establishment of a new government is expected to change the culture of secrecy and opacity that defined the country for many decades and introduce transparency in all government activities. It may also facilitate the flow of information to the public without the entrenched bureaucratic hindrances that had so far made a huge dent into public trust in authority.
The massive turnout during the recent general election in Ethiopia has demonstrated the public hunger for good governance, transparency, fairness, and rule of law without which elections lose their real significance. Democracy is not a ritual that takes place every four or five year in order to change government structures. It is rather a tool for changing not only the composition of government but also its functioning as well as reforming power relations.
Ethiopian political culture is usually characterized by the absence of accountability, transparency and rule of law for many decades now. Governments have so far been formed through a system of appointments from above by the king or the monarchical authorities. In some cases, revolutionary events have led to the establishment of the Derg military government whose mandate were based not on popular will but on a “strongman” who was bold enough to step forward and claim the mantle of leadership.
Whenever there were elections that took place within the system of one party or one man rule their outcomes did nothing to change the composition or the systems of governance. When self-proclaimed “revolutionaries” came to power in 1991, they continued the culture of one man, one-party rule under new pretensions or claims. In all cases, it was kind of old wine in new bottles. And whenever elections threatened to shake the status quo as they did during the historic 2005 elections, the authorities quickly moved to close all the avenues for a peaceful democratic change. It was back to square one.
Election 2021 may not be a perfectly democratic election. For that matter there are no perfect elections anywhere in the world. Even in the United States with its more than 200 years of electoral exercise, democracy was sometimes threatened to be derailed either by populist politicians or by presidential candidates with authoritarian tendencies who went as far as resisting the outcomes of the democratic ballots with the intent to stay in power by non-democratic means. In emerging democracies, elections may be marred by irregularities and or lead to violence whenever the contestants refused to accept the ballot results.
This year’s election in Ethiopia might have faced problems largely emanating from lack of experience from the new national Electoral Board of Ethiopia(NEBE) or from the pre-election political turmoil that have made it difficult to organize a flawless election campaign. There were also reports of irregularities by the contesting parties that were reported to the NEBE for consideration. Moreover all, all election constituencies could not carry out a peaceful process due to security reasons and many of the offices were closed for various reasons.
Despite the odds however, this election can be considered a relatively better managed and fairer exercise than previous such events. The NEBE is relatively free from executive interference while no serious cases of tampering with the results were reported by the participating parties. All said and done, Election 2021 has taken Ethiopia’s electoral history one step forward and laid out the rudimentary institutional framework for more democratic elections in the future.
The positive impact of elections cannot only be assessed by appraising the processes and the outcomes. More importantly, the impacts can be assessed from the positive contributions they make on the system of governance. A democratic election may or may not change the composition of the power structures or the way people are governed. A relatively more democratic election is bound at least to change the perception of governance as something given from above rather than emanating from the will of the electorate.
In this sense, this year’s election in Ethiopia has in some way impacted popular perception by returning to the public what belonged to the public; namely the power of the ballot box. “Change of government only through the ballot” is a powerful motto that radically departed from Ethiopia’s political culture that always expected change from above.
Now that the elections are over and the result are more or less made public, what do the elector expect from the elected government? This question has been raised both by the incumbent and opposition parties prior to the election. People go to the ballot to vote because they want positive change in governance system and culture. They want to see authoritarianism replaced with a government of popular consensus. They want to see a government accountable to the electorate and to the public at large, They want a transparent government whose policy decisions and implementations are visible to the voters.
Electors do not only want to appoint a government through a democratic process. They also want to recall a government whenever it lacks legitimacy or popular support either in parliament or in the streets. They want everyone in the country be under the law and face impeachment whenever serious breaches of trust take places even at the highest echelons of government.
For many decades if not centuries, Ethiopia’s political culture was noted for its opacity, absence of accountability let alone the recall of officials who infringe upon the laws. Transparency in government also include the media and the management of information as one branch of government. In this age and time, government cannot survive for long in a state of invisibility as technological advances have made it impossible to hide what is going on in government. The media are powerful tools of public control and public awareness that impact on how they are governed or how the rulers behave towards the people who have elected or did not elect them. They are responsible towards those who elected them and did not elect them.
In the past, lack of transparency in government has led to cases of grand corruption, massive embezzlement of public funds, budgetary deficits and mismanagement, and misinformation as to how money slated for development purposes was appropriated by the pertinent authorities. The combined effect of the absence of transparency in government in obviously the disappearance of massive development funds, the embezzlement of taxpayers’ money and the prevalence of massive fraud in almost all government departments.
No government is run by angels and humans are fallible and prone to making serious mistakes whenever they are appointed to the highest offices of authority. This is not to say that all high officials may be corrupt. It is only to emphasize on the well-known adage that “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
In Ethiopia, Corruption has always been a serious malady the body politic has always been suffering from. Therefore one of the principal tasks of an elected government is the determination to start tackling institutionalized corruption at its root through a government system based on strict transparency and accountability. Unless elections help the government and the public achieve this, the huge budget allocated for organizing election would be like money thrown into the sea.
A government whose mandate directly comes from the electorate through democratic elections has also the mandate to change the prevailing perceptions on corruption and implement a national program against to tackle entrenched corruption at its roots. EPRDF’s so-called ethnic federalism has for many decades instituted corruption in walks of public life by allocating assets according to legitimate or rightful claims but through a system of ethnic-based practices favoring one ethnic group over another that led to large-scale moral and ethical decadence.
Although the now-defunct EPRDF government established an anti-corruption institution in the form of the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission, it has largely remained toothless and was manipulated by the then authorities who did not want their corrupt practices exposed to the public. The newly elected government whose mandate come from the popular will as expressed during the recent elections is therefore expected to have it hands free to rectify past mistakes and make a new start in the fight against institutionalized corruption.
The free flow of information through the media, arts and literature can play a crucial supportive role for the implementation of the anti-corruption initiatives that will be taken by the new government. Moreover, the presence of candidates from opposition parties in the new legislature would give additional impetus for the implementation of a consistent and effective anti-corruption policies in addition to changing the public perception in a more ethnical and positive direction.
Arts, literature and the media can thus be vital instruments for spreading anti-corruption morality. Ideas of civic duties and responsible behavior as articulated in works of arts and literature can be potent weapons against the long-entrenched practice of taking bribes from members of the public and abusing authority in order to amass ill-gotten wealth. Fighting corruption requires a holistic approach and the use of all available tools to uproot it and build the foundations for a well-informed, fair and vibrant civil society. This work has barely been started and it requires sustainable support from the media, the arts and literature as tools of social transformation and in the transfer of democratic values. In this sense, the post-election period in Ethiopia might be challenging for elected officials as well as the general public hat does not want to continue living in the old, archaic and regressive ways.
The Ethiopian Herald July 9/2021
