On April 2, 2018, Abiy Ahmed (PhD) was swearing in the parliament as Prime Minister of the country pledging for social, political and economic improvements. The Premier has said that his government would work for the improvement of democratic and human rights, youth and women beneficiary. Aimed at widening the political arena, the government would sustain its effort to ensure liberty and boost the active participation of competing political parties.
“From now and on, the government will perceive the political parties not as opposition, but as competitors”, he had underlined. The government will work to ensure human and democratic rights than any other times. Accordingly, the right to expression, assembly and organize should be implemented up on the order of the constitution, the premier had noted. Among these social and political promises, the premier achieved to improve were human and democratic rights including the release of prisoners and gender disparity among the government officials. In this regard, the release of political figures including Prof.
Merera Gudina, Andualem Arage and Andargachew Tsige among others was one of the social achievements brought by the reformist administration ruling by Prime Minister Abiy since he took office. The zone nine bloggers and other famous journalists like Temesgen Dessalegn and Eskindir Nega were also among the released ones. On the other hand, he also equalized gender proportion among the government cabinets.
In this regard the nomination of President Sahlework Zewde and Federal Supreme Court President Meaza Ashenafi and various ministers is a significant measure. Last week various public discussions were held in various occasions focusing on the year-long journey of the reformist government in realizing changes in several sectors. In the programs organized by the Office of the Prime Minister, various scholars presented their professional observation and recommendations on the reform.
Fiseha Yitagesu State Minister at the Office of the Prime Minister was among the speakers. According to him, over the past one year, the administration was mainly focused on stabilizing the country and ensures human and democratic rights despite the challenges induced by long lived ethnic conflicts and administrative flaws made by the fresh government among others. In this regard, the administration has organized two commissions namely National Reconciliation, Identity and Administrative Border Affairs commissions.
The members for both commissions are hailed from various spectrums of lives and somehow believed to be combined and impartial. The prime minister once said that the commissions are formed in a bid to find out solution for the longstanding ethnic conflict through conducting research in spite of the resistance raised from some parties on the legal basis of the commissions.
Today, most individuals believe that the government needs to give the main responsibility of solving ethnic conflicts to the House of Federation. But they miss one thing that the house has faced resistance from uneasy number of citizens raising concern on the impartiality of the last national general elections.
Therefore, the establishment of the two commissions is critical as they provide an expertise’ recommendation. On the other hand, the government has been conducting various institutional reforms and legal amendments. In this regard, restructuring and widening the exposure of security bodies, the justice system, revising various restricting laws including the anti-terrorism law and civic societies and the national board of electorate establishment proclamations and others were among the reforms conducted to make the reform longstanding, according to Federal Attorney General Deputy Director General Gedion Temotiwos (PhD).
Currently, most of the competing political parties are listened saying that the political arena has already been widened. They have been also discussed with the ruling party on election and other human and democratic issues and the reform process among others.
The government has been working to improve the human rights of all citizens including those in prison. Politician Yonatan Tesfaye believes that today citizens have got the right to expression and this clearly seen via various mediums including the mainstream and the social media. However, the freedom freed some citizens to conduct misshapen. As to him, the government ought to find binding measures to those who pass the line.
There is lack of job opportunity. The youth (which covers about seventy percent of nation’s population) is under desperation and frustration, he said. Moreover, the wrongdoing government officials triggers the youth to mob justice. The society has a culture of faith than logical argument which is additional turmoil to the political conspiracy.
Due to this, most of the social media practitioners provoke negative thoughts even ranged to political conspiracy that will have the acceptance of the mass. In addition, the politicians especially those who advocate identity politics mobilize the public to aggravate their agendas. They convey negative messages even from the past contradicting history of the country, according to him.
The politicians’ polarized ideas promote avoiding any party sat to convey medium thoughts. Therefore the result of these polarized idea, identity politics and desperate youth magnify the instability, he noted. Over the past seven years, peoples were killed and some faced serious human right violations. And there were also internal displacements and ethnic based attack that let the people to develop sense of insecurity and lose faith on its leaders.
In addition, the widen gap between the poor and rich also created an aversion among the people, Addis Ababa University School of Social Works Assistant Prof. Abebe Assefa recently told to The Ethiopian Herald. The national grudge is also the result of wrong political propaganda and unfair distribution of national wealth over the past years. He believes that the government wrong administrative system influenced the public to react in mob and tribalism.
The system misbehaved individuals to disregard others from national resource. This is the major problem that rooted in the society and degrades the long lived mutual coexistence social values, he says. Some say shortcomings related to internal displacement, administrative flaws and political conspiracy in various areas by various elements are the challenges that would resist the reform in the long run.
The prime minister repeatedly said that the major problem behind such chaos is absence of democratic political culture and the instability might continue at least for the next one year. And the government will take measure through time to stabilize the country last long. To create a democratic nation the government, civic societies, the media, political organizations and every citizen should play its due role in supporting idea and policy than name and affiliation. But as a beginner, the political parties should work together regardless of ethnicity.
Ethnic politics mainly entertains kinship political gain than focusing on individual rights to develop democratic system. In this regard, the ruling coalition effort to establish a united party would play important role as it could be an example to other ethnic based parties to form unity to fight for national consensus and goal. The generation has to have the positive understanding of others and raise relevant ideas about the country to moderate the future, Abebe said.
Youths need to experience logical argument and tolerance to solve common misunderstandings shortly. Here, they should abstain from aggravating conflicts and widening individual’s disagreement to ethnic clash. The government needs to take analytic response to the public requests related to displacement, and self-administration among others. Here the two commissions would help to solve most of the problems. Similarly, the incumbent should strive to inspect the social media where most of the fake news and hate speeches heightened to mob justice.
The premier noted that the government is undertaking discussions with Facebook Company on the way to prevent hate speech and fake news. Of course, it takes time to create rational people that develop a culture of democracy both as a right and responsibility. According to Abebe, creating an accommodating and positive atmosphere is critical to reduce the hatred that has been prevailed due to negative political propaganda over the past years. It needs the commitment of all partners to nurture the positive social values and re-energize the public to live in tolerance.
“Our country is rich in history and we need back to our leading role in the continent by solving our problems in our own way. Hence, forgiveness would allow us to bring about peace as it is the major key to solve conflicts. However, the clemency should be from heart either by the offender or the victim. The national Reconciliation Commission will help to realize peace as it facilitates situations where the contradicting parties forgive each other.
These are the favorable methods applied to ensure peace by various nations that have share comparable sociopolitical incidents with Ethiopia.” On the other hand, the government ought to ensure fair distribution of national resource to realize peace side by side the political changes. To sum up, as it is repeatedly said by the scholars, stakeholders and all Ethiopians ought to freely discuss and point out possible solutions to their dissimilarities emanated from the constitution, ethnic based establishments, historic and political matters among others.
However, the government needs to go from the easy to the complicated issues by outlining priorities so that the reform will realize building the nation democratically. One thing that should not be missed is that the public ought to develop professionalism and restrain from looking for everything to happen immediately. It takes time to build a democratic nation but raising concern on the process is a rational act of every patriotic citizen.
The Ethiopian Herald April 2/2019
BY YOHANES JEMANEH
