Over the last three years, Ethiopia had been at a cross road politically as the widespread unrest was erupting in some parts of the country. The unrest in one way or another led to the resignation of the former Prime Minister Hailemariam Dessalegn and paved the way for the team of reformists within the ruling party to assume the state power .
After taking office, the reformists have been busy in carrying out a number of political and economical reforms. They have set free thousands of political prisoners, invited armed groups to the negotiation table, declared the need of privatizing some-state owned enterprises that used to be a government’s red line when it comes to the issue of privatization for last 27 years.
Particularly, the ongoing political reforms have brought national consensus among the competing parties as some of them have already begun to merge with one of the alliances of the ruling party.
Besides, the aforementioned successful reforms, the incumbent needs to make the forthcoming sixth general elections fair, free and credible using advanced voting technology.
As the incumbent has on several occasions announced that it is exerting maximum efforts in implementing automated voting system in one and half year left general elections amid electoral fraud .
If the government put success in the bag introducing the technology, it will be a step froward in terms of conducting flawless election in the history of the country.
Of course, carrying out democratic and fair elections in support of latest technology that prevents vote rigging is a must in a country like Ethiopia that is at its early stage of building democracy.
But, at this time, every fellow citizen is asking the question that whether the nation is capable of using automated voting system or not. This is because the Ethiopian National Electoral Board(ENEB) does not have much time left to introduce the technology before the election.
Moreover, the country needs to put in place infrastructure that goes along with this system,and on the top ENEB needs some time to find out other best sorts of electoral technology.
It is obvious that Ethiopia will break the vicious circle of its current political unrest so long as it manages to conduct fair ,free and credible general elections using latest,cost effective and voter friendly electoral technology.
Undoubtedly, the era of blaming the ENEB for any election manipulation will be over, if it uses such technology appropriately and timely.
It is worth mentioning here that the country needs to strengthen its Cyber security with a view to preventing cyber attack that may pose serious threats on the automated upcoming general elections.
Similarly, the nation needs to work on developing the skills of various election officials about the-state-of-the-art technologies related to election.. It is also a must to organize various awareness raising programs to the public on such technology and how to handle if something goes wrong with the technology.
All in all , making use of voter friendly and latest voting technology by itself is not a final solution to electoral fraud , there should be unanimous common understanding about electoral technology by all competing parties aimed at solving misunderstanding relating with post election phase.
Herald December 11/2018
