Ogaden Online Editorial

If I do not vote on Election Day they [the TPLF] will come and ask me and even take me out of my house… The candidates are not elected to alleviate my problems. They are elected to be crowned [as Kings]1.

The above quote provides an on the scene recording and a perfect opening for an article whose intention is to shed some light on the phenomena of electioneering for personal profit in Ethiopia. This phenomena is exercised by a privileged view led by Meles Zenawi of TPLF and most of the outside world only hears about it once every three to four years. May be you have heard it by an other name; may be you did not as you may have been blinded by the skeletal pictures of famine victims news emanating from Ethiopia; or worse you may still be wondering whether all the electioneering money could be better spent on rehabilitating those affected by the famine. However it is imperative that we look in depth as to what happens in the name of ‘Democracy’ in Ethiopia once every four years.

As the above quote from a peasant who relies solely on food-for-work programmes for sustenance in Mekele, Zenawi’s hometown, demonstrates there are no elections in Ethiopia. There are exercises created and run to perfection by Zenawi and his cronies in Addis Ababa. These exercises are titled ‘elections’ however there is neither personal choice for whether one wants to run as a candidate or not, nor any resemblance of an election as those to be elected have already been nominated in secret and are to be acclaimed in public once the general populace implements Zenawi’s futile ‘election’ exercises. Any sane individual will be shocked if they saw their name on a ballot as a candidate when they have not even given any thought as to whether to run or not in an election. For those in the outside world and the West in particular, the aforementioned scenario of seeing oneself on the ballot when one have not given any thought is considered only as a hearsay and unimaginable. Even if it happens such a process will be deemed a fraud and farce. However for many in Ethiopia in general and in Ogadenia in particular such a scenario is real. Researchers at the NIHR, Norwegian Institute of Human Rights, who wrote the book Ethiopia since the DERG, report one such scenario where in Wukro constituency, for example, in the 2000 election one of the candidates was surprised to see her name in the list of TPLF candidates when she has neither been asked nor informed about her candidacy. In both the 1995 and 2000 elections and most probably in this year’s upcoming electioneering exercises in Ogadenia all candidates have been pre-ordained from Addis Ababa. There are documented cases where candidates have been barred from running by the head of the TPLF militia in many constituencies in Ogaden.
Any exercise where would be candidates are preordained by an elite few is not an election but a public fraud. Any ‘election’ where candidates are secretly confirmed of their place in a supposedly elected parliament even before the public has a chance to make their selections known is not an election but a farcical process. Any process where a militia head has the authority to bar a candidate from running in a supposedly free election is not an election but an electioneering for personal profit to prolong the status enjoyed by an elite few. This is what happens, is happening and will happen in Ethiopia and in Ogadenia for years to come if the outside world in general and the West in particular does not bring Zenawi’s electioneering exercises to an end. The money spent on this exercises will be better spent in preventing the manmade famines that are becoming a yearly fixture in Ethiopia in general and in Ogadenia in particular.

1 Pausewang, Tronvoll, and Lovise Aale. ETHIOPIA since the Derg. London: Zed Books Ltd, 2002. 83-90.

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Ogaden Online Editorial posted this article on Jan 31, 2005
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