Comments on: Can democracy be salvaged in Ethiopia by the 2010 elections? http://www.ethiopianreview.com/content/11065 Ethiopian News and Opinion Journal Fri, 10 Feb 2012 20:45:05 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Hhmm http://www.ethiopianreview.com/content/11065/comment-page-1#comment-72799 Hhmm Fri, 23 Oct 2009 18:15:58 +0000 http://www.ethiopianreview.com/content/?p=11065#comment-72799 I very much like the positive and optimistic look and hope professor has on the future of Ethiopia. Will the 2010 election make a difference in Ethiopian history? Let us look at it even from the Professors perspective itself. He mentioned the Ghanaians success towards democratization. He mentioned the essential prerequisites for a successful multiparty democracy Ghanaians demonstrated: the institutionalization of the rule of law that meet international human rights standards, the creation of a strong judiciary with extraordinary constitutional powers that made failure to obey a Supreme Court order a “high crime”, protections for civil liberties, independent electoral commission and abolition of tribal or ethnic-based political party formation. None of these do exist in Ethiopia now. There is no rule of low and due process, human rights are being grossly violated in different parts of Ethiopia. People and parties are being dealt with grave retribution for the position they have, ideas they expressed etc., the judiciary system is a phony when it comes to political matters, electoral commission (the registrar) is one arm of the TPLF government, party formation based on ethnicity is taken as a goal (divide and rule diabolical scheme of TPLF), individuals are allowed to rule the country indefinitely like kings and new conditions and rules have been in place that make free involvement of political parties more difficult than ever before. Is professor Alemayehu honestly believe that all these preconditions will be met before the election time? Or is he advising us to be party of the process the process to make it more “hot”. I very much like the positive and optimistic look and hope professor has on the future of Ethiopia. Will the 2010 election make a difference in Ethiopian history? Let us look at it even from the Professors perspective itself. He mentioned the Ghanaians success towards democratization.

He mentioned the essential prerequisites for a successful multiparty democracy Ghanaians demonstrated: the institutionalization of the rule of law that meet international human rights standards, the creation of a strong judiciary with extraordinary constitutional powers that made failure to obey a Supreme Court order a “high crime”, protections for civil liberties, independent electoral commission and abolition of tribal or ethnic-based political party formation.
None of these do exist in Ethiopia now. There is no rule of low and due process, human rights are being grossly violated in different parts of Ethiopia. People and parties are being dealt with grave retribution for the position they have, ideas they expressed etc., the judiciary system is a phony when it comes to political matters, electoral commission (the registrar) is one arm of the TPLF government, party formation based on ethnicity is taken as a goal (divide and rule diabolical scheme of TPLF), individuals are allowed to rule the country indefinitely like kings and new conditions and rules have been in place that make free involvement of political parties more difficult than ever before.
Is professor Alemayehu honestly believe that all these preconditions will be met before the election time? Or is he advising us to be party of the process the process to make it more “hot”.

]]> By: Dire http://www.ethiopianreview.com/content/11065/comment-page-1#comment-72770 Dire Thu, 22 Oct 2009 17:53:18 +0000 http://www.ethiopianreview.com/content/?p=11065#comment-72770 I hope we are not sitting back and waiting for the terrorist TPLF to turn democractic overnoght and usher democracy in Ethiopia in its next sham election it is planning to hold. Nor are we expecting the West to push for democracy in Ethiopia because it is something they want to see or it is in their best interest. Democracy comes to Ethiopia only when we the people are determined to have it and are ready to do what it takes to get there. Ghanians did not have it because the West pushed for it. Botswanians have it because the West wanted them to have it. South Africans have it not because of the West and in fact to the contrary it is despite the West's unrelented effort to prolong the White minority rule by giving it all kinds of support. Same thing in Benin, Senegal and the list can go on. We will get democracy in Ethiopia only when we are honest to ourselves, to our people and our country that we do not have any fear from a full blown democracy in Ethiopia and ready to live with all the consequences of what democracy has to offer. We cannot go for democracy half heartedly. If we are pitching only for a democaracy that brings the imposition of the domination of one ethnic group despite the will of the Ethiopian people or if we want democracy that only brings a click from our ethnic group to power, it means we are not ready for democracy and no amount of the will of the West can help bring genuine democracy in such environment in Ethiopia. Such thinking only prolongs the status quo, i.e., the duration of the terrorization of the Ethiopian people by the TPLF terrorist group as it has been doing for the last 18 or so years. If we want to change the status quo, we have to first change ourselves and embrace democracy wholly without any if's and but's. Once we are form on our decision about embracing democracy, the rest of the journey is a downhill walk. MEDREK is not a perfect but it is a good starting and compromising point once we embrace democracy in Ethiiopia whole-heartedly. If we support change and democracy in Ethiopia we must support MEDREK. With our support Medrek can force its way into the terrorist TPLF sham election and use it as a platform to elicit the long overdue change in Ethiopia. I don not mean we have play into the hands of the terrorist TPLF by being tricked to playing its game but use its sham election fever as a rallying platform to mobilize our people and use the TPLF's game to our advantage. We can do that if we put our minds together. Remember if we stay away from supporting MEDREK for one or the other reason, we are supporting the status quo and that meeans supporting terrorist TPLF. We are either with MEDREK or the with the terrorist TPLF and there is no middle ground to hide. The choice is clear and it is ours to make. No execuse. Dire I hope we are not sitting back and waiting for the terrorist TPLF to turn democractic overnoght and usher democracy in Ethiopia in its next sham election it is planning to hold. Nor are we expecting the West to push for democracy in Ethiopia because it is something they want to see or it is in their best interest. Democracy comes to Ethiopia only when we the people are determined to have it and are ready to do what it takes to get there. Ghanians did not have it because the West pushed for it. Botswanians have it because the West wanted them to have it. South Africans have it not because of the West and in fact to the contrary it is despite the West’s unrelented effort to prolong the White minority rule by giving it all kinds of support. Same thing in Benin, Senegal and the list can go on. We will get democracy in Ethiopia only when we are honest to ourselves, to our people and our country that we do not have any fear from a full blown democracy in Ethiopia and ready to live with all the consequences of what democracy has to offer. We cannot go for democracy half heartedly. If we are pitching only for a democaracy that brings the imposition of the domination of one ethnic group despite the will of the Ethiopian people or if we want democracy that only brings a click from our ethnic group to power, it means we are not ready for democracy and no amount of the will of the West can help bring genuine democracy in such environment in Ethiopia. Such thinking only prolongs the status quo, i.e., the duration of the terrorization of the Ethiopian people by the TPLF terrorist group as it has been doing for the last 18 or so years. If we want to change the status quo, we have to first change ourselves and embrace democracy wholly without any if’s and but’s. Once we are form on our decision about embracing democracy, the rest of the journey is a downhill walk. MEDREK is not a perfect but it is a good starting and compromising point once we embrace democracy in Ethiiopia whole-heartedly. If we support change and democracy in Ethiopia we must support MEDREK. With our support Medrek can force its way into the terrorist TPLF sham election and use it as a platform to elicit the long overdue change in Ethiopia. I don not mean we have play into the hands of the terrorist TPLF by being tricked to playing its game but use its sham election fever as a rallying platform to mobilize our people and use the TPLF’s game to our advantage. We can do that if we put our minds together. Remember if we stay away from supporting MEDREK for one or the other reason, we are supporting the status quo and that meeans supporting terrorist TPLF. We are either with MEDREK or the with the terrorist TPLF and there is no middle ground to hide. The choice is clear and it is ours to make. No execuse.
Dire

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