The Ethiopian 2010 federal and regional elections: Re-establishing the one-party state

African Affairs

Volumn 110, Issue 438, 2011, Pages 121-136

  Tronvoll, Kjetil ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF OSLO   (Norway)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ELECTION; ELECTORAL GEOGRAPHY; FEDERAL SYSTEM; PARTY POLITICS;

ETHIOPIA;

EID: 78650741374     PISSN: 00019909     EISSN: 14682621     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/afraf/adq076     Document Type: Article

References (87)

1. Christopher Clapham, 'The challenge of democratization in Ethiopia', Whitehall Papers 63, 1 (2004), pp. 71-82, 72.
2. For a comprehensive study of the first decade of democratization after the EPRDF takeover, see Siegfried Pausewang, Kjetil Tronvoll, and Lovise Aalen (eds), Ethiopia Since the Derg: A decade of democratic pretension and performance (Zed Books, London, 2002).
3. For a recent review of the democratization period and scholarly work on it, see Kjetil Tronvoll, 'Ambiguous elections: the influence of non-electoral politics in Ethiopian democratization', Journal of Modern African Studies 47, 3 (2009), pp. 449-74.
4. On the conduct of the 2008 local elections, see Lovise Aalen and Kjetil Tronvoll, 'Briefing: The 2008 Ethiopian local elections: the return of electoral authoritarianism', African Affairs 108, 430 (2009), pp. 111-20.
5. Medrek ('Forum') is composed of eight political parties: Ethiopian Social Democratic Party, Southern Ethiopian Peoples' Democratic Coalition, Oromo People's Congress, Oromo Federalist Democratic Movement, Aarena Tigray for Democracy and Sovereignty, Coalition of Somali Democratic Forces, Unity for Democracy and Justice, and Ethiopian Democratic Unity Movement.
6. Interview, Beyene Petros, Addis Ababa, 28 May 2009.
7. For a sample of these studies, see Jon Abbink, 'Discomfiture or democracy? The 2005 election crisis in Ethiopia and its aftermath', African Affairs 105, 419 (2006), pp. 173-99.
8. Jon Abbink, 'The Ethiopian second republic and the fragile "social contract" ', Africa Spectrum 44, 2 (2009), pp. 3-28.
9. René Lefort, 'Powers - mengist - and peasants in rural Ethiopia: the May 2005 elections', Journal of Modern African Studies 45, 2 (2007), pp. 253-73.
10. René Lefort, 'Powers - mengist - and peasants in rural Ethiopia: the post-2005 interlude', Journal of Modern African Studies 48, 3 (2010), pp. 435-60.
11. Lovise Aalen and Kjetil Tronvoll, 'The end of democracy? Curtailing civil and political rights in Ethiopia', Review of African Political Economy 36, 120 (2009) pp. 193-207.
12. Tronvoll, 'Ambiguous elections'.
13. See also Human Rights Watch, 'One hundred ways of putting pressure: violations of freedom of expression and association in Ethiopia' (Human Rights Watch, New York, 2010).
14. Producing such ideological tracts at important crossroads and during party crisis is a deep-rooted tradition within the Tigray Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF), the key party within the EPRDF coalition. They used to be drafted by central party ideologists, and later discussed and decided upon in the central committee and polit bureau of the party. After the 2001 TPLF dissent process, when many of the ideologists were purged, it is believed that these booklets are most often written by Meles Zenawi himself, and no longer undergo the collective scrutiny of the party leadership. The post-2005 booklets included Development, Democracy and Revolutionary Democracy (originally in Amharic, published August 2006) and Strategy of Revolutionary Democracy, Tactics and the Question of Leadership (in Amharic, published January 2007).
15. See Lefort, 'Powers - mengist - and peasants', p. 455.
16. New booklets were also developed in the fall of 2009 in order to inspire and instruct the party apparatus ahead of the 2010 elections. The last instructions were published in April 2010 in Manual for Top Leadership to Be Followed in the Last Days of the Election Process (in Amharic). In these strategic booklets, Medrek is termed 'the force of destruction'.
17. Meaning the legally registered opposition parties in Ethiopia.
18. That is, the government party EPRDF. It is important to bear in mind that the EPRDF's conception of democracy is not the liberal variety known in the West (based on individual participation, a diversity of interests and views, and plural representation). On the contrary, the EPRDF considers liberal democracy to be a misfit under the social, economic, and political conditions prevailing in Ethiopia. What the Front calls 'revolutionary democracy' is based on communal collective participation and representation based on (forced) consensus. The EPRDF's perception of democracy is formed partly by ideological conditioning (Marxist and Maoist precepts of mass political mobilization), and partly by historical experience during the TPLF's seventeen-year struggle to liberate Tigray from the Derg regime.
19. For more on revolutionary democracy, see Sarah Vaughan and Kjetil Tronvoll, The Culture of Power in Contemporary Ethiopian Political Life (Sidastudies, Stockholm, 2003).
20. Medhane Tadesse and John Young, 'TPLF: reform or decline?', Review of African Political Economy 30, 97 (2003), pp. 389-403.
21. See also the forthcoming special issue of Journal of Eastern African Studies on twenty years of revolutionary democracy in Ethiopia, to appear in 2011.
22. Democracy and Democratic Unity in Ethiopia (EPRDF, Addis Ababa, 2006), Chapter 9, section 9.1 (Amharic version, unofficial translation).
23. Interviews conducted in 2006 with several participants in these seminars.
24. Lefort, 'Powers - mengist - and peasants in rural Ethiopia'.
25. Abbink, 'Discomfiture or democracy?'.
26. Aalen and Tronvoll, 'The end of democracy?'.
27. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) ranks Ethiopia as the country in the world (with Somalia) with the highest number of exiled journalists in the last decade. Between August 2001 and May 2010, 62 Ethiopian journalists were forced to flee the country - 15 of whom left in the last year alone - in the face of attacks, threats, and possible imprisonment, according to CPJ. Committee to Protect Journalists, 'Ethiopia: highest number of exiled journalists in the world in the last decade' (CPJ press release, New York, 17 June 2010).
28. Human Rights Watch, 'One hundred ways'.
29. See also an illustrative report by Dr Negasso Gidada, the former EPRDF President of Ethiopia and currently one of the opposition leaders in the Medrek coalition, on the strategies used by the EPRDF to curb his party's activities in the Wollega area of Ormoia.
30. Negaso Gidada, 'No level playing field in the 2010 Ethiopian election' (Ethiomedia.com, 13 October 2009).
31. Interview, Merera Gudina, Addis Ababa, 28 May 2009.
32. These codes covered media, diplomatic, and international observers' activities, in addition to political parties as discussed above. For instance, initial drafts of the media regulation restricted foreign and local journalists from even speaking to anyone involved in the election process, including voters on election day. This clause was later modified, although the government kept a close watch on all foreign journalists applying for a visa to follow the elections.
33. Human Rights Watch, 'One hundred ways'.
34. The original signatories were Meles Zenawi (EPRDF), Hailu Shawl (All Ethiopian Unity Organization, AEUO), Lidetu Ayalew (Ethiopian Democratic Party, EDP), and Ayele Chamisso (Coalition for Unity and Democracy Party, CUDP). Subsequently, the EPRDF member parties and affiliates also signed the Code of Conduct.
35. Barry Malone, 'Ethiopia's Meles agrees to election rules' (Reuters report, 31 October 2009).
36. Interview, Gebru Asrat, Addis Ababa, 3 November 2009.
37. The establishment of inter-party committees as a complaint mechanism was a new institution; its effect, however, was negligible.
38. Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs 'Historic consent on code of conduct ahead of 2010 elections' (Press release, Addis Ababa, 2 November 2009).
39. VOA News, 'Ethiopian opposition leader faces fierce ruling party challenge' (Voice of America News, 20 May 2010), (22 October 2010).
40. The deadline for registering candidates was extended in order to accommodate complaints put forward by the political parties through the National Joint Council for Political Parties.
41. Of the HoR candidates, 1,916 were male (87.6 percent) and 272 female (12.4 percent); and of 4,746 candidates for the Regional State Councils, 4,021 were male (84.7 percent) and 725 were female (15.3 percent). All statistics taken from NEBE, (14 October 2010).
42. VOA News, 'Ethiopian opposition says would-be candidates arrested' (Voice of America News, 13 January 2010), (14 October 2010).
43. Numbers provided by NEBE, (15 October 2010).
44. Still, many Ethiopian sources question this high number of registered voters and argue that it has been artificially inflated in order to give legitimacy to the election outcome.
45. 'The Prime Minister's press conference in Addis Ababa: "We will not repeat the mistakes committed in the 2005 elections" ', The Reporter, 12 December 2009.
46. EU-EOM, 'Preliminary statement' (European Union Election Observer Mission - Ethiopia 2010, Addis Ababa, 25 May 2010), p. 6.
47. That is, NEBE generally responded by calling for 'mediation' on the issue, or referring the case to the police or Joint Councils. This election did see a new complaint system mechanism, where three channels were established to resolve election complaints: (1) the judiciary; (2) the NEBE's Grievance Hearing Committees; and (3) the Joint Councils for Political Parties (established by the Code of Conduct for Political Parties and entrusted with the mandate to investigate complaints and criticize them, but with no power of sanction but to refer it to the court). Medrek, as a non-signatory to the Code, was not part of the Joint Councils.
48. EU-EOM, 'Preliminary statement', p. 9.
49. Jason McLure, 'Candidate is stabbed to death in Ethiopia', New York Times, 2 March 2010,
50. IRIN, 'Ethiopia: government denies food aid "manipulated" for political gain', 7 June 2010, (14 October 2010).
51. See also Human Rights Watch, 'One hundred ways'.
52. EU-EOM, 'Preliminary statement', p. 6.
53. The European Commission dispatched, upon invitation from Ethiopia, what became in effect a short-term observer mission to the country. The core team of a handful of persons arrived in the country on 14 April 2010, while so-called 'long-term' observers arrived on 24 April, just four weeks prior to election day (extra election day observers followed in the week of the election, bringing the EU team total to 170 observers). The EU-EOM thus did not observe the candidate registration, the voter registration, and the bulk of the campaigning; their reporting, given these methodological constraints, must therefore be inadequate.
54. EU-EOM, 'Preliminary statement', p. 10.
55. NEBE instructed the opposition parties to submit the list of party agents 10 days prior to polling day. According to Professor Merera Gudina, this list was subsequently given to the security forces, who used it to track down the party agents and used intimidation to deter many from carrying out their task. Interview, Merera Gudina, Addis Ababa, 28 May 2010.
56. Interview, Gebru Asrat, Addis Ababa, 29 May 2010.
57. The structures of local 'governance' reach down to each household in Ethiopia. The lowest entity of local administration is the lemmat budin, comprising five to ten households.
58. Aalen and Tronvoll, 'The end of democracy?', p. 205.
59. Cheliya 2 and Nono-Jibat.
60. Interviews with several long-term international residents of Addis Ababa.
61. For instance, in Woreda 25, Zone 5, Addis Ababa, EPRDF received 21,231 votes, while Medrek received 18,909; in Woreda 4, Zone 1, Addis Ababa EPRDF received 12,753 votes, while Medrek got 10,085. In Cheliya 1, Western Shoa, Oromia Region, EPRDF received 15,640, while Medrek received 13,681. In Male special zone, South Omo, in Southern Region, EPRDF received 7,312 while Medrek received 5,510. All data from NEBE website.
62. Woreda 6, Zone 1, Addis Ababa: Girma Seifu Maru (Medrek), 12,282 votes; Kamil Ahmed Naji (EPRDF), 12,278 votes. Data from NEBE website.
63. The independent candidate, Dr Asheber Woldegiorgies (a dentist by profession), is a well-known character in his community. He accredited his victory to the fact that the EPRDF candidate in his constituency is strongly disliked by the people. According to Dr Asheber the EPRDF was aware of his unpopularity, and the regional authorities wanted to remove him, but the Zone resisted. Interview, Asheber Woldegiorgis, Addis Ababa, 29 May 2010.
64. NEBE does not provide in its electoral results announcement the regional breakdown of votes per party, only on a constituency level. In Addis Ababa, for instance, EPRDF won about 60 percent of the votes, while the opposition block took 39 percent (EPRDF 564,764; Medrek 384,245; EDP 35,405; AEUP 19,234; CUDP 13,795; Others 19,873).
65. Debebe Deres, 'Election 2010: PM Meles speech and the extremist disapora' (Waltainfo, 7 June 2010), (17 October 2010).
66. Ethiopian News Agency, 'The Ethiopian Peoples' Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) had won the election in a land mark victory getting 499 of the 547 federal parliamentary seats' (ENA, Addis Ababa, 21 June 2010).
67. See also the summary report on the NEBE website.
68. Abebe Gellaw, '2010 Ethiopia's embarrassing elections', Wall Street Journal, 1 June 2010, (15 October 2010).
69. Interview, Negasso Gidada, Addis Ababa, 29 May 2010.
70. Interview, Merera Gudina, Addis Ababa, 28 May 2010.
71. Agence-France Presse, 'Ethiopia's ruling party and its allies won more than 99 percent of votes during last month's controversial legislative polls' (AFP, 21 June 2010).
72. Barry Malone, 'Ethiopia supreme court rejects election result case' (Reuters, Addis Ababa, 18 June 2010), (15 October 2010).
73. Barry Malone, '2010 Ethiopia opposition mounts court challenge to election' (Reuters, Addis Ababa, 16 June 2010).
74. I have observed or researched every election in Ethiopia since the coming to power of EPRDF in 1991. Since 2005, however, the authorities have stated that they do not want to see me in the country on polling day in order to prevent me observing the actual voting process; apparently they dislike my scholarly interpretation of the democratization process.
75. Meeting, Addis Ababa, in the last week of May 2010.
76. See Lefort, 'Powers - mengist - and peasants in rural Ethiopia'.
77. 'Powers - mengist - and peasants in rural Ethiopia: the post-2005 interlude'.
78. René Lefort, 'Ethiopia's election: all losers', open Democracy, 20 July 2010, (17 October 2010).
79. Lefort, 'Ethiopia's election'.
80. In its regular 'A week in the Horn' update published by the Ethiopian Foreign Ministry, the government offers this as the main, and more or less only, reason explaining their total election victory. Under the heading 'Analyzing the election results: the two competing trends', the publications asks: 'Why did the EPRDF win and the opposition lose by such a wide margin? For some the question is not all that difficult to answer; they just point to the huge development works currently underway in the country: construction of infrastructure and the obvious transformation of a significant portion of the lives of the Ethiopian population as a result of the government's policies .... The fact that the EPRDF put much effort into campaigning, unlike in the past, is also believed to have made a significant contribution. What's more, these people also readily point to the opposition's lack of a well-thought-out political platform and strong organizational structure'.
81. 'A week in the Horn' (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Addis Ababa, 18 June 2010), .
82. Interview, Amhara businessman, Addis Ababa, 29 May 2010.
83. IRIN, 'Ethiopia: government denies food aid "manipulated" for political gain' (IRIN news report, 7 June 2010), (15 October 2010).
84. In combination with the stifling effect of the new party law on opposition activity, which prohibits political parties receiving funding/support from foreign accounts (held by the Ethiopian diaspora in US and Europe).
85. The re-arrest of the opposition leader Birtukan Mideksa in December 2008 sustained the neutralization of this electoral segment. Birtukan Mideksa was again released from prison in October 2010; it is plausible to argue that Meles Zenawi ordered her release after the elections so as to strengthen his democratic credentials vis-à-vis the international community.
86. Interview, EU diplomat, Addis Ababa, 29 May 2010.
87. Interviews, opposition leaders, Addis Ababa, 4-7 August 2010.