Pambazuka - What does President Obama "know" about Ethiopia's "election"? - 0 views
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africa development international governance pambazuka democratization ethiopia
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In the foregoing few words, Hailemariam Desalegn actually revealed his (I mean the TPLF’s) entire three-pronged strategy on how they plan to organize the theft of the 2015 election and repeat the 2010 crushing victory: 1) use state media and all other resources to hoodwink the people of Ethiopia that the 2015 election process will be democratic, free, fair and credible; 2) implement “our institutional process and our laws and regulations [that] are perfect” by 3) imposing on all political parties “the code of conduct” that his party has “put in place”. The TPLF's three-pronged strategy is actually the perfect game plan for the perfectly rigged election. The late Meles Zenawi wrote the perfect election rigging rulebook and “implemented” it in 2010. As a result, his party won the perfect election with 99.6 percent of the parliamentary seats.
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Prof. Hagmann’s observations also point to the total absurdity and futility of any “elections” in Ethiopia in light of the dogmatic belief of the leaders of the TPLF (and its handmaiden the “EPDRF”) in their birthright to rule: This is visible in the way EPDRF sees itself – namely as a vanguard party that has earned the right to lead the state, to determine what development is and how democracy is to be organized. Therefore, whoever is against the EPDRF is ‘anti-development’ or ‘anti-peace’ and whoever opposes its policies is anti-state.
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It is a known known to me that President Obama gave his implicit blessings in 2010 when the TPLF regime declared victory by 99.6 percent. He turned a blind eye and deaf ears. (Not so when he lectured Robert Mugabe for winning the presidential "election" in Zimbabwe in 2013 by 61 percent: “Zimbabweans have a new constitution. The economy is beginning to recover. So there is an opportunity to move forward but only if there is an election that is free and fair and peaceful so that Zimbabweans can determine their future without fear of intimidation and retribution.”) An election that was won by 61 percent is not "free and fair" and deserves public condemnation but an election won by 99.6 percent is free and fair and deserves private accolades?!
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Meles Zenawi ripped the final EU EOM election report as “trash that deserves to be thrown in the garbage”. He said, “The report is not about our election. It is just the view of some Western neo-liberals who are unhappy about the strength of the ruling party. Anybody who has paper and ink can scribble whatever they want.” Of course, Meles was legendary for his mastery and exquisite delivery of gutter language in political discourse. He could out-tongue-lash, out-mudsling, out-bully, out-vilify and out-smear any politician on the African continent. Meles also called the 2005 EU EOM Report a “pack of lies and innuendoes”.
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Since he believes civil society is the core of a democratic process, President Obama should use his leverage to ensure civil society institutions function freely in Ethiopia before the 2015 "election". What is President Obama’s leverage? Aid money. The hard earned tax dollars of the American people. American tax dollars given to African dictators in the name of helping Africans but end up in African dictators’ offshore accounts. Aid money talks and is heard loud and clear by the tone deaf TPLF bosses. As Dambissa Moyo documented in her book Dead Aid, the TPLF regime got a whopping 97 percent of its budget from foreign aid. Simply stated, the TPLF regime will not survive a single day without aid transfusion from the pockets of hardworking America taxpayers into its blood stream. President Obama needs to wag the annual welfare aid check in the faces of the salivating TPLF panhandlers and tell them what he told Africans in Accra Ghana in 2009: