Prime Minster Meles Zenawi's Letter to the Editor of the Ethiopian Herald
Part III

 The grapes are sour

      Having stated that the re-runs of elections were good or very good in 88% of the cases and that they were carried out in a peaceful and orderly manner according to the law, the EU-EOM could not resist the temptation to trash the same re-runs of elections. On page seven of the Statement they outline their criticism as follows:

1. Many voters lacked information about the re-run in their constituencies.

2. Registration did not involve all the people who voted in (sic) May 15th as the number of voters registered for the re-run was generally lower.

3. The turnout, as well, was much lower.

4. A very limited number of domestic observers were present in the Polling Stations.

5. Opposition parties’ representatives were often not present in the polling stations (CUD showed up at 4% of the polling stations, 20% for UEDF).

6. In most of the polling stations visited the chairperson did not provide sufficient information to the voters about the process and/or not in the appropriate regional language.

7. Although extremely limited cases of intimidation have been directly observed (3% of the cases), the presence, in some constituencies, of police, military forces or armed militia, even inside the polling stations, could have been perceived by voters as intimidating and was, anyhow, against the rules. This was the case namely in Kuyou, Bugna and Hagere-Selam, the last two constituencies where two top EPRDF candidates, Ministers in the current government, regained seats that they had lost according to the May 15 polling.”


I think it is pretty obvious that the list of “negative developments” is merely a matter of the EU-EOM declaring the grapes are sour and could thus be simply dismissed. But let us give the EU-EOM the benefit of the doubt that they have denied us and briefly review their criticism.

Let’s deal with the claim of intimidation first. They claim that there has been intimidation in 3% of the cases observed and you must also remember that the EU-EOM identified the constituencies that they felt would be most sensitive, most particularly the constituencies where senior EPRDF officials were candidates and made sure that they had adequate number of observers in those areas. They do not tell us what these acts of intimidation consisted of. It is possible that these so-called acts of intimidation amount to the presence of police and other armed people in and around polling stations. We have no way of knowing. Let us however for arguments sake agree that this were cases of actual intimidation. If that were to be the case it would be deplorable indeed. But clearly this does not amount to a pattern of intimidation. Even if we were to take the word of EU-EOM for it, the incidence of acts of intimidation are not such as to put the free and fair nature of the re-runs of elections in jeopardy.

The same old issue of the presence of armed people is raised in this last part of the report too. There are provisions in the law that provide for local law enforcement agencies to be present in polling stations. The presence of a limited number of law enforcement agents in polling stations to keep law and order if and when needed is in itself not contrary to international standards. The EU-EOM do not tell us as to how many law enforcement agents were in the polling stations and whether they were thereby invitation of the relevant electoral officers as the law requires. If they were thereby invitation and in numbers that is not excessive it would not be unlawful. In any case, the procedures of the CIPs which were agreed upon by all concerned parties provides for unarmed regular policemen to be present in every polling station.

If there have been armed regular police or other armed elements in the polling stations, it would be contrary to the agreement of the parties but the EU-EOM do not tell us whether that was indeed the case. If armed elements were within 500 meters of the polling stations that again would be against the law, but the EU-EOM does not tell us whether the “presence” of police, military forces or armed militia, in some constituencies, other than those who apparently were inside the polling stations, were “present” within the proscribed 500 meters.

There is also the more important issue of whether they were behaving in a threatening and intimidating manner or whether they were simply present. Their very presence does not cast any shadow on the fair and free nature of the elections. It seems however that the EU-EOM are incapable of making the distinction between the presence of armed elements and intimidation of voters.

The EU-EOM reports that opposition representatives were not present in most polling stations and there were a very limited number of domestic observers. That was indeed the case as the opposition parties and domestic observers sympathetic to them were engaged in an informal boycott of observation of the re-run in some constituencies. The issue as far as international standards is concerned is whether they were prevented from doing so. I know of only one incident where an opposition party observer was detained. As soon as that was known, the policemen who had temporarily detained the observer were detained and will have their day in court. Again the incident is deplorable. But in the end it is one incident that happened in one of the 575 polling stations where the re-runs of elections took place.

The EU-EOM reports that many voters lacked information about the re-runs of the elections and that election officers did not give sufficient explanation to voters. Remember, however, that these are the very voters who on May 15 amazed everyone with their political maturity and who voted in their millions. Almost 90% of the voters had participated in the elections on May 15th. Election officers provide information to voters if the voters need and demand it. I would be very surprised that those who went through May 15th needed or demanded any explanations from anyone. They know what to do and they had proved that on May 15th. As to the assertions that people lacked information about the re-run, again, we are kept in the dark about the details. What type of information did they lack? What percentage of voters in how many polling stations lacked this information? Without such details the assertion is essentially devoid of meaning.

I am not sure what the “international standards” are as regards participation in bi-elections or elections re-runs. I do know however that the participation rates in all established democracies are normally much lower in bi-elections or election re-runs compared to normal elections. As the elections re-runs were being carried out in mainly rural areas at the height of the rainy season, when farmers are busy with their farm activities and when standing in queues out in the open is much less comfortable than is usually the case, I would be very surprised indeed if the participation rates were not significantly lower than that of May 15th. After all, that is the international practice if not the standard.

I am not in a position to give the exact figures to compare the participation rates, to confirm or deny the EU-EOM’s assertions that voter turn-out was much lower than that of may 15th because the figures have not yet been aggregated. But I do have the figures from some of the most “sensitive” re-runs of the elections and some for ones that are not considered so sensitive. In Bugna, where an EPRDF minister lost his seat in May, 25,043 voters had been registered but 12,105, less than half of those registered, had voted. In the re-run of the election, 22,043 were registered and 21,470 had voted. In Bati , a less sensitive constituency in the Amhara region, in May, 14,120 people had been registered in the polling stations where the re-run took place and 9,176 people had voted. In the re-runs 13,941 were registered and 13,909 had voted. In Dewa Chefa, another constituency in the Amhara region which is not sensitive, 32,520 people had been registered and 25,110 had voted. In the re-runs while 30,998 had registered, 30,900 had voted. Before I proceed to other figures some commentary.

I must admit that the data from the Amhara region came as a great surprise to me. While the number of voters registered was somewhat lower in the re-runs than in the May elections, the number of people who actually voted was higher in the re-runs than in the May elections. It is as if the voters were defying normal fatigue and going out of their way to make their voices heard, by voting in greater numbers in the re-runs than in the May elections.

The case of Bugna however is a real shocker. In May, less than half of the registered voters in the affected polling stations had voted. The national participation rate at the time was close to 90%. There must have been some thing wrong. You see, the EPRDF had alleged that voting in rural constituencies had been deliberately sabotaged by the opposition. The figures show that for some reason more than half of the registered voters in those areas had not voted. The CIP and the NEBE gave them another chance, through an investigation which was one of those boycotted by the opposition. When they were given another chance at the height of the rainy season, they voted with a vengeance. The number of people who actually voted increased by 9,265, an increase of more than 75%. Guess what happened when all those who wanted to vote were given the chance to do so, the EPRDF won, hands down!

In Eteya, another “sensitive” constituency the re-runs took place in all polling stations. In May, 53,230 voters had registered and 45,565 voters had actually voted. In the re-run, 46,075 had registered and 45,389 had voted. The number of voters who actually voted had declined by 174 voters or 0.37% of those who voted in May. That is a reduction but an almost insignificant reduction. If you add up the figures for the 125 polling stations, the number of people who actually voted was higher than that of May 15 by more than 20%. The EU-EOM says the participation rate was much lower, the figures for some constituencies says the exact opposite.

I must hasten to add that what I have presented is still anecdotal evidence. I do not want to try to prove a case through anecdotal evidence. But as the figures come from 125 out of the total of 575 polling stations where the re-runs took place or 21.7% of the total, the figures do seem to indicate that the assertion of the EU-EOM that participation rates in the re-runs were much lower is not backed by the facts. This is all the more the case, because the EU-EOM does not back its assertion with facts and figures, even facts and figures of an anecdotal nature.

Conclusions

The extra-ordinarily successful election process in Ethiopia up to and including the polling day on May 15th have been hailed by many observers of African politics. The opposition parties have done spectacularly well during the elections, increasing their seats in the federal parliament by almost ten times, and making a clean sweep of the elections in Addis-Ababa. It is also true that a cloud of suspicion had been hanging over the elections because of allegations of electoral malpractice. Political tension which had been high throughout the election campaign was exacerbated by the violence in June. Many Ethiopians feel that the EU-EOM made a significant contribution to the June events by leaking a wildly speculative report which suggested that the opposition had won the elections.

Something had to be done to remove the cloud of suspicion and after difficult negotiations, all parties came to an agreement on a new system of investigating complaints about the elections. A system that paved the way for international observation of the investigations, gave the parties a key role in them and set out clear and detailed terms of reference to guide the investigations. A complex, very transparent investigative process was thus set in motion to remove the cloud of suspicion and was agreed upon by all the concerned parties. It was a system designed to work in an environment of tension and suspicion and hence the totally unprecedented international observation of the investigations.

The EU-EOM could not hide the fact that the setting up of the investigative system was a very positive development, that the investigations were generally carried out according to the terms of reference agreed by the parties, that the opposition’s evidence was weak, its witnesses “inconsistent” and its arguments weak. It could not deny that the EPRDF’s cases were substantiated and its arguments well crafted. The system worked as it was designed to.

The opposition parties presented complaints in the vast majority of constituencies where the EPRDF was declared the winner while the EPRDF made a limited number of complaints. These complaints were screened according to the procedures and many of the complaints were rejected. The parties who had the right to appeal the decisions of the screening process all the way to the Supreme Court chose not to do so and instead agreed to participate in the investigation by the CIPs.

The CIPs, having investigated the cases, having reviewed the weak evidence of the opposition parties, and the substantiated evidence of the EPRDF, having listened to the weak arguments of the opposition and the well crafted arguments of the EPRDF, came up with their conclusion. They dismissed most of the complaints, but in 31 constituencies they found that there were serious irregularities to warrant re-runs of the elections. Given the fact that the investigations were carried out according to the terms of reference and given also that even the EU-EOM agrees that the opposition’s evidence and arguments were weak and that of the EPRDF strong, the only surprising thing about the results of the investigations is that the EPRDF did not win all the cases.

In 17 of the 31 cases the EPRDF was the complainant and it won its case. In 7 of the 31 cases the complaints were made by the opposition against the EPRDF and the EPRDF lost its case. In three of the cases, the provisional results of May 15th had not been declared by the NEBE and the investigations proved that re-runs were warranted. In 4 cases the EPRDF together with one or the other opposition parties, including the CUD in one of the four cases, lodged complaints against other parties. In those cases, the EPRDF and the opposition parties that joined it in its complaint won their case. Re-runs of elections were held in 575 polling stations out of the 29,438 polling stations where elections were held on May 15th or slightly less than 2% of the polling stations.

This indicates that there were serious irregularities in 2% of the polling stations on May 15th. In most of those cases the culprits were the opposition parties, but in some cases it now appears that my party was the culprit. Whoever was at fault, the fact that there were such serious irregularities is deplorable and totally unacceptable. But we must remember that this was so in just under 2% of the cases. However bad this may be it does not mean that there was a pattern of serious irregularities on May 15th. Irregularities in 2% of the cases do not disqualify the elections. By international standards the May elections would still be free and fair. What is perhaps even more important is that all those cases were redressed through an unprecedently transparent investigation.

The election re-runs were good or very good in 88% of the cases according to the EU-EOM. While I am sure this underrates the re-runs, even the EU-EOM rating shows that the re-runs were basically free and fair. The fact that the preliminary results of the elections show that the EPRDF won all 31 seats is a clear indication that it retains the trust of the people. These are what the facts, including the facts that the EU-EOM could not deny incontestably prove, however much it tried to bury them beneath a pile of outright lies and innuendoes. I must say that I am immensely proud of our elections as, I am sure, is every member of the EPRDF. I have no doubt that all Ethiopians have every right to be proud and hold their chins up for carrying out an undeniably free and fair election at a time when for the first time in our history the elections were highly contested every step of the way.

One half of the arguments of the EU-EOM have nothing to do with the elections. An investigation process designed to deal with complaints in an environment of high political tension, a process that was carried out according to the terms of reference agreed by all parties, could not be justifiably criticized for not living up to international standards simply because the investigations took place in an environment of tension for which the investigation system was designed. I challenge anyone to show me an investigation process that was more transparent than ours, a process that has been keenly followed and observed by foreign observers and in which the parties were allowed to play such a critical role. The EU-EOM cannot come up with any such example because there is none.

The so-called contextual factors are neither here nor there as far as the investigations are concerned. It is true that the parliament passed legislation on the workings of the parliament and some powers that had been exercised by the municipality of Addis. As far as the investigations are concerned, the impact of these factors is not significantly higher than the fact that we have had good rains this year. The diatribe that the EU-EOM was engaged in as regards the so-called contextual factors has, as I shall show below, much more to do with the objective that they appear to have in mind, than with the investigations. The report is riddled with outright lies and half-truths when it comes to the criticism it levels on the actual conduct of the investigations. The criticism that they level on the re-runs of elections is clearly a case of the grapes are sour. In other words, they have come up with nothing substantial to prove their case. Their conclusion is based on evidence that is poorer than they say the opposition’s was, their “witnesses” are much more inconsistent than the opposition witnesses were, and their case is argued in an even weaker manner than that of the opposition. Therefore as far as the substance of their criticism and overall conclusion is concerned it could and should be dismissed with the contempt that it so richly deserves. But I believe that is not enough.

Why, Why, Why?

The EU-EOM, in Ethiopia, has become part of the problem rather than the solution beginning with the highly speculative report they leaked, a report that I believe significantly contributed to the June events. It cannot therefore be dismissed so easily. We have to learn from the experience, and in order to do that we have to ask why such a shoddy piece of work was issued in the name of the EU-EOM.

I believe the answer lies in what was not in the report, rather than in what was in it, and in order to explain that I have to let you in on another little secret. For some time now, the author of the report has been peddling a series of ideas on reforms that she says are necessary for Ethiopia. In substance, these are the very same ideas that the opposition has been peddling, including the so-called government of national unity. EPRDF had rejected those ideas with reasoned arguments. The good lady was not convinced, for as late as the eve of her press conference, she was trying to sell these ideas to some senior EPRDF officials. During one of those sales pitches, she declared that she would be making recommendations during her press conference. Indeed, these recommendations were thought to be an essential element of the statement by all parties who were given clues as to the content of the report. It was made abundantly clear to her and to all concerned that she has no business making recommendations, and that her mandate was to observe and report.

As it happens, the statement did not include the recommendations. When she was asked why during the press conference by someone who appears to be on the know, she tried to fudge the issues and promised that the recommendations, would come soon enough. It appears therefore that the recommendations were withdrawn at the very last moment. But I have a very clear idea what these recommendations were intended to be until the eve of the press conference. It is when the statement, particularly the conclusion and the so-called contextual factors, are seen in the context of the intended recommendations that it begins to make some sense.

The conclusion that the post-polling day election process did not meet international standards, which flies in the face of the facts, even the facts that are included in the EU-EOM statement, and therefore does not make sense, begins to make sense when viewed against the unwritten but no less clearly stated “recommendation” of establishing a national unity government. The conclusion was made with the view to delegitimizing the process and thus twist the arms of the EPRDF so that it could submit and accept this abomination of an idea.

All the clumsy dragging of concepts of “coincidence of office”, and the attribution of lies about the independence of the judiciary and the NEBE to unnamed observers, all of these shoddy concoctions that appear to make no sense at all, become meaningful when seen against “recommendations” for structural changes in the way the NEBE and the judiciary are run, changes that are designed to give the opposition a vital say in all of these institutions.

All the twisting and turning about the public media, and the analysis of municipal powers in Addis, and parliamentary procedures which make no sense from the point of view of the investigations, begin to make sense when seen from the point of view of the “recommendation” of reversing the said legislation and restructuring the public media so that the opposition will have the final say. The good lady did not include the good rains we have had this summer as a reason for her conclusion on the elections, perhaps because she had no “recommendation” that goes with it.

All of these bad ideas were discussed with her in the spirit of partnership enshrined in the Coutonou agreement that exists between Ethiopia and the European Union. She was told that these are bad ideas unacceptable to the EPRDF. The good lady can apparently not take NO for an answer from the natives. She had a card in her hands, the report of election observation, that in unscrupulous hands could be used as hostage to blackmail the EPRDF into accepting those really bad ideas, and she appears to have gone for it. The good lady apparently does not know her Ethiopian history, or her EPRDF’s. She apparently does not understand that as soon as these merely bad ideas become tainted by association with an election observer turned self-appointed colonial viceroy hell-bent on twisting the arms of the government to force it to accept her dictates, merely discussing the ideas, let alone accepting them, becomes unthinkable. The good lady does not appear to understand that what her action succeeded in doing is put the last nail on the coffin of her “recommendations”.

Already, theories of how the good lady’s antipathies have led to the issuing of such a statement have cropped up. I can only hope that that is all there is to it. What cannot be denied is that in a certain sense we may have been lucky. If the election report must be used as an instrument of blackmail, as a weapon to impose “recommendations” on the host government, and massaged accordingly, it is very helpful that such observation missions be headed by some amateurs in that art, as the good lady clearly was. This is so because amateurs would doctor the report in such a clumsy fashion that it becomes relatively easy to pick it apart.

The main question facing us Ethiopians, is where do we go from here? Whenever I am faced with difficult challenges, challenges that could potentially be of existential significance, the first question I ask is what would the average Ethiopian peasant do under such circumstances? I ask this question not for sentimental reasons but because I know of no other Ethiopians who are better masters of the art of overcoming existential challenges. Murderous foreign and local wars have taken place in this country. The peasant bore the brunt of each one of them, but always came out on top. Governments of all colours have come and gone, the hardy old peasant has outlived them all. Horrific famines of biblical proportions have come and gone, the peasant has survived them all. Hence, there is no greater sage to consult on such matters. So once again what would your average Ethiopian peasant do? Having lived with him/her for some 17 years I think I know.

The peasant hates injustice like no other abomination. You can therefore bet your life that plan A of the peasant in such circumstances would be to fight the injustice tooth and nail, with no holds barred, with the view to correcting the injustices. But your average peasant would not be the sage of facing existential challenges if he/she only had one plan. Again you can bet your life that there would at least be a plan B just in case the perpetrator of the injustice was able to get away with murder.

Plan B would start with strengthening the peasants fortress, his/her homestead, so that it can withstand the possible temper tantrums of the spurned perpetrator of the injustice. Having done that, the peasant would plan to treat his/her tormentor with the disdain and contempt he/she deserves and move on with his/her eternal struggle to keep body and soul together. I believe we can do no less or no better than that. As our brothers the Southern African freedom fighters used to say, in Portuguese, La Lutta Continua! the struggle for a prosperous and democratic Ethiopia must and will go on despite the challenges. We in the EPRDF have faced off many more serious challenges. We must face this one with the same unflinching commitment to principles and justice. We cannot and must not falter in the face of this or other, even more formidable challenges in the future.

Thank you very much for giving me this opportunity.

Meles Zenawi,

Addis Abeba