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Dishonour
among African election thieves
Alemayehu
G Mariam
September 09, 2013
http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/88765
Ethiopia’s elections
in 2015 are likely to be similar to the recent Zimbabwean elections
that perpetuated a ‘thugtatorship.’ As long as the US
and Europe continue to provide endless handouts, Africa is doomed
to remain a thugocracy
Zimbabwe had
its presidential
elections on 31 July 2013. Elections as in rigged. Robert Mugabe,
the senile octogenarian and the only president since Zimbabwe gained
independence in 1980, ‘won’ for the seventh time by
61 percent of the vote. His Zimbabwe African National Union - Patriotic
Front (Zanu-PF) clinched a supermajority in parliament that will
allow it to change the constitution. This past May, Mugabe signed
a new constitution
which sets a term limit of two five-year terms for president (not
retroactively applicable to Mugabe) and eliminated the post of prime
minister. In 2009, following a violent
election aftermath, a coalition
government of national unity was formed designating opposition
leader Morgan Tsvangirai as Prime Minister.
Approving
thievery
General Olusegun
Obasanjo, the former president of Nigeria, who led the African Union
Election Observer team (69 observers) in Zimbabwe certified the
election as valid declaring, ‘I have never seen an election
that is perfect. The point has always been and will always be, how
much the infractions, imperfections have affected the reflection
of the will of the people and up to the point of the close of the
polls our observation was that there were incidents that could have
been avoided. In fact, up to the close of the polls we do not believe
that those incidents will amount to the result not to reflect the
will of the people.’ Bernard Membe of Tanzania who led the
Southern African Development Community (SADC) election observer
mission (442 observers) chimed in declaring
that the election was ‘free and peaceful.’ The observer
mission from the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA)
likewise gave its approval and urged all parties to accept the election
result. None of the observer missions used the phrase ‘free
and fair’ to describe the elections outcomes.
The Zimbabwe
Election Support Network (ZESN) (7,000 certified domestic monitors)
declared the elections were ‘seriously compromised’
and pointed out a number of serious irregularities. Prime Minister
Morgan Tsvangirai called the election ‘a huge farce’
and a ‘sham that does not reflect the will of the people.’
Only
Botswana called for an investigation
Botswana’s observer
team did not buy Mugabe’s election victory or the AU/SADC’s
affirmation of it. After reviewing the preliminary report of its
80-member election observer team led by former Botswana vice-president
Mompati Merafhe, the government of Botswana issued an official statement
advising that ‘there is a need for an independent audit of
the just concluded electoral process in Zimbabwe. Such an audit
will shed light on the conduct of the just ended election and indicate
any shortcomings and irregularities that could have affected its
result, as well as the way forward.’
This is in sharp contrast
to the conclusions of the 60-person African Union (AU) observer
team led by former Botswana president Ketumile Masire which concluded
that the 2010 ‘election’ in which the ruling regime
in Ethiopia claimed a 99.6 percent victory was ‘free and fair.’
Masire said his team found no evidence of intimidation and misuse
of state resources for ruling party campaigns in Ethiopia and proclaimed,
‘The [elections] were largely consistent with the African
Union regulations and standards and reflect the will of the people
… The AU were unable to observe the pre-election period. The
participating parties expressed dissatisfaction with the pre-election
period. They did not have freedom to campaign. We had no way of
verifying the allegations.’
Masire’s report
was a travesty of election observation. At the time, I took issue
with Masire’s findings and challenged his conclusions.
With all due respect
to Masire, it seems that he made his declaration clueless of the
observation standards he is required to follow in the AU Elections
Observation and Monitoring Guidelines. If he had done so, he would
have known that there is no logical, factual or documentary basis
for him to declare the ‘elections were largely consistent
with the African Union regulations and standards’. For instance,
pursuant to Section III 9 (e) of the guidelines (‘MANDATES,
RIGHTS AND OBLIGATIONS OF THE OBSERVERS’), Masire’s
team had a mandatory duty to ‘observe the political parties
and groups as well as the population at large in the exercise of
their political rights, and the conditions in which such rights
are to be exercised’. Masire by his own admission made no
such observation: ‘The AU were unable to observe the pre-election
period’. Under Section V (13), the guidelines mandate that
‘AU Observers should ascertain that: … (b) all competing
political parties have equal access to both the print and the electronic
media (radio, T.V.).’ Masire said his team ‘had no way
of verifying’ pre-election complaints, including complaints
of unequal access to state-controlled media. Under Section V (B)
(d), the AU observers had a mandatory duty to ascertain ‘the
campaign process is conducted in conditions of serenity, and that
there are no acts of provocation or intimidation capable of compromising’.
Masire’s team failed to make such inquiries. Under Section
B (24), the guidelines mandate: ‘The atmosphere during the
campaign should be carefully observed, and among the factors to
consider in this regard include … (iv) persistent or reported
cases of human rights violations.’ Masire’s team does
not appear to be aware of such a requirement, let alone actually
make the observation. It is truly regrettable to say of a former
African leader that he showed no evidence of having read or understood
the numerous mandatory election observation duties set forth in
minute detail in the AU guidelines before shamelessly and pathetically
declaring the elections ‘were largely consistent with African
Union regulations and standards.’
I am gratified
that vice president Mompati Merafhe’s observer team in Zimbabwe
made its recommendation for an audit investigation based not only
on observed election irregularities but also because the ‘various
incidents and circumstances [that] were revealed call into question
whether the entire electoral process, and thus its final result,
can be recognised as having been fair, transparent and credible
in the context of the SADC
Principles and Guidelines Governing Democratic Elections within
the Community.” I would like to underscore that the Zimbabwe
election also fails to meet the AU Elections Observation and Monitoring
Guidelines.
Among
African election thieves
Are elections in Africa
a colossal exercise in futility? Is it possible to have a free and
fair election in any African country? Is the African Union (as ‘African
Dictators’ Club’) capable of undertaking an independent
and fair observation of elections in an African country? Is electoral
democracy a quaint game played by African dictators for the amusement
of Western donors and loaners? Is dictatorship in Africa by any
other name democracy?
I have long argued that
many African governments and regimes including those in Zimbabwe
and Ethiopia are thugtatorships. In my February 2011 commentary
‘Thugtatorship: The Highest Stage of African Dictatorship,’
I sought to explain in simple terms the nature of steroidal African
dictatorships.
If democracy is government
of the people, by the people and for the people, a thugocracy (thugtatorship)
is a government of thieves, for thieves, by thieves. Simply stated,
a thugtatorship is rule by a gang of thieves and robbers (thugs)
in designer suits. It is becoming crystal clear that much of Africa
today is a thugocracy privately managed and operated for the exclusive
benefit of bloodthirsty thugtators. In a thugtatorship, the purpose
of seizing and clinging to political power is solely to accumulate
personal wealth for the ruling class by stealing public funds and
depriving the broader population scarce resources necessary for
basic survival.
Mugabe’s Zimbabwe
is a classic thugtatorship. In March 2008, Mugabe declared victory
in the presidential election after waging a campaign of violence
and intimidation on his opponent Morgan Tsvangirai and his supporters.
According to a Wikileaks cablegram, ‘a small group of high-ranking
Zimbabwean officials (including Grace Mugabe) have been extracting
tremendous diamond profits.’ Mugabe is so greedy that he stole
outright ‘£4.5 million from [aid] funds meant to help
millions of seriously ill people.’ In 2010, Mugabe announced
his plan to sell ‘about $1.7 billion of diamonds in storage.’
Today, Mugabe and his cronies have sucked Zimbabwe dry. Zimbabwe
has no national currency of its own and uses the currencies of other
countries. When the Zimbabwe Dollar was in circulation, it had denominations
of insane proportions. At one point in 2009, the Reserve Bank of
Zimbabwe issued notes in the amount of 100 trillion dollars, which
would not buy a bus ticket. In 2003, Mugabe boasted, ‘I am
still the Hitler of the time. This Hitler has only one objective:
justice for his people, sovereignty for his people, recognition
of the independence of his people and their rights over their resources.
If that is Hitler, then let me be Hitler tenfold. Ten times, that
is what we stand for.’ Mugabe with his trademark Hitler moustache
(tooth brush moustache) remains President of Zimbabwe.
The regime in
Ethiopia is also a thugtatorship. The ruling ‘Tigrean Peoples
Liberation Front’ (TPLF), its handmaiden the ‘Ethiopian
People’s Democratic Revolutionary Front’ (EPDRF) and
their supporters pretty much own the Ethiopian economy. ‘According
to the World Bank, roughly half of the national economy is accounted
for by companies held by an EPRDF-affiliated business group called
the Endowment Fund for the Rehabilitation of Tigray (EFFORT). EFFORT’s
freight transport, construction, pharmaceutical, and cement firms
receive lucrative foreign aid contracts and highly favorable terms
on loans from government banks.’ In June 2012, the World Bank
released its 448-page report, ‘Diagnosing Corruption in Ethiopia’
with substantial evidence showing that Ethiopia under the TPLF regime
has become a full-fledged corruptocracy (a regime controlled and
operated by a small clique of corrupt-to-the-core vampiric kleptocrats
who cling to power to enrich themselves, relatives, friends and
supporters at public expense).
Ethiopia
2015: Any chance of a free and fair election?
A year before the 2010
Ethiopian parliamentary election, I predicted the obvious. The 2010
‘election will prove to be a sham, a travesty of democracy
and a mockery and caricature of democratic elections.’ The
ruling regime claimed a 99.6 percent victory in that election. The
international powers that be accepted the results with muted expressions
of concern. The European Union Election Observation Mission- Ethiopia
2010 stated: ‘The electoral process fell short of certain
international commitments, notably regarding the transparency of
the process and the lack of a level playing field for all contesting
parties.’ The White House issued a statement expressing ‘concern
that international observers found that the elections fell short
of international commitments. We are disappointed that U.S. Embassy
officials were denied accreditation and the opportunity to travel
outside of the capital on Election Day to observe the voting.’
Johnnie Carson, then-Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs
in the State Department told the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee
that ‘we note with some degree of remorse that the elections
were not up to international standards… The [Ethiopian] government
has taken clear and decisive steps that would ensure that it would
garner an electoral victory.’ Even Herman Cohen, the former
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State who served as ‘mediator’
in the so-called May 1991 London Peace Talks which resulted in the
establishment of the Zenawi regime decried the outcome: ‘This
time opposition media and opposition groups were not given fair
time on the media and opposition media tends to be suppressed and
in that sense I don’t think it was a fair election.’
The outcome of the 2015
election in Ethiopia will be a repeat of the 2010 and 2005 elections.
There will be no level playing field and no transparency and accountability
in the electoral process. The regime will intensify its campaign
of intimidation, harassment and jailing of opposition leaders, parties
and dissidents in the run up to the “election”. The
press will remain under even tighter control. The regime will intensify
its demonization of opposition parties and depict Ethiopian Muslims
as “terrorists”. In short, the 2015 Ethiopia ‘election’
will be a repeat of the Zimbabwean rigged and stolen election. After
the daylight election robbery, the U.S., the European Union and
the UK will shed crocodile tears as they continue to hand over billions
of dollars in aid and loans to the Ethiopian thugtatorship. They
will maintain their conspiracy of silence to see no evil, hear no
evil and speak no evil of the regime in Ethiopia. In 2015, thugtatorship
will once again rise triumphant in Ethiopia.
Change is inevitable
even though African dictators believe they can remain in power indefinitely
by stealing elections and harassing, jailing and killing their opponents.
African thugtators believe they can use their military and police
to crush their opposition out of existence. Yet many African dictatorships
have fallen from their own internal weaknesses and contradictions.
Behind the tough and gritty exterior of regimes such as those in
Zimbabwe and Ethiopia remain fragile structures and confused and
ignorant leaders who are clueless about good governance and what
to do to remain in power legitimately. Neither Mugabe’s regime
nor the regime in Ethiopia have clear long term goals or strategies
to achieve legitimacy. Their deepest aspiration is to transform
themselves from bush thugs to urbane statesmen, but there is no
political alchemy to do that. As long as the US and Europe continue
to provide endless handouts, Africa is doomed to remain a thugocracy.
Change could come through
peaceful free and fair elections in Africa. It is more likely that
real change in Africa will come through the expression of the tornadic
wrath of the people as seen in the ‘Arab Spring.’ African
thugtators would be wise to heed a simple advise. ‘Politicians
are like diapers. They both need changing regularly and for the
same reason.’ Arrrrgh! The thought of poor Zimbabwe wearing
the same diapers since 1980…
*Professor
Alemayehu G. Mariam teaches political science at California State
University, San Bernardino and is a practicing defense lawyer.
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