Your Excellency,

The history of Ethiopia is full of war, blood shade, torture, harassment, and imprisonment of citizens. Our country nosedived from being one of respected and even worshiped by many to the most embarrassing, belittled, mocked and nonexistent even by African standard.

Your generation of young men and women tried to solve a very complicated problem through a different way that brought some palpable changes in the positive direction. However, as your Excellency may not deny, not only we didn’t solve the grinding problems of poverty and destitute yet, but the ethnic based ideology and way of thinking your party adamantly revered for 15 yrs have brought additional tension and suspicion among different groups, which can explode anytime and may lead to unimaginable disaster.

I am not doweling or harping over whether or not your system is flawed. There is nothing more tangible evidence than the alarming spread of HIV/AIDS, the number of unemployed and homeless, famine and drought stricken population. Nepotism and corruption are at the level they never been before.

Considering the relative peace prevailing in the country, you should and must have delivered the promise you made when you took over the leadership. Unfortunately, so much time was wasted on solving problems within your party, firing of professionals who dared to challenge your way of thinking and on pretension and provocation. In short, your fifteen years in the highest office of the land was used to spew hatred, ethnic division and intolerance while the burning issues of the people were put aside or totally forgotten.

Your Excellency, nothing is as important and crucial for Ethiopians as a sound and working policy on land and agriculture. The right policy on land is simply the one which brings multifold increases of productivity that brings self-sufficiency. Should it take 15 years to figure out that your policy on land not only didn’t bring any change but rather made us a fulltime beggars who are looking across the ocean for a handout year around?

I am flabbergasted when I hear your cadres without shame say that the farmers stand behind EPRDF. Here, the logical question is for what? What change or prosperity did you bring for the farmers which the rest of us don’t see or appreciate to garner their full support during this election? If at all that is true, it could very well be because, like never before, the poor farmers are at the mercy of their government for their land and if they dare to speak their mind they can lose it faster than snap of a finger. You use the same tactic against the urban population who dared to speak against you. Very many people lost their jobs, business people lost their license, and professors were driven out of their campus just because they spoke against your tyrannical rule. Now, it is their time to force you leave the office you didn’t deserve in the first place.

Every one of us, who can read and write as well as those who can understand how incompetent your leadership is, chose to get rid of you. Competency of leadership and clear vision are not only desirable but a requirement. We simply can’t afford to waste another five years hoping you can bring some miracle.

Your Excellency, It is only a matter of time before the poor farmers of Ethiopia get the fact that your party is nothing but a group of pretenders and masqueraders and arrive at the same conclusion as the urban dwellers did.

Despite all the shortcomings, I personally appreciate the fact that, you have brought a change in the political climate which all of us should cherish, protect and pass it to the next generation. The recent election is a prime example of your hard work on this particular area, which should make you and your supporters proud. During the recent rally for or against your government, Ethiopians have shown how advanced and civilized we are. We deserve a leadership as advanced and civilized as we are.

Your Excellency, I would like to believe that the change of our political culture from appointing leaders solely on the basis of their loyalty to the government or just because they belong to a certain ethnic group to nominating them through popular voting is here for ever. I also hope you will not show a change of heart upon loosing your parliamentary majority. You have to be ready to swallow the bitter pill of democratic election as well as enjoying your triumphs.

Your Excellency, we all know that you are the mastermind of everything which goes in the life of EPRDF. The choice of EPRDF at this very time is either to allow and be willing for revote and recount in those areas where the oppositions or your party claimed or witnessed irregularities and accept the result with grace or take the country down the drain with it, which may bring about not only the total collapse of our beloved country but also mayhem and destruction of astronomical proportion. Any organization being lead by a person of your caliber should not choose to take the country and the people down with it just because it lost its majority status in the parliament. All you need to do is evaluate your programs, make changes and try to win the popular vote during the next election in five years.

I am an ordinary Ethiopian who worries more about the fairness of the process than the result. If the people chose the opposition, so be it. Why would you want to change the rule in the middle of the game? After being on power for almost 15 yrs and nothing substantial to show in solving the major problems, why are you so surprised by the loss?

Your Excellency, if the claim of the oppositions, which is posted on different websites for everybody to see is true, it is mind-boggling to even to think that such a thing still happens in the very country which is ruled by the very group of people who scarified their whole life in order to stop a mass torture, harassment, extrajudicial killings and bring democracy and prosperity for all. It is a sub cortical thinking and downright stupid to assume that one can win the popular vote through intimidation, harassment, and killing in the middle of election.

Thus, I kindly would like to solicit your Excellency to use a sound reasoning, wisdom and accountability and to put the country and the people before your political ambition and to give a chance for peace to prevail.

The exchange of venomous propaganda will only aggravate the problem. At this very moment, your party should not follow the idea “the end justifies the means.” The end means your reelection. I hope the almighty god will direct you to do the right thing.

With regards,

E. Haile

Email: belayt01@yahoo.com

City: Addis Ababa