Meles Zenawie’s big lie and why Pinocchio’s nose stretches when EPDRF democracy is better than t
Meles Zenawi on his interview about the so called intimidation meeting to opposition wanted to teach the Ethiopian people that America had no independent electoral commission therefore Ethiopians should be grateful for NEBE. This is very nicely crafted smoke screen to brush aside the question of NEBE independence and neutrality. Meles is feeling at top of his game because of the opposition’s proposal. I would like to say “nice try” Meles Zenawi. While what Meles said about Secretary of State being appointed by Governor is true but let me point out what he left out using the story emailed by a friend from Florida. There is a fact that Meles Zenawi did not mention and that’s about independent election supervisors. Here is a story from someone who knows Florida’s system and who requested me to post the fallacy about the Meles argument. Before 2000 election Governor Jeb Bush appointed, the then Secretary of State Katherine Harris current congresswoman, and her Director of Elections, Clayton Roberts, to be head of election. Every county in the U.S has it own election supervisor elected from a local community and serves the people independent of the every branch to all county, state and federal election. The county election supervisor has one of the most independent power that can not be challenged easily. In deeper level again, Let us take the infamous Broward county African American Election supervisor Ms. Miriam Oliphant. There were many irregularities in 2000 when the Ms. Oliphant managed the election. To name few:
-Absentee ballot not being mailed to the proper address
-Registration form not being sent to black communities in Miramar, Hallandale and Dania beach areas therefore security guards sending away black voters
-The old system not punching cards properly with the funny dimple and pregnant Chad
-Retired communities being informed to vote wrongly and so forth
Ms. Oliphant was so incompetent and extremely corrupt she mismanaged the election fund and went overboard $30,000,000 dollar before during and after the election, giving excuses to computerize the election process and address all concerned issues while the other two infamous counties Palm Beach and Miami –Dade improved their system with 2 to 3 million dollar budget surplus. The Hallandale mayor who is also Broward county chief was so embarrassed by Ms. Oliphant performance to elect republican president in a heavily democratic Jewish, Black and non Cuban Hispanic populated area, her only choice was to ask for the Florida senate to remove Ms. Oliphant. Ms. Oliphant went through 2 years process in Florida court and senate before being removed from office because she was an independent public official. The Governor actually refused to intervene because of his power limitation. The whole point of electoral certification by governor appointed secretary of state is to determine whether there is a legitimate issue that the county election supervisor mismanaged the election or not.
Since mismanagement from irregularities are controversial, I have another proposal to Mr. Meles. You can keep appointing NEBE official only to certify election but never interfer in the election process. Let every election supervisor be independent in all 500 plus precinct and every district run their own district, city, state and federal election with out any interference from any form of government at all. Let the freely elected precinct election supervisors be so independent that it would take only regional but not federal senate and judiciary system to remove the local election supervisor. To top that of lets add term limit for the election supervisor as well as all elected official.
