As EPRDF slowly hack democracy to death, we’re as
alone — we citizens — as we’ve ever been, protected
only by the dust-covered clichés of our forefathers:
“Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.”


It’s time to blow off the dust and start paying the
price.

The electronic media are not on our side. The
politicians are not on our side. It’s just us,
connecting the dots, fitting the fragments together,
crunching the numbers, wanting to know why there were
so many irregularities in the last election and why
these glitches and dirty tricks and wacko numbers had
not just an anti-Opposition parties but a racist
tinge. This is not about partisan politics. It’s more
like rescuing the nation from tyrants and traitors.

Last weekend, I was attending what was officially
called “Assessing People’s View on the Future
Parliamentarian Participation”, held in many Woredas,
in Addis, an extraordinary pulling together of
disparate voting-rights angry crowd, organized by
Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD). It had the
feel of atleast 2500: citizen patriots taking matters
into their own hands to reclaim Ethiopia they know.
This was the level of its urgency.

Was the election of May 2005 stolen? This is the
question framed by state media that doesn’t want to
know the answer. Anyone who says yes is immediately a
conspiracy nut, and the listener’s eyeballs roll. So
let’s not ask that question.

Let’s simply ask why the lines were so long on May 15
2005 across the country, especially in the sensitive
areas such as in Addis, Oromia, Amhara and South
waiting in line for six or eight hours out of a fervor
to have their say in their humble country’s future.
Why many of the polls were closed before the counting
was finished. This, mind you, is just for starters.

We might also ask why so many people in rural areas
are saying that the numbers in the counting don’t make
sense, because the numbers are screaming at National
Electoral Board that something is wrong.

And we might, no, we must, ask — with more seriousness
than the media have asked — Why public demonstration
was banned and state media became a single party's
voice and opposition parties denied access, why 42
unarmed civilians were gunned down and more than 100
wounded by a sniper army, why opposition
Parliamentarian-elected was murdered by a gang of six
policemen, why a witness was assasinated on the
election appeals' process, why key opposition parties'
observers were killed and arrested, why suppression
against private journalists intensified, why permits
of VOA and Deutsche Welle journalists was revoked, why
the Addis Ababa City Administration is being
dismantled, why new regulations passed in the dying
Parliament that will seriously arrest the role of
opposition parties and will make them observers.

These are more or less the questions raised in the
European Union Election Observation Mission
Preliminary Report.

Did the people’s choice get thwarted? And who is
authorized to act if this is so? Who is authorized to
care?

No one, apparently, except the Ethiopian people
themselves, who want to be able to trust the voting
process again, and who want their country back.

The people who are despairing in the opposition
parties should remember what happened in Georgia,
Ukraine and Kyrgizistan. If it can happen in the
former Soviet blocs, it can also happen in Ethiopia
where elections are falsified. This is the lesson
opposition leaders should learn so quickly. What we
had in these countries was undoubtedly a response by
the people to undemocratic elections and all were
examples of people refusing to accept the results of
falsified elections. And finally they succeeded!

We must make sure the crimes of this election are not
lost in their impact. EPRDF can't steal an election
and walk away without consequences.

Opposition leaders need to listen the people and stand
with it. Their concession to falsified election means
accepting criminals and will ignite people's passion
and the consequences will be unbearable. But, do
everything in a very peaceful and constitutional
manner. Extremism and fanaticism will not take us
anywhere.

Last but not least, we must make sure the crimes of
this election are not lost in their impact. EPRDF
can't steal an election and walk away without
consequences.