In an interview foreign minister Tedros Adanom had with CNN’s Christiana Amanpour, eh tried to justify the hugely embarrassing 100% election result by arguing that democracy in Ethiopia is fragile and that it took 200 years even in the US.
The US Assistant secretary of State Tom Malinowski does not agree. He stressed that one person or one party cannot hold the Nation together, but laws and institutions. Though things cannot be perfect the secretary emphasized that there need to be improvement and movement towards the right directions. In the case of Ethiopia her says that the country is heading backward rather than forward.
Below is an excerpt from the speech Secretary Malinowski gave to law school students at Addis Ababa University.
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Some insist that the only way to preserve stability and progress after war or social upheaval is to keep in power, year after year, the leaders or the parties that first brought it about. "Things are still fragile," they say. “Allowing changes in leadership, letting opposition parties, journalists, and civil society groups say what they want would just reopen the divisions that tore our societies apart in the past, so why would you want us to do that?” Or, they argue that, “yes, multiparty democracy and full respect for freedom of speech and the press are good; we are working towards that; but you in America had over 200 years to build your democracy; we also need time, time to develop our economy, time to consolidate what we have already achieved. So why are you telling us to move so fast?”
Some insist that the only way to preserve stability and progress after war or social upheaval is to keep in power, year after year, the leaders or the parties that first brought it about. "Things are still fragile," they say. “Allowing changes in leadership, letting opposition parties, journalists, and civil society groups say what they want would just reopen the divisions that tore our societies apart in the past, so why would you want us to do that?” Or, they argue that, “yes, multiparty democracy and full respect for freedom of speech and the press are good; we are working towards that; but you in America had over 200 years to build your democracy; we also need time, time to develop our economy, time to consolidate what we have already achieved. So why are you telling us to move so fast?”
The problem with these arguments, the reason why they often fail in the real world, is that dignity is not just about having physical or material security. It is about men and women being in control of their lives.
Think about the people in Nigeria who voted in their election this year; many of them live in extreme poverty; many have been terrorized by Boko Haram; yet in some places they walked and waited for hours, and even risked their lives, just for the chance to cast one vote out of millions to choose their next president. Why did they do that? A ballot cannot protect you against a bullet; free speech cannot put food on your table. But eventually, people grow tired depending on others to provide for them. Eventually, they don’t want to be treated like children; they want to make their voices heard and their choices felt, without being told what they can say or who they can choose.
If that's true even in places where there is little security and prosperity, it certainly true where people are doing better, where expectations are rising, where young people are connecting through social media and seeing how their counterparts live in other parts of the world.
The challenge for governments that truly believe in stability and progress is to keep up with these inevitable changes in their societies. It is to build institutions through which all their people can take part in the debates, decisions and responsibilities of governance, and that allow responsibility to pass normally from one generation to another. As President Obama suggested in Addis Ababa, if you think that only one person or party can hold a nation together, then that person or party has failed to truly build its nation. Only institutions and laws can hold a nation together.
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It is in that spirit that we have encouraged Ethiopia, as we encourage many other countries, to realize step by step the freedoms your constitution promises and to broaden year by year the political space your government says is needed. In other words, we've encouraged Ethiopia simply to keep moving forward along its chosen path, not backward.
And I think it is fair to ask whether Ethiopia is in fact doing so. After all, the political opposition once had cabinet ministers; in 2000, it won 12 percent of the seats in Parliament. But in 2010 it won only two seats; and this year none. I know political leaders and parties in many countries that are very popular, as Ethiopia’s government clearly is. But I know none that credibly can claim to represent every single citizen in their country, or honestly argue that their political opponents merit zero representation in the national legislative body. If we agree, as I hope we do, that it is healthy to have checks and balances in government, then something here has gone amiss.
Source: Millions Voices
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