Will Meles Run For Another Term? “Why Not?” says Advisor

April 29th, 2008 | EthioPolitics.com |

Fortune

During his time as Minister of Information, Bereket Simon, 50, was at the center of what he described three years ago as an overwhelming experience. He was head of the campaign team of his party, the ruling EPRDF, during the most contested elections ever held in the history of this country. Bereket, a father of three and now special advisor to the Prime Minister on Public Relations (with ministerial portfolio) was the ‘face’ of his party in both the run-up to, and in the aftermath of, the May 2005 elections.

As unprecedented as these elections were, the results, and what followed the voting period, remain a bitter memory in the minds of all involved in the process, including the voting public. The ruling party could not help but concede electoral defeat in the Addis Abeba city administration, and a significant number of seats in the federal parliament, although whether or not it had lost majority of the seats there in order to form its government was a subject of controversy that finally led to a bloody electoral dispute.

Bereket has not been as visible during the recent local and by-elections as he was in the past. He made no appearance either in any of the media - with the exception of voice interviews - or at the debates held among the political parties that took part in the run-up to the latest local and by-elections. His leading electoral role was assumed, this time around, by Tadesse (Tinkishu) Kassa, a comrade-in-party of the ANDM and an executive committee member of the EPRDF.

Some attribute Bereket’s low profile role during the recent elections to his “growing unpopularity” in the eyes of the electorate, particularly in Addis Abeba. Has he, indeed, been removed from the electoral machinery that mobilises his party? Was it because of this alleged unpopularity that the party brought forward someone more likable in his place?

Interestingly, Bereket does not believe he is unpopular, although he admits that what followed the May 2005 national elections was an emotionally charged scenario. Neither did he distance himself from the business of managing elections, according to him.

“I’m still at the centre of the local and by-elections, though not visible,” Bereket told Fortune during an exclusive interview last week. “The nature of my work now demands me to keep a low profile.”

It was the work his party did over the past three years – in listening to the people through various public dialogues - that he accredits to the “landslide electoral victory” the EPRDF claims in the recent elections; a result many, including those in the diplomatic community, are skeptical about because they did not see them as having been as hotly contested as the May 2005 national elections. Do the ruling party and its leaders have reasons to celebrate the results of quiet elections that pose no electoral challenge to them, many wonder?

For Bereket, the past few weeks have been an electoral redemption, for over 90pc of the voting public registered to take part in the elections and as much a number turned out to cast their ballots. Although the credibility of the turnouts has been questioned, the EPRDF has managed to spring back after the electoral defeats of the past. This, he feels, undoubtedly gives cause for celebration. Three years after that first exclusive interview, Tamrat G. Giorgis, managing editor of Fortune, had yet another round of questions for Bereket Simon.

Fortune: Ato Bereket, if you find some of my questions making references to the interview we had had in 2005, please forgive me. It is because the local and by-elections held two weeks ago were in the shadow of what happened in the recent political history of this country. And you were at the center of that process from the run-up to the May 2005 national elections - including the hotheaded debates - to the voting date and all that followed. Unlike in the past, you have not been seen assume that central role; you have chosen to be less visible. Why is that? Is it because you have become unpopular in the eyes of the electorates that your party decided it might be a good idea for you to be away from public attention?

Bereket: The nature of the work I get myself involved now demands me to keep a low profile. Nevertheless, it does not mean that I was not at the center of the election, although I was not that visible.

Q. Do you accept that you have become unpopular due to your role during the May 2005 elections?

I do not think I have become unpopular; I tend to believe that emotions were high at that time. It is a bit difficult to take emotions as a yardstick of measurement. When the emotions have subsided people have chosen the EPRDF and it seems the popularity of the party has increased. We, members of the EPRDF, do not want our individual ratings to serve as means of measurement but rather the party’s program. It is obvious that the party has won the elections and the credibility gap has been filled, and I do not think those emotions ought to be taken as eternal.

Q. Although the official figures are yet to be disclosed, I suspect you have the results of the recent elections at your fingertips?

Definitely!

Q. Tell me about Addis Abeba: By-elections were held for 14 seats to the federal parliament and you have won all of them. The city council has about 138 seats; with the exception of one, your party took 137. All the district seats have been taken by the EPRDF, if not all the kebelle seats. Is that accurate?

I am not sure about all the kebelle seats, but certainly a significant majority of the seats there have been taken by us. It seems to me this is a landslide victory.

Q. Three years ago, when we talked about your electoral defeat in Addis Abeba in particular, you had said that your party had tasted defeats on several occasions. And it is a party that always made a comeback. Would you consider this as yet another comeback?

Sure. After the 2005 electoral defeat in Addis, the party worked hard to correct its mistakes, which, to a large extent, isolated some of our support groups who subsequently rendered support to the opposition. These were the protest votes that they got. We also started working on putting things right. It was a combination of avoiding mistakes and simultaneously doing the right things that caused the EPRDF to regain the lost confidence of the electorate. In the end, the people soberly weighed what the EPRDF has done in terms of transforming the city with a view to changing their lives, and they recognised its efforts in trying to address their concerns. This is why they have once again given a vote of confidence in the EPRDF.

Q. Who voted for you? The youth and the elite of Addis Abeba certainly did not take part in the elections.

The youth have taken part in the election, I am sure of that. I am not sure about the elite; there are some who have voted although the number cannot be known. The majority of the people who have participated in the election are from the low-income group. This tells you that although they have not started to benefit sufficiently from the reform, they are still hoping to be included and to be counted.

Q. Three years ago you characterized CUD’s landslide win in Addis Abeba as a “windfall”. Is this not a windfall for you too?

A certain Amharic newspaper last time translated the word windfall in another context and gave it a different Amharic meaning; with due respect to its [the newspaper’s] work, this is not a windfall gain because we have worked hard in the last two years and have tried to build on the achievements that we have had in the past four years. It was a result of our concerted efforts, which, on the one hand, focused on changing the socio-economic and political situations in Addis Abeba, and on the other, tries to explain to the public what we were doing and what we will be doing in the future. I think that this time the public vote was not based on emotions, but rather on the cost and benefit analysis they have made. On both sides - whether for the EPRDF or for the public - the election results are not an emotionally driven choice but one that is based on clear understanding of self-interest. I do not think it is a windfall gain.

Q. Out of curiosity, during the last election, CUD had won 137 seats whereas one candidate was elected from the EPRDF to the city council. This time around, the EPRDF has won 137 seats and only one was left for CUD of Ayele Chamisso. Was it a sheer coincidence or a deliberate act by the EPRDF to demonstrate how vengefully it can come back?

It was simple coincidence. As you can imagine, we did not know we would win all the seats prior to the results. As any party we competed for all the seats; the gains could have been 90pc, 95pc or any percentage. It just happened that one of our candidates was not up to the standard that had been set by EPRDF, so we withdrew his candidacy, thus leaving one seat up for grabs.

Q: This is too much of a coincidence?

Yes, it was too much of a coincidence. But I do not think the EPRDF would calculate to win this election in that way.

Q: How is it that a party that was categorically rejected by Addis Abebans three years ago, for whatever mistakes the party might have done in the past, is overwhelmingly being accepted now? How is that people go from one extreme to the other? Isn’t it that too good to be true?

If you look at the fundamentals, this is an obvious result. What happened in the 2005 election was that the constituency of the EPRDF voted, for some reason, in favor of the oppositions. That was what we described as protest votes. As I explained earlier, we had not done much in the first 11 years of our rule in Addis.

There were also some other mistakes the party committed, such as problems related to ensuring good governance. Rapid economic development was at an early stage because the renewal process had started only two years prior to the elections. Although the results of our work had begun to be seen, it was not sufficient to show the people what we could do.

Two years after the election, the public realized the futility of casting their votes based on emotions, especially when they started to see the positive sides to the EPRDF. As this positivism was to their benefit, naturally they shifted from the position they took in 2005 and stood where they could give equal opportunity to all of us. Once people stood in this middle ground, the EPRDF worked so hard at explaining what it is doing and what it can do. At the same time, reality started to speak for itself. It was a combination of these factors that brought the shift from one extreme to the other; when emotions subsided the public finally got it right.

Q. I remember the headline we used in our newspaper immediately after the election three years ago: It was the word “Unprecedented!” It is very difficult to call the recent elections unprecedented because they were quiet, the debates were not heated and they were not competitive because some of the parties have boycotted them. The EPRDF has, effectively, run against itself. Why should anyone be excited about a “landslide win” given that the playing field was not competitive as it should be?

The choice of headline is yours; I think you chose a headline as a journalist who tends to look at the negative side of things. That is my take. Contrary to your assertion, this is a positive story and in my view, it was unprecedented.

Q. May be it is the number of candidates you fielded that was unprecedented.

No . . . no. Let me give you a reason why I call this election unprecedented. First, many people were expecting a downward movement of our democratic process.

Q. Many people, including those in the international community, believe that this is a downward slide on the part of Ethiopian democracy.

That is a wrong reading of the situation; if proper yardsticks were utilized, I do not think there would be a downward movement in our democratic process. In the first place, it was normal to expect a low voter turnout after the post election problems that we have had. But taking in to account that the registered voters in Ethiopia (26 million plus people) was bigger than 2005, this was unprecedented.

Secondly, take, for instance, Addis Abeba; in 2005 about 1.1 million people registered to vote as opposed to 1.028 million people now. Even in Addis, after all this, people have not desisted from exercising their rights. The turnout on Election Day was more or less identical to that of 2005.

Both in a national context as well as in Addis Abeba, we have seen no disinterest in participation, proving that the people have not lost confidence in the electoral process. This makes it unprecedented, again.

Q. People who visited the polling stations in Addis and elsewhere found it very difficult to accept what the national electoral board has said. Suggesting hat there was a 90pc plus turnout is inconsistent with what people witnessed on the ground.

We have passed a new electoral law that limits the number of voters each polling station must serve; the numbers have been reduced significantly in order to ease the problems related to long queues. The number of polling stations in Addis has more or less increased by more than 50pc, thus if you went to each polling station, you would find a small number of voters. That is what happened. Do we have to reduce the number of polling stations simply to show long queues? I do not think this makes any sense.

Q. Wouldn’t it be wise for the government to allow international observers to monitor the elections?

We did not allow it because these were local elections. In most countries, you do not see international observers monitoring local elections. It is also an unfortunate trend to seek certification from foreign observers. As we have seen in the past, election observation has been used as an instrument of blackmail in many instances. I do not think we should substitute the certification from the Ethiopian people with that of foreigners.

Q. The credibility of the national electoral board is always in question?

I do not think the credibility is in question. Those parties who have nothing to offer are interested in making the NEB a bone of contention, or an issue. Electoral authorities are not disputed in any of the developed countries.

Q. Because they are trusted by the public? They are credible.

Do you know that in the United States the ruling party forms the election agencies? Despite this fact, no contending party focuses on that electoral system.

Q. You are mentioning yardsticks in measuring the credibility of elections. Elections are not necessary measured by turnout during votes and registrations. It is just one aspect. Elections are also measured by how competitive they are and how wide the selection is so that voters can choose from when they vote. Seen from this perspective, this election was not competitive because opposition parties boycotted it. Without people having a choice to make, without the election being competitive, how could you say that this is an unprecedented election? It seems to me that there has been a regression from what we all have seen in 2005.

I do not think this is a problem of our electoral system, the law or the process. This is the problem of the opposition parties themselves.

Q. But the opposition parties need to have a level playing field and clearly they said there was no level playing field.

This is the result of the culture of complaint, which we observe in many African countries; it is not new. They do have the level playing field; they have been granted everything that the ruling party was given. They were given air times, newspaper spaces; they were allowed to move freely to organize their constituency and their supporters and the capability of lodging complaints against any government official involved in alleged wrong doings. They were accorded with all the democratic instruments that the ruling party has. If they turned their back on the democratic process, it is not the problem of the system, it is their problem. I do not think the government, the organs of the constitution, as well as the whole process should take the blame for the failures of the opposition. If they felt that withdrawing from this election was the most tactical move, it their decision and not that of the government, or anybody for that matter.

Q. They allege that they had difficulty fielding and registering their candidates and they suffered intimidation and harassment when they campaigned. And these claims have been supported by international organizations such as the Human Rights Watch.

The problem with Human Rights Watch is they report without verifying facts; have you asked if they have representatives here? Have they verified the allegations? Have they sent delegates to investigate?

Q. Yes, they said they have sent investigators to the places and investigated the allegations for three weeks.

That is absolutely wrong. They do not have the right people on the ground; they only claim to, and that is what they do everywhere when they accuse us off human rights violations. For instance, in Mogadishu they do not have anybody on the ground, and yet they accuse us. When they accused us of human rights violations in Ogaden, they had no one there either. This is a culture of allegation as they do not have any verification mechanisms or structures. They only report on whatever has been told to them by the opposition and that is the modus operandi for them.

Coming back to your earlier question, look at how the opposition views the relevance of the local elections. The majority of them do not believe that the local elections are relevant. They do not care to register or field their candidates as much as possible because they do not see local authorities as important and useful. They do not accept the fundamentals of decentralization and local authority. I think the fundamental problems lie there.

Q. On what grounds do you say this?

Because I know that they reject decentralization; they rejected our devolution of power to the grass roots.

Q. I would like to take you back to three years ago when you said, “The only way out for poor countries like Ethiopia is democracy”. Whether or not the oppositions participated in elections, the credibility of democracy is established when you have diverse views in the market place of ideas and policy alternatives in governance structures. When you have a city government that is 99.9pc controlled by one party, do you think it helps the country to be democratic?

Why not?

Q. Because you only have one view; there is no policy debate.

Look at Japan; one party stayed in power for more than 40 years. This did not make Japan a less democratic society. In the developed countries, to having one party in power for a long time does not negate democracy, so long as it is the will of the people.

The EPRDF believes Ethiopia is a multinational and multicultural society composed of diverse people. And we cannot say that these people have a uniform attitude or opinion on every issue. There are various opinions and issues in our society. The EPRDF believes that Addis Abeba is no less diverse than any part of Ethiopia. The test for the new administration will be how it is going to accommodate all the diverse views found in Addis. As long as it gives sufficient space for all these ideas, then even the power controlled by one party will remain a democracy. If it stifles dissent in Addis, then you can call it an undemocratic administration.

Q. Doesn’t it bother your party that those who did not vote for the EPRDF will not have their voices represented in the city council, as well as in the different governance structures?

It does not mean that the new administration will serve only those who elected the EPRDF. It is going to be an administration of the city, and the city will work to satisfy all the people of Addis.

Q. The incumbent redefined the arrangements of electoral structures during this election, as opposed to the ones in the past. Each kebelle will have a hundred and something officials instead of 15 or so. As a result, political parties need to fill 3.5 million candidates, which really stretched their limits and put the ruling party at an advantage.

If 30 parties are not capable of building equal capacity that matches one party, then it should be the problem of those 30 parties. However, we did this because our constitution requires us to adhere to the principle of direct democracy, which satisfies direct participation of the public at large. You cannot exercise direct democracy at the federal parliament where you have only 547 seats. Direct participation is possible at the grass roots level; the more there is direct participation, the greater is the chance of local administrations to catering to the interest of the public. This is the fundamental constitutional obligation that we have respected.

Q. The constitution was ratified in 1996, yet you just started looking into it now. But you have been in power all these years.

There are a lot of constitutional prerogatives that are not widely applied. We will be applying them in due course.

Q. The EPRDF has 3.5 million candidates that run under its platform during these elections. If you were to pay 100 Br to each candidate as an allowance for transport during the campaign, the total cost would be close to four million Birr. Who foot the bill?

You do not understand the concept of what direct participation means at the grass roots level. Why should we pay for a person to compete in his own kebelle; he has no additional cost we are required to cover.

Q. Now that you have control of Addis Abeba both in the city council, district level and kebelle levels, what should the public expect in the next two years? Will there be a big bang?

I do not think there will be a big bang. But the whole weight of the EPRDF will be utilized to fight poverty in Addis Abeba and ensure good governance. Not only will the elected officials for Addis be on the front line, but the entire EPRDF as well.

Q. After what you called a renewal process of the EPRDF five years ago, the party tried to work in Addis Abeba on housing and infrastructure. This has, however, been questioned as there seems to be no real commitment by the EPRDF. Is it a damage control exercise for the neglect committed during the first decade of its rule?

I do not see it as damage control interest on the part of the EPRDF. There are fundamental things that we subscribe to; the people of Ethiopia have been victims of poverty and backwardness. We believe that Ethiopians do not deserve to live in this situation for we have every potential to get rid of poverty and realize our best hopes. The EPRDF is engaged in the construction of houses and the development of micro and small enterprises out of its deep conviction that the people of Addis should benefit from them. We want to make sure that the city grows fast and the people of Addis are the main beneficiaries.

Q. But in the past, when you were trying to develop Addis Abeba, which is 80pc slum, you have had two shortcomings: You had a complete disregard of the concept of property rights, and your record on the rule of law was not that pleasing.

First, let me straighten the facts. We were not showing any disregard to property rights. I think you can compare us to any of the governments in the past. There is no comparison in what we give as a form of compensations to the loss of properties due to dislocations.

Q. But you made mistakes when you relocated people?

We did not make mistake here; we had consulted and discussed with them. If you expect to renew a city without clearing slums, I do not think you can get space for better housing as well as for real estate development. Without clearing the slums, the city remains the same for an indefinite period; we do not want to see this. Whenever there is an issue related to compensation, we will compensate. That has been the principle with which we have been guiding ourselves in the past and it will remain so in the future.

Regarding the rule of law, we believe we have not disregarded any law. I can assure you this is a government which deeply believes that rule of law is a central element of democracy. It has been respecting the rule of law in the past and it will continue to do so in the future. This does not mean we will stop fighting against those who break the law.

Q. Tell me your view of the caretaker administration that has administered Addis Abeba for the past two years. Are you happy with its performance?

Yes. The caretaker administration helped the city to come out of the crises. I think it has done its job. The caretaker administration is composed of neutral professionals who have positive attitudes about development, the people, and the democratization process. They worked without having any party backing or structured administration. I look at it from the context of their caretaker role; these professionals committed themselves to doing the job, at a time when those elected had declined to take their responsibility. They have shouldered the burden and they have tried their level best. I do not think there is room for complaints around here. They deserve praise.

Q. Was there anything that you would have liked them to achieve.

The EPRDF as usual is interested in fast economic growth, and deepening the reforms. We would have liked to see democratization go much faster than it is now.

Q. The Prime Minister said several times in public that he would love to be relieved from his responsibilities after all these years. As a result, there are speculations.

Let me tell you what the Prime Minister has said so far and what the party believes. He has expressed his personal desire and he also expressed that he is a soldier of the party. He will be deployed to any work the party would like him to do.

Q. Isn’t that a conflicted signal?

I think that is the right signal that he can give. He is a loyal soldier and leader of the party who is exemplary in everything.

It is for the EPRDF to decide on each one of our fates because we are soldiers of the party. I do not think that we, as individuals, can decide where we work; the culture of the EPRDF is such that any member takes his assignment whether it is to his liking or not and delivers on his task. That has been the case in the past and it will remain so in the future.

The party does not believe that the Prime Minister has finished his job. None of us believes that; he has a lot to do and he is capable of doing a lot of things. The party knows its strategic interests and we will adhere to them.

Q. You give me the impression that you and the party would like the Prime Minister to continue for another term?

Why not?