#Ethiopia #Election2020 'Chaos & Crisis in the making!' - a reflection thread
1) Almost every political leader in #ETH is advocating for the upcoming election in Aug.2020 (except Lidetu). I see a number of intertwined problems in this infatuation with a competitive election
1) Almost every political leader in #ETH is advocating for the upcoming election in Aug.2020 (except Lidetu). I see a number of intertwined problems in this infatuation with a competitive election
2)The current political sphere is dominated by people who hold extreme views in relation to each other & the rivalry & antagonism are getting intense as each day passes. None of them is ready to compromise. PM Abiy's desire to be the icon of 'democratic transition' is a wishful
3)thinking just like Prof. Berhanu's assertion that 'free & fair election is the only solution'. The masked & unmasked Amhara & Oromo ethnonationalists are ready to gamble & build their political career by using 'chaos as a ladder' and by antagonising socio-cultural groups
4)The mobilisation of especially young under/unemployed people through fanatic ethnonationalist discourse & exaggeration of horizontal inequalities can easily become out of control leading to an unprecedented level of chaos & crisis. Every advocate of 'competitive election' as...
5) a solution to our problem will be structurally constrained to play any meaningful role to calm down a post-election violence/crisis because of the zero-sum game politics they are promoting both wittingly & unwittingly. As Kaplan said 'the loose molecules' aka the ethnically
6) mobilised young ppl fired up with haterade & victimhood can easily become a force of destruction. All the foreign funding flowing to facilitate the 'competitive election' has a double agenda of creating a leeway to the foreign capital to capitalise on a weak state whose elites
7) are busy fighting with each other. In a context where the settling of the political score is the primary goal of the elite, dev'tal priorities will become at the end of the agenda. 'I'm not a fortune teller, but I can see' that our elites are designing their own failure
8)particularly by pushing the competitive election as the ONLY solution. MY PROPOSITION is NEGOTIATION, NEGOTIATION, NEGOTIATION!!! None of them can get everything. Our institutional system & level of socio-econ dev't is immature to deliver a less chaotic outcome out of
9) competitive election. Democratic/competitive election is 'the institutionalisation of uncertainties'. None of your base, especially the ethnically mobilised base is ready to accept the 'uncertainty' even now, let alone after the heated moments of competition...It is better to
10) institutionalise this uncertainty through negotiation than to throw it into the air and expect a miracle to happen. Our BELOVED ETHIOPIA is too big to be gambled on! The political rivalry might bring thousands of people to political rallies but it won't deliver them what they
11) need unless it is pursued through negotiation. The high expectation being built around the election & its outcome needs to be diffused through NEGOTIATION than taking it as an end by itself. END! #Ethiopia #Ethiopia #EthiopianElection2020
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