National elections are only four months away from the electoral showdown. Voter registration appears to be going well, with the national electoral body claiming to have registered over 17 million voters up until last week; they have eight million voters, to keep in their books in order to match the number of voters registered during the unprecedented national elections in 2005.

Many at the gossip corridors and in diplomatic circles are wondering when the electoral face-off will begin to get exciting, if at all it will. Things appear so quiet so far that electoral politics may face the risk of boredom, worried those at the gossip corridors.

It seems Seyee Abraha's Forum for Democracy and Justice and Hailu Shawel's All Ethiopia Unity Party (AEUP) are enthusiastic about spicing up the electoral battle. Seyee and some of the embattled leaders of his current party, Unity for Democracy and Justice (UDJ), are in the habit of making interesting remarks here and there, while AEUP has issued a public statement-cum-campaign pamphlet.

It is ironic to see a party with a slogan, at the bottom of the statement, swearing to be a diehard liberal, while strongly opposing the free movement of goods and services. AEUP criticised the alleged invitation of "bricklayers and carpenters from Pakistan and metal and woodwork craftsmen from China and India" to come to Ethiopia, at the disadvantage of Ethiopian sons and daughters, who it says are fleeing the country in search of jobs.

AEUP tries to appeal to members of the business community. One of the social groups listed in the campaign statement, alleging that the Revolutionary Democrats is complicit in what it claimed is an "economic invasion."

Even Lidetu Ayalew's party, which often claims to be a liberal democrat, has finally settled on using a rose flower as its electoral symbol, an icon that best represents European Socialists. Ana Gomez, rather known in Ethiopia for her controversial role during and after the 2005 national elections, belongs to this party.

The Revolutionary Democrats, the centre left incumbent, appear to be quiet in the face of all of this However, gossip has come to learn that they have been plotting to overcome their electoral battle. Recently, close to 3,000 of their senior cadres congregated in the town of Adama (Nazareth) for three days.

Three of their leaders, Bereket Simon of the Amhara National Democratic Movement (ANDM), Hailemariam Desalegn of the Southern Peoples' Democratic Movement (SPDM) and Muktar Kedir of the Oromo People's Democratic Organisation (OPDO) who also replaced Bereket as chief of the secretariat of the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) Council, were on the forefront, providing training and briefings to the cadres. Much of the discussion was on the electoral code of conduct their parties signed with opposition parties, mainly AEUP and EDP.

These cadres were given a final sermon by their chief priest at the end of the third day, on a Saturday. Meles Zenawi, chairman of the incumbent, spoke to the cadres for two hours, through a video conference, claims gossip.

Now that the fired up army of cadres are out in the electoral battlefield, the showdown may become a little more interesting than it has so far been, gossip anticipates.