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Elections - open, free and fair - are the essence of
democracy, and a sine qua non, says Fareed
Zakaria, editor for Newsweek, in his
best-selling book, "The Future of Freedom: Illiberal
Democracy at Home and Abroad."
Zakaria writes, "Governments produced by elections
may be inefficient, shortsighted, irresponsible,
dominated by special interests and incapable of
adopting policies demanded by the public good. These
qualities make such governments undesirable but they
do not make them undemocratic. Democracy is one
public virtue, but not the only one."
He underlined the importance of other public virtues
in democratic societies, which are as important as
democracy and elections. These virtues vary from
social, political, economic, and technological to
religious principles. Nonetheless, democracy, as
practiced through the direct election of
representatives, plays a central role as it defines
the preferred package, amongst alternative packages
of strategic mixes.
The level of a country's democracy could be measured
by observing the variety of governance packages that
are availed by competing parties for the public to
choose from during election.
In an environment of multiparty democracies, such as
Ethiopia, the packages should detail the alternative
development and economic management models presented
by each of the parties. If that is the case,
elections are all about the public’s judgment of the
costs and benefits of alternative development paths
rather than being about the head of the party,
loyalty to the party, special interests or the
love-hate game.
But if only a few of the parties have
well-articulated development agendas, then elections
will be playoffs between facts and rhetoric, ideas
and personalities, and strategies and opinions.
With the upcoming national elections getting
closer, we should be able to address this critical
issue.
Will these elections be a contest between alterative
development and economic policies or a mere struggle
for state power waged between old folks with
outdated thoughts?
By signing the electoral code of conduct, the 65
registered parties have committed themselves to work
for an open, free and fair election. But the crux of
the matter lies in making the product as viable as
possible, aside from making the process clean.
For some, it may be an historic milestone to witness
the bigger parties, after many tiresome sessions of
deliberation, negotiation, and compromise, reach a
momentous agreement on the electoral code of
conduct. With that, the road ahead could be governed
by the "rule of law," while the whole process is
done in a responsible and accountable manner.
The benefit to members of the public will be to
provide them with an opportunity to make informed
decisions in a peaceful manner. The parties will
also benefit as it provides them with a regulatory
framework within which to compete and raise
complaints, if any.
But, aside from the signing ceremony and related
media sensationalism, we seem to have forgotten to
ask what the signatories are going to offer us.
After coming to power, the ruling party, the
Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF),
has disclosed many policy documents concerning the
governance of the country and sustainable
development.
These documents include the transitional
government's economic policy, agricultural
development led industrialisation (ADLI) industrial
development strategy, national capacity building
strategy, population policy, technical vocational
education and training strategy, urban development
policy, and what have you. Though the policy
documents lack integration and consistency, they
have helped the public to evaluate the development
plan of the party.
With change in the national and international
environs, the party has also tried to readjust its
policy directions in addition to bringing in new
strategies to fill identified gaps. Even though the
accomplishments that these policy directions have
brought differ from the lenses with which they are
viewed through, their presence was by itself helpful
to initiate policy-level debates.
On the flip side, the documents have also helped
opposition parties, most of which do not even have a
conceptual note as to what their alternative
policies are, to base their counterarguments on the
incumbent's policy menu.
Many of the opposition parties do not have specific
development alternatives to stand for. In the
absence of that, it is very difficult to know how
they wish to lead the nation, what their economic
model is like, which of the sectors will remain a
priority in their economic policy, which economic
variables will be the focus of their agendas, and
how to address the economic problems that the nation
is facing.
Aside from lacking a political and economic agenda
as articulated as the incumbent, they are too quick
to attach themselves to some international causes,
which they think are the fads of the time. On the
very few occasions they have tried to formulate
their policies, they prefer to declare them in
general statements, mostly made just to oppose the
policies of the ruling party.
As was the case in the 2005 election, the parties
seem to prefer to be elected through popular hype.
They have forgotten the fact that, both as a right
and as an accepted international practice, Ethiopian
electorates deserve to be offered an opportunity to
evaluate policies based on their costs and benefits.
To that end, the parties ought to offer policy
documents showing their particular mixes of
strategic alternatives.
They should also bear in mind that the public has
gone far ahead of them in analysing and evaluating
information. This has helped voters to compare our
country's experience with other countries'
experiences.
Provided that the political base has changed, the
parties have to adapt to the change. They have to
listen to the concerns of voters, search for
alterative solutions and choose the best
alternatives to adopt should they be elected.
Besides that, they have to clearly state the
strategic development agenda that they would fight
for. It is only then that the cost to reach the
agreement on the "electoral code of conduct" would
be worth it.
Zakaria rightly states, "Democracy could be
mainstreamed as one virtue in the web of our
socio-economic development, not as the only cause to
concentrate on." |
