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When considering the
sort of political party that may suit the taste of
the “Condo Generation,” the question of what its
campaign manifesto would look like arises.
How about campaign
promises such as these, “Vote for us as we will open
10 new FM radio stations all dedicated to hip-hop.
All the English Premier League matches will be
televised free on all of the nine new television
channels that we will allow. It will be a national
holiday whenever the top four clubs in the English
Premier League play against each other. Subsidised
Apple iPods will be offered to all citizens. We are
the party of the new generation that will bring
hope, prosperity, and leisure to this land. Vote for
us!”
It might be awkward to
read such a manifesto from a political party that
intends to lead a nation as complex and diverse as
this one. But, the fact remains that all of the
prevailing parties running for the upcoming national
elections have failed to attract the attention of
the urban youth. This is vividly evident in the
principal city of the nation, Addis Abeba.
For anyone who has
followed the recent us presidential election, where
Barack Obama won by a landslide, it would be
unarguably obvious that the fate of a nation depends
on its youth.
This nation’s own
history could also backup this argument, whereby the
disenchantment of university students has resulted
in a political turmoil and systemic changes in the
country. What was evident in the 2005 National
Elections was also similar.
The touch seems to be
lost in the upcoming national elections.
What has made the youth
so reluctant to define its future, though? What have
the contending political parties failed to do to get
the youth back on the political track?
Though attempting to
answer these questions would involve risky
generalisation, it may be essential to determine the
future of our toddling democracy. Many political
pundits, who closely follow Ethiopian politics,
claim that the aftermath of the 2005 National
Elections is to be blamed for the growing
frustration of the Ethiopian youth towards national
politics. That being one of the reasons, though, it
could not be the only one, as many other changes
have taken place after that.
As reported in this
newspaper a few weeks ago, a new generation of
youth, dubbed the “EPRDF Generation” has become
eligible to vote for the first time in the upcoming
national elections. The generation has brought new
expectations, styles, demands, and aspirations to
the scene that the old politics of this nation would
not be able to meet. Some of the political parties,
the incumbent being in the frontline, have
interpreted these new values only from a
materialistic point of view.
As a result, they have
focused their campaign only on what is tangible,
pushing the intangibles aside. Roads, condominiums,
power plants, schools, and other infrastructure are
being used by the Ethiopian Peoples' Revolutionary
Democratic Front (EPRDF) as success stories to win
votes. Opposition parties, on the other hand, are
trying to get elected merely by attacking the EPRDF,
without having a viable plan to govern, except the
Ethiopian Democratic Party (EDP) which has thrown
out a roadmap.
All of the political
parties have failed to understand that the youth
value honesty, eloquence, evidence, logic, charisma,
and consistency beyond the list of infrastructure,
employment, ports, and land rights.
The arrogance of some
EPRDF candidates, the faltering of some opposition
candidates, and the overall context of the election
seem to have made the youth less interested, no
matter how much anyone may try to deny it. To
witness this, go to one of the football showrooms
during Premier League matches and compare the energy
there with that of Ethiopian Radio and Television
Agency (ERTA) sponsored political debates.
Both the youth affected
by the aftermath of the 2005 Election and the
newcomers have turned their faces away from
politics. The former for being traumatised by their
past experience and the latter for being brought up
with new values. Yet, they both seem to have joined
similar clubs, watching football, partying,
drinking, having fun, and caring less about national
politics.
The disinclination
seems to be caused both by the loss of hope for
change and the hope for change brought up by
somebody else.
That being the case,
the root cause of the problem seems to lie in the
fact that existing political parties are dominated
by the older generation of the 1960s. For them,
ideology matters more than rationality, political
capital is worth more than transparency, and party
loyalty weighs more than reason. They want the youth
just to give them a political mandate to govern.
Their policies consider the youth as a collection of
human beings searching only for jobs.
There seems to be a
consensus as reflected in the ongoing campaign
amongst parties that the sole promise of jobs will
get votes from the youth. They have all failed to
boldly recognise that the nation belongs to the
youth. They all seem to deliberately push the youth
away from party ranks. Those who pretend to do so
are doing it for a cover story.
Arguably, the older
political gurus seem to view the youth as trendy,
inconsistent, inexperienced, careless, and too
liberal. Some say that youths lack nationalism,
while others say they lack determination. They all
fail to recognise that what matters most is what
they, themselves, lack.
The very strategy of a
“zero-sum-game” has made the politics of this
country a repellent to the youth. Ethiopian youths
are seeking to get similar values in our politics
that they find in fair competition from the English
Premier League, freedom of speech from hip-hop
songs, adventure from Hollywood movies, reason and
rationality from peer discussions, and style from
fashion and modeling. The old vehicle of these
politics, oiled with class struggle, do not even
know these values.
Hence, even those young
leaders, who have joined party structures for a
variety of reasons, give politics a second touch.
The disparity between the politics and values of the
new generation is so huge that the future of this
toddling democracy seems to be held at bay.
Lack of clear policies
and the inability to back them up with concrete
technical justification seems to be costing
opposition parties the attention of the urban youth.
Continuous allegations of opposition figures, crude
generalisations, arrogance of some candidates,
unwillingness to accept mistakes, and irresponsible
political twists has portrayed the governing party
as power-clinging, costing it the attention of the
educated youth.
There has been much
development in this country in the past 19 years,
initiated by many domestic as well as international
forces, whether or not we believe it. Some are good,
while some are bad.
The majority of the
youth continue to pay the price, while only some are
taking the prize. The way politics is being
conducted in this poor land has remained the
foremost reason for this lopsided cost-benefit
trend. Balancing the bias would require embracing
the youth in the system. To do so, however, studying
the “tide” must be a priority.
The tide will either be
missed or, worse, it will be misdirected in a
harmful way. For the sake of our toddling democracy,
we should all strive to get the youth onboard and
into the ranks of leadership. It is only then that
we can think of a bright future for our poor nation. |
