Ethiopia’s Perfekt Elektion? Much Ado About Nothing!

Ethiopians waiting in line to vote in the 2010 sham election

By Alemayehu G. Mariam,


Who knows about Ethiopia’s perfekt elektion in May 2015?

It is the middle of February 2015 as I write this commentary. But I always remember in November.

I see some of my Ethiopian friends carrying long forlorn melancholy faces.  A few lines from Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing” flash in my mind:

Why, what’s the matter,
That you have such a February face,
So full of frost, of storm and cloudiness?

A February face with Sturm und Drang in their hearts. They reply in gloomy resignation with questions. Did I know this or that about the “election”?  “Election”, eh?  I feign ignorance. Of course, they are asking me about the “election” set for May 24, 2015 by the Thugtatorship of the Tigrean Peoples Liberation Front (T-TPLF).

Am I aware the T-TPLF has jailed leaders and members of Semawayi (“Blue”) Party, the Unity for Democracy and Justice (UDJ), and the Arena Tigray Party?  Did I know the T-TPLF police are busting open the heads of peaceful protesters?  Did I know the “criminal case” of the Zone 9 Bloggers had been postponed for the umpteenth time? Did I know the T-TPLF is harassing and jailing activists and critics every day?   What do I think of the support the T-TPLF is getting from the United States, the European Union, United Kingdom, the World Bank, the International monetary Fund  and all the rest to steal the 2015 “election” like they did in 2010?

Do I think the T-TPLF is scared _ _ _ _less about the possibility of a spontaneous political combustion  to its rule, election or no election? (That’s a no brainer. Why else would they jail young Facebook bloggers?) Do I “know” as much about the May “elections” as President Obama? (Well!  I would like to ask President Obama if he knows a state that silences the opposition is a source of terror to all its citizens as did his predecessor Harry Truman.  “Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear”, cautioned Truman.)

In late September 2014, Obama glibly remarked, “… the  Prime Minister [Hailemariam Desalegn] and the government is going to be organizing elections in Ethiopia this year. I know something about that…” (Obama would have known “something” about the terror of living in a police state had he read my commentary the Republic of Dystopia Ethiopia!

I was so stunned, intrigued and outraged by Obama’s remark I wrote a full commentary demanding to know the  “something” he knows about the May 2015 “election”? I made that demand out of an abundance of concern and caution. Did Obama “know” the “election” is going to be stolen? Did he “know” it was going to be rigged? Did he “know” opposition party leaders would be harassed and jailed? Did he “know” journalism and blogging in Ethiopia would be declared  state crimes? Did he know…? Long story made short, I posted a list of interrogatories inquiring into President Obama’s  “knowledge” of the Ethiopian “election” in my commentary “What Does President Obama “Know” About Ethiopia’s ‘Election’?

But who else “knows” about Ethiopia’s 2015 “election”?

The marionette and bumbling “Prime Minister” Hailemariam Desalegn knows the 2015 “election” will be “perfect”. The pitiful and hopelessly discombobulated Hailemaraim not long ago remarked, “We have to make the [election] process democratic, free, fair and credible in the eyes of our people.” He said his party could ensure a free and fair election because “Our institutional process and our laws and regulations are perfect. It is not the law that hinders but the implementation of these laws.”

True, it is not the laws but the T-TPLF that “hinders the implementation of these laws.”  I also have no doubts that Hailemariam and his T-TPLF will “implement” (I did not say rig or manipulate)  the “election laws”  to deliver a “perfect election”. They damn near had a “perfect election” in 2010. They won by 99.6 percent! That is what I call a super duper close near miss or near hit. What’s four-tenths of a point away from 100 percent, anyway! A teeny weeny statistical error?  (By the way, I want to be the first one to offer kudos to the T-TPLF for having won the “perfekt elektion” in May 2015 now. I guess Hailemariam will soon find out the meaning of the expression, “use him and lose him.) The last time  such perfektion was achieved anywhere in the world was during the 2002 Iraqi election. Saddam Hussien won by 11 million-to-0.)

Lately, I have read some commentaries and heard media discussions on the Ethiopian “elektion”. It is important to have robust public debate and discussions on a topic of such importance.  Learned commentators have a moral duty to educate the broader public. I am often asked by media sources and others to comment.  They want me to look into my crystal ball and divine if the 2015 election will be free and fair?” I tell them emphatically it will not be free and fair, but it is guaranteed to be a “perfekt elektion”.
 
My other answer is a question. “What elektion? It is true that “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet”, but an “elektion” in a thug police state by any other spelling would stink to the high heavens.

I have commented on the madness of “elections” in the T-TPLFpolice thug state for years. In my October 2009 commentary, “Ethiopia: Mission Impossible?”, I argued that there must exist a civic culture that promotes and nurtures co-equality, equity, civility, good faith, mutual respect and tolerance to ensure free and fair elections. I predicted the 2010 “election” will prove to be a sham, a travesty of democracy, a mockery and a caricature of democratic elections. I was wrong. It proved to be a near “perfekt elektion”.

The 2010 “elektion” actually proved to be an actual case proving the truth of the old saw about the pig with lipstick. In 2015, the fat old sow (pig) is trotted out once again for public display with makeup, lipstick and all. The T-TPLF is now busy jazzing up the 2015 elektion to legitimize its one-clique, one-party thugtatorship with a “code of conduct”, “elektion board”, voter registration, elektion observers and the rest of it. They want to hoodwink us into believing that a pig in the sty with lipstick is actually a swan floating on a placid lake, a butterfly fluttering in the rose garden or a lamb frolicking in the meadows. They think lipstick will make everything look pretty.  At the end of the day, a pig in lipstick is still a pig. Likewise, an “election” in a thug police state is just an ELEKTION (spelled with a “k” as in fake)  there goes another neologism (new word) for the English language.)

Proposal for public discussion and debate over the 2015 elektion 

There is not a single person alive and marginally aware of politics in Ethiopia who does not believe the T-TPLF will declare total victory in May 2015.  That is because the T-TPLF inherited its “elektion” philosophy and practices from Josef (Koba the Dread) Stalin.  “The people who cast the votes don’t decide an election, the people who count the votes do.” THE PEOPLE WHO WILL COUNT THE VOTES IN THE 2015 ELEKTION ARE T-TPLF CADRES. So, the T-TPLF “electoral” victory in 2015 is a fait accompli, a done deal. It is future history already made! What is there left to talk about the 2015 elektion?

I say let them have their elektion.  Let them knock themselves out! Abe Lincoln was right. “You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.” Abe should have added, “But you can fool yourself all of the time” for all time. Let the T-TPLF have their elektion and fool themselves into believing they have won by 99.6 or 110 percent (including dead voters) of the voters.

So here is my first question straight up: Does it make sense to talk about an elektion that has already been won, canned and bagged? 

Consider a national soccer match event played in the home stadium of Team 1. All of the fans in the stadium are hand selected gung ho Team 1 supporters or hired from Team 1 rent-a-fan company. Members of the opposition team are selected right down to the last man by the owners of Team 1. The referee and linesmen (assistant referees) are bought and paid for by Team 1. The rules for the specific match and how the rules are to be applied to the match are determined by the owners of Team 1. The referees are allowed to issue disciplinary action only against the opposing team.  The referees are allowed to kick out of the game for any reason only players from the opposition team.  The referees have final decision-making authority on all facts and disputes  relating to a given play and the overall match.  The referees can stop, suspend or terminate the match at their discretion.  Owners of Team 1 determine the total number of goals scored and the winning team in the match.

Under these circumstances, does it make sense for any opposition team to play a match against Team 1?

By the same token, in the 2015 elektion, the T-TPLF owns, manages and operates the elektions board and the voter registration system.  The T-TPLF sets the election “kode of konduct” and applies it. The T-TPLF selects and designates the elektion observers. The T-TPLF selects and approves members of the “opposition party” to compete against it. The T-TPLF funds and organizes the opposition party. The T-TPLF kicks out opposition party players it does not like or want. The T-TPLF counts the votes. The T-TPLF declares whether the elektion has been free and fair. The T-TPLF sets the percentage of votes it received. The T-TPLF decides who won the elektion.

Under these circumstances, does it make sense for any opposition party to “compete” with the T-TPLF in the 2015 elektion? Is it not hypocritical to pretend to play in a political game that is rigged from top to bottom? If one were to participate in such an elektion, does it not legitimize the elektion as a free and fair election? Does it not do great violence and disservice to the very idea of democracy to become part of an elektion circus? 

Here is my second question: Shouldn’t we be talking about something else instead of a T-TPLF elektion?

Does it not make more sense to use the opportunity to provide mass-based civic education to enlighten and educate the people on best practices in holding free and fair elections, democratic institution building, the rule of law and human rights and so on?  Shouldn’t we use the opportunity to elevate the political discourse to address issues that will help the general Ethiopian public to understand what is wrong with the T-TPLF’s cartoon elektions and demockracy (mockery of democracy)? 

Why we should be very careful when talking about the 2015 T-TPLF “elektion” 

The crux of my message in this commentary is a simple one: We need to be conscious, mindful and vigilant in the way we talk about the 2015 elektion in Ethiopia. George Orwell admonished, “Political language… is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidarity to pure wind.” We will likely prove to be unwitting legitimizers and validators of the T-TPLF’s 2015 political thug-fest as a democratic election. When T-TPLF leaders, cronies and toadies talk about 2015 elektion their aim is to make their elektion lie sound truthful; to make their ignoble elektion  sound respectable and hoodwink the Ethiopian people and enchant their ready-able-and-willing-to-be-deceived donors and loaners with pure wind.

I reluctantly admit that the T-TPLF has to some extent succeeded in selling their idea an elektion as an election in the public discourse.  The Ethiopian masses are hectored every day to get ready for the 2015 “election”. The T-TPLF trumpets polling stations around the country have opened for registration.  The T-TPLF says they have “allocated 44,454 polling stations, with 222,270 public observers and 547 constituencies with 1,935 election officials." The T-TPLF says Addis Abeba has "1,523 polling stations with 7,615 public observers, and 69 election officials." The T-TPLF says the 2015 elektion is  going to be a “free and fair” (just like the one in 2010).

I hear opposition leaders criticizing this or that about the elektion. The T-TPLF is not letting them organize or protest. There are some who argue that the elektion could provide the T-TPLF an opportunity to become more democratic and inclusive.  Democratic redemption could be just around the corner for the T-TPLF if it becomes more inclusive. I say, to expect a thugocracy to be transformed into a democracy through an elektion is to squeeze blood out of turnip.

I get a February face whenever I hear opposition leaders and critics talking about this or that issue in the T-TPLF elektion.  I get confused when anyone talks about the 2015 elektion mindlessly, especially the foreign press, diplomatic corps and occasionally that cabal of odious money lenders I affectionately call international poverty pimps.  To talk about the T-TPLF’s elektion as an election is to demean, debase, and disparage the very democratic idea of election. I would like to see critics, opposition leaders and others come forward and declare, “The 2015 elektion is a pig in lipstick!”;  and move on to the real business of teaching  and preaching to the public  the real meaning of elections, voting and political participation in a democratic process.

The fact of the matter is that the T-TPLF is winning the propaganda war about the 2015 “elektion”.  They have got folks talking about it. That is really a hell of an achievement for a bunch of bush bumpkins who did not even finish elementary school. I can only credit their success to the advanced training they received earning their advanced degrees from online diploma mills. (What a sham! What a shame!)

The sly T-TPLF cabal high-five each other whenever someone dignifies their elektion as an election. I read a comment on line shortly after President Obama made his “I know something about the election in Ethiopia” remark in September. The person writing the comment took great pride in the fact that President Obama by his statement had blessed and validated the free and fair nature of the election to take place in 2015. (Maybe Obama did, I don’t know. But I am still waiting for responses to the interrogatories I publicly  posted in regards to Obama’s fore“knowledge” of the May 2015 Ethiopian elektion.) My suggestion to the opposition is to leave the 2015 elektion to political science students to experiment with in their simulation exercises (something that has already been done).

I believe the most important contribution Ethiopian scholars, opposition leaders and others can make is to use the 2015 elektion  as an object lesson. We should teach and enlighten the people on thug elektions and thugocracy  and show them how it is different from elections that are deemed to be free and fair by international standards.  We should use the T-TPLF elektion to teach them how elections are rigged, ballot and voter fraud executed. We should use the elektion to teach the people how ballots are stuffed, votes bought, votes tampered, votes miscounted and mis-recorded to produce a 99.6 plus elektion victory.

Does it not make more sense to teach the people how elektion fraudsters and elektion con artists use sophisticated techniques to steal elections long before an elektion is held by altering  the demographic composition of the electorate and manipulating population trends to disenfranchise voters who do not support the T-TPLF? Does it not make sense to teach the people how violence and the threat of violence, attacks on polling places, legal and economic threats, misinformation and disinformation are used to guarantee a 99.6 percent plus elektion victory?

The Ghost of Meles Zenawi in 2015 and the T-TPLF election strategy

I wonder how many people are aware that the T-TPLF is today using the elektion master plan drawn by the late Meles Zenawi,  without any modifications.  I am not sure many Ethiopians realize the simple fact that overall T-TPLF elektion mugging strategy for 2015 is the same one used to deliver a 99.6 percent victory in 2010. Meles’ strategy was, and in its current application is, based on one simple proposition. The T-TPLF is the ONLY game in town! The T-TPLF is the protector, deliverer and sole guardian of Ethiopia. The T-TPLF is the ONLY secure pillar of stability, peace, development and progress in Ethiopia. Loaners and donors, get this straight! Without the T-TPLF, your corrupt activities for the past 24 years will be exposed and you will be held accountable under law.

For some time now, I have been warning about the ghost of Meles Zenawi hanging over the 2015 elektions like “pall in the dunnest (dark) smoke of hell”, to paraphrase Shakespeare. Meles was the supreme playwright of stolen and rigged elektions. He wrote the script and playbook for rigging and hijacking elektions in the bush, long before he held the mantle of power. He was a bit overconfident in 2005 and his T-TPLF party got a thumping; but Meles learned his lessons well. Never give the real opposition an even break! In 2005, he jailed opposition leaders, independent journalists, human rights advocates, dissidents and civil society leaders. Isn’t that what the T-TPLF is doing now?

The 2015 T-TPLF elektion strategy is to convince Ethiopians and their foreign bankrollers that:

• Without the T-TPLF, Ethiopia will be plunged into genocidal civil war just like Rwanda. 
• Without the T-TPLF, there will be ethnic fragmentation, conflict and warfare just like South Sudan.
• Without the T-TPLF, the “evil” “Amharas” will take over power and restore their “wicked” rule. 
• Without the T-TPLF, the “Oromos” will take over power and persecute the “Amharas”.
• Without the T-TPLF, the “Tigrayans” will face persecution, and even worse, by “Amharas” and “Oromos”.
• Without the T-TPLF, the ethnically diverse people of Ethiopia will be forced out of their homes, lose their ancestral lands and be forced not to speak in their languages.
• Without the T-TPLF, the infamous “Derg” junta will rear its ugly head and return. 
• Without the T-TPLF, the “Muslims” will impose “Islamic law” in Ethiopia. 
• Without the T-TPLF, “Muslims” and “Christians” will persecute each other just like in the Central African Republic. 
• Without the T-TPLF, Islamist terrorism will wreak havoc in Ethiopia just like Boko Haram in Nigeria. 
• Without the T-TPLF, all of the rich people who got rich through corruption and theft will lose their wealth and go to jail or into exile. 
• Without the T-TPLF, the economy will collapse and Ethiopia will no longer enjoy the (imaginary) 11-15 percent annual economic growth. ( I have proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the claim of the T-TPLF, the World Bank and the other international poverty pimps that Ethiopia has experienced an 11 percent growth for the past ten years is a lie, damned lie and a statisle (statistical lie). Period!)  
• Without the T-TPLF, there will be no development in Ethiopia. 
• Without the T-TPLF, the sky will fall and the stars come crashing down on Ethiopia! 
• Without the T-TPLF, there will be no Ethiopia!

Simply stated, the T-TPLF’s “winning” strategy for the 2015 elektion is good old fear and loathing. If they can

• manage to get “Amharas” to fear and dread an “Oromo takeover” of power, they get to “win” and stay in power. 
• get “Oromos” to hate “Amharas” and dread and “Amhara comeback”, they get to “win” and stay in power. 
• keep “Oromos” preoccupied with historical grievances and overlook the massacres of dozens of innocent  university students, they get to “win” and stay in power. 
• frighten the smaller ethnic groups into believing the world will close on them without the T-TPLF, they get to “win” and stay in power.
• get “Christians” and “Muslims” to fear, loathe and distrust each other, they get to “win” and stay in power. 
• scare their rich supporters into believing that without the T-TPLF  they will certainly lose their riches and end up in exile or in jail, they get to “win” and stay in power. 
• persuade their loaners and donors to believe (wink, wink) the sky will fall on Ethiopia and their national interests will be doomed if they fall out of power, they get to “win” and stay in power. 
• get the loaners and donors to turn a blind eye, purse their lips and plug their ears, as they always have, to the daylight theft of elections in Ethiopia, they get to “win” and stay in power.

A word or two about a free and fair elections 

There is no magic to having free and fair elections.  The procedures for free and fair elections have been refined by various international organizations . The Inter-Parliamentary Union, founded in 1889, has been a prime mover in establishing  guidelines  for elections and elections  monitoring.  The  Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA),the Swedish organization is another organization involved in identifying best practices for free and fair elections. IDEA tried to help Meles devise an “election code of conduct” in 2010. Meles kicked IDEA in the teeth.

One need look no further than the Africa Union Declaration on the Principles Governing Democratic Elections in Africa - AHG/DECL.1 (XXXVIII) and the AU Guidelines for African Union Electoral Observation and Monitoring Missions to have a practical understanding of the pre-requisites for free and fair elections. The AU’s principles and guidelines cover a whole range of issues to ensure free and fair elections. There must be full freedom of association and political tolerance for maximum public participation. All competing political parties must have equal access to state media. The judiciary must be independent from political interference and pressures. There must be effective courts to resolve disputes arising from the conduct of elections. Electoral boards must be neutral and impartial and staffed by qualified personnel. There must be mechanisms for voter education with civil society groups playing a central part. Effective measures must be in place to prevent the perpetration of fraud, rigging or any other illegal practices throughout the whole electoral process. All registered political parties must have adequate resources to ensure a level electoral playing  field. To ensure the transparency and integrity, a system of election monitoring including  representatives of political parties and individual candidates must be in place.  Adequate logistics, resources and security arrangements must be made to ensure a peaceful election.

Election is a human rights issue for me: “The vote is the most powerful instrument ever devised by man for breaking down injustice…” 

Voting and elections are human rights issues for me. Elections are often the matrix for party politics. The right to vote and participate in a free and fair election is a matter of exercising a fundamental human right, not merely a transitory political right. It does not matter to me which individual or group is in power in Ethiopia. The ethnic, religious, regional or whatever other background factor of the parties or candidates in an election mean very little to me. I would be just as critical and censorious if there was another party in power in Ethiopia today doing what the T-TPLF is doing today. I am an equal opportunity critic and an implacable crusader against all who abuse and misuse their powers. I will speak truth to power and abusers and misusers of power. As I have previously declared, if the T-TPLF held free and fair elections, abided by the rule of law and respected human rights, I would be their  #1 fan. For me, it is not about who is in power; it is about what those in power do or do not with their power. “Hate the sin and not the sinner”, taught Mahatma Gandhi.

As a constitutional lawyer with teaching experience and legal practice in civil rights law, I have a reasonably good understanding of the importance of voting and elections. I spent my early years in America in the Deep South as an undergraduate political science student.  I also had opportunity to travel and see many parts of the Deep South. I witnessed firsthand the miserable lives of people who had been prevented by law for over two centuries from voting and participating in elections.

African Americans got the constitutional right to vote in 1870 under the 15th Amendment, (13th amendment outlawed slavery in 1865, the same year the American Civil War ended). Until the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965, African Americans risked life and limb if they tried to vote in the Deep South.  From about 1900 to 1965, African Americans who wanted to vote in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina and other places had to go through hell and high water to exercise their constitutional right.  They were required to take literacy tests (click here to take the Alabama literacy test from 1965 and see how well you do), pay poll taxes (pay money to vote) or seek exemption under grandfather clauses (one could vote if one’s father or grandfather voted before 1867; since most blacks were slaves in the South before 1867, it applied only to whites) and/or prove property ownership (only property owners voted). Since the Democratic Party in the South considered itself a “club”, it was allowed to have “all white primaries”, which obviously kept out all African Americans from choosing candidates in the primary election. Violence and intimidation were used to keep African Americans from voting. I had opportunity as an undergraduate to interview a few African Americans who had been victims of such disenfranchisement. The Voting Rights Act had been passed barely one-half dozen years before I interviewed them.  

In my view, the two greatest pieces of social legislation in the United States in the Twentieth Century are the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and The Voting Rights Act of 1965. I give full credit to President Lyndon Johnson and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. for the passage of these laws. Dr. King pushed, President Lyndon shoved.  In May 1957, Dr. King spoke about the supreme importance of the right to vote with the “fierce urgency of now”: “… The denial of this sacred right [to vote] is a tragic betrayal of the highest mandates of our democratic traditions and it is democracy turned upside down. So long as I do not firmly and irrevocably possess the right to vote I do not possess myself. I cannot make up my mind — it is made up for me. I cannot live as a democratic citizen, observing the laws I have helped to enact — I can only submit to the edict of others.  So our most urgent request to the president of the United States and every member of Congress is to give us the right to vote. Give us the ballot and we will no longer have to worry the federal government about our basic rights…”

In 1965, Johnson delivered on the Voting Rights Act.  But history has been unkind to Johnson. There are many who criticize him for things he did, did not do, should have done and should not have done.  I have no doubts he was a flawed man with too many faults. (My view is, “Let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!”). But I will never fault Johnson for his heroic efforts in passing the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act.  During the signing of the Voting Rights Act on August 6, 1965, Johnson remarked, “The vote is the most powerful instrument ever devised by man for breaking down injustice and destroying the terrible walls which imprison men because they are different from other men.” I would put his signing remarks  alongside MLK’s “I have a dream speech”.

Every time I read Johnson’s remarks and MLK’s “Dream” speech, I am moved to tears. A man has to be given credit for what he did right, and Johnson deserves a whole lot of credit. In my book, Johnson was the greatest president of the United States in the 20th Century!  I measure a man’s greatness by his legacy. What a legacy Johnson left!

John Lewis, the legendary civil rights fighter and member of Congress, resonated both MLK and Johnson in his speech at the Democratic National Convention in 2012 when he said,“Your vote is precious, almost sacred. It is the most powerful, nonviolent tool we have to create a more perfect union. Not too long ago, people stood in unmovable lines. They had to pass a so-called literacy test, pay a poll tax. On one occasion, a man was asked to count the number of bubbles in a bar of soap. On another occasion, one was asked to count the jelly beans in a jar—all to keep them from casting their ballots.”

My views about elections and voting are best expressed in the words of Javier Perez de Cuellar, Secretary General of the United Nations in his report (A/46/609) in 1991:

Elections in and of themselves do not constitute democracy. They are not an end but a step, albeit an important and often essential one, on the path towards the democratization of societies and the realization of the right to take part in the governance of one’s country as enunciated in major international human rights instruments. It would be unfortunate to confuse the end with the means and to forget that democracy implies far more that the mere act of periodically casting a vote, but covers the entire process of participation by citizens in the political life of their country.

That is my message to the T-TPLF. Elections do not constitute democracy. Elections are not a democratic ritual but sacred acts of citizens that signify the expression of the people’s sovereign will. Voting in an election is not merely dropping a piece of paper in a box; it covers the entire process of participation by citizens in the political life of their country. Simply stated, voting and elections are issues of human rights!

Looking forward to a glorious Ethiopian Spring 

It is February, the middle of winter in North America.  It is also winter (bega) in Ethiopia. It will soon be spring in North America. It should soon be spring (Tseday) in Ethiopia. All of the change in seasons remind me of a few lines from Shakespeare’s opening soliloquy in Richard the III.

The unhappiness is over and now the wonderful summer is upon us.
Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York;
And all the clouds that lour'd upon our house
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.

I would only add a few lines from my meager poetic arsenal: 

True, This!--
Now is the winter of our discontent
To be made glorious by the sun of an Ethiopian Spring;
And the frightful darkness that enveloped our nation
In the deep dustbin of history buried.

Whether the people of Ethiopia are better off in 2015 than they were in 2010 or even 2005 is the sole question that should be decided in the 2015 elektion. If they are not, the people should vote to change diapers. After all, “politicians are like diapers. They both need changing regularly and for the same reason.”

Aarrgh! the thought of poor Ethiopia wearing the same diapers for another 5 years, for a total of 25 years!

Calling on all Ethiopians to vote in the perfekt 2015 elektion 

VOTE! Vote Out Tyranny in Ethiopia 2015!

VOTE! Victory Over Tyranny in Ethiopia in 2015!

Asking whether the T-TPLF will win the 2015 elektions is like asking whether darkness will envelope the land of 13 months of sunshine after sunset. But a glorious sun is rising to drive out the darkness.

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