As we all know the upcoming kebele & city elections are scheduled to be
carried out in the coming month. This election is being carried out with the
intention of giving the public a chance to elect its leaders at the lower level
of administration. It is known that in Ethiopia most of the government policies
and directives are implemented by these lower levels of administration like the
sub city and the kebele offices. This kebele and sub city offices are a very
important and critical part of the government’s administration because it is
through these offices that the public gets service fromthe government. It is up
to these lower level administrative offices to either serve the public honestly
or corruptly and the whole structure of the ruling government is reflected by
these offices. So in this sense the public judges and weighs its government
based mostly on the quality of service it receives from these offices.
For the reasons aforementioned, the upcoming elections are very important in
determining the services that will be delivered to the public for the coming 5
years. It will also play an important role in determining the public’s
satisfaction with the current government or if it is fed up with it and wants a
new government which will be determined by the national elections that will be
held in 2015. So in general the upcoming elections have a high stake for both
the ruling party and its oppositions.
Although the current elections have not been given much attention by the
public due to little coverage by the media, both the ruling party and opposition
parties are taking various steps of campaigning for their respective sides. But
as usual the ruling party EPRDF is displaying its coward ways by oppressing the
opposition through various Methods.
For example on Saturday 16 March 2013, opposition parties called for a rally
on the 6kilo street at the Yekatit 12 round about. This rally was not a violent
one but rather intended to boost the support for the opposition and to raise the
public awareness about the elections. But the government decided to send the
federal police officers to disperse the crowd with the false reason of the rally
being illegal. And the federal police, instead of conversing with the rally
organizers to sort out the miss understanding, decided to resort to force full
ways to chase the crowd violently. This is a clear display of how vulnerable the
government really is and the evil ways it follows to ensure its control of
power.
Even though the government claims that Ethiopia holds free and democratic
elections, that is not the case in reality. Rather a clear offence of the
democratic process of elections. I long for the day when Ethiopia will have
truly free and democratic elections where oppositions will not be oppressed of
its right to campaign freely without the influence of the ruling party and its
iron fist.
victrey for ethiopia
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