Time is running out for Meles the terrible

As PM Meles blinked and agreed to sit down with CUD and UEDF leaders to find a way out of the current political crisis in the country and the opposition leaders struggled to find consistency and some old fashioned good leadership, the average Ethiopian on the street continues to define the general mood in the country – a revolutionary mood demanding a fundamental change. When election fever gripped the whole country in the early days of May 2005, few people had predicted that this will transform to a revolutionary fervor that is still going strong five months after Election Day. Over the long and rainy Kremt, the opposition leaders have found out – to their surprise - that there is a revolution going on and its leader was not them but the “Mahal Sefari”. In each of the meetings called by the opposition parties in the cities, in the private press, in telephone call-ins at VOA, and in numerous ways, the Ethiopian voters (Mahal Sefari) had made it clear that they seek the end of the EPRDF era and want to see a change.

So, who is this ‘Mahal Sefari’ that is leading this ongoing revolution ready to burst into the national stage in full force? The ‘Mahal Sefari’, argues Blata Zewde Reta, the author of the recent book on the times of Emperor H/Selassie, is the main force that had shaped political events in modern Ethiopia’s history. Starting from the appointment of Ras Tessema as a care-taker in October 1909 in the final months of Menelik’s rule and the eventual weakening of the powerful Taytu to Ras Teferi’s ascension to the throne and, ironically, his downfall in 1974, the ‘Mahal Sefari’ played a decisive role as a king maker. As the writer points out repeatedly in his book, the concept of ‘Mahal Sefari’ that was prevalent in the Dergue era as the segment of the population uncommitted to any political group is a far cry from the original and accurate meaning of the phrase that describes the ‘army of the masses’ that came out in protest whenever its interests were challenged. Its leaders always operated behind the scenes.

When the History of the May 2005 election is written, it will no doubt be the History of the ‘Mahal Sefari’ that has been awakened from its slumber since the Yekatit 1974 revolution. The May 2005 election marked the beginning of a new revolution by the ‘Mahal Sefari’. Once the Kinijit and Hibret leaders framed their election platforms in an intelligent manner - in the weeks preceding the May Elections - that made their counterparts at EPRDF look like amateurs, the “Mahal Sefari’ reached its tipping point and came out in full swing voting EPRDF candidates out of office and forcing them to run for cover almost in all polling stations in the country.

Five months since that tipping point, everyone in the country (except Mr. Meles and his party and regrettably some of the opposition leaders as well) seem to understand that what we see now in Ethiopia is a genuine revolution by the people who are thirsting for change. The word - on the street, in social gatherings, in bars, in family dinner conversations, and wherever Ethiopian congregate - is that the time has come for a change; a change for the good. If not for revolution, how else could one explain the massive turn out in the country to vote-out the ruling party when all mass media, security apparatus, public finance is controlled by the ruling party only?

One may need to dig deeper to understand why the Ethiopian people have found themselves - once again - in the grips of a revolutionary fervor. May be the events of April 18, 2001 when a protest started by the university students spread like a wildfire to different part of the city and ended up tragically with 41 deaths and more than 250 wounded serve as a clue. The ferocity of the protest that included the burning of the telecom office in Merkato and ransacking of jewelry shops was almost unheard of in Addis Ababa’s history. That event, just like the Katrina Hurricane exposed the ‘guada misTir’ of the US, exposed the inherent problem of today’s Ethiopia. Poverty that has been exacerbated by bad governance, AIDS/HIV pandemic and loss of hope among the youth remains to be the major problem facing Ethiopia and Ethiopians. Due to bad governance and EPRDF’s inherent anti-Ethiopian stance, the country has been unable to create a decent middle class whose real concerns should be the usual and tolerable concerns of raising a family and just making a decent living. While India and China have realized this and transformed hundreds of millions of their citizens to a middle class and seem to enjoy the peace and stability that comes with it, we Ethiopians continue to falter in this vital endeavor that may be the only guarantee for our continued existence. Instead, we have a large segment of our population’s life wreaked by the unending cycle of poverty. The numerous unrests we have witnessed in the country, especially in Addis Ababa, such as the April 18, 2001, June 8, 2005, and September 27, 2005 protests are just a symptoms of the deep underlying poverty and discontent prevalent in the country. When one notes that the main street in our city is lined with shops that specialize in selling burial caskets of all sizes for the victims of the national tragedy, AIDS/HIV, the gravity of the problem hits home.

The past 14 years or so have demonstrated that the PM Meles regime does not consider the creation of the middle class as its objective. This regime has invested huge political and material stake at forming an Ethiopia at war with itself with divided ethnic groups forced to live and aspire a non-common destiny. The only result that the poverty reduction program that the government paid lip-service has produced is a creation of a handful of loyal and wealthy individuals in the few cities. With the exceptions of Dr. Berhanu Nega and Dr. Befekadu Degefe, trained economists and now opposition leaders, who have written extensively on poverty being our “Public Enemy’ number 1, there is no proof that the majority of our opposition leaders also understand that our future depends on solving this national crisis.

It is our belief that the “Mahal Sefari’ revolution of 2005 continues to carry the potent potential of throwing out PM Meles’ regime out of office in the very near future in peaceful ways and manners consistent with what we have seen in modern Ethiopia’s History. We are also convinced that the incoming political force will survive and succeed only if it realizes that the major problem in Ethiopia is the transformation of our families in cities and villages to a middle class status with a future that offers hope