Tedla Asfaw
The coming "election" 2010 has now become an issue in some quarters and this debate also reached to the ears of Ethiopians back home through the VOA Amharic interview this past week. Ato Teklemichael Abebe former Addis Ababa University President who supported participating on the coming election and Ato Azale Desta member of EPRP who opposes any participation on the election debate was first posted on the www.ecadf.com website this month and the VOA program (part one) hosted by Alula tried to continue on that debate which was unheard in Ethiopia because of censorship of websites by TPLF.
Both Teklemicahel and Azale agreed that in TPLF's Ethiopia, it is not possible to conduct any free and fair election and what was then their main difference ? Teklemichael believes that election is part of the struggle to expose the crime of the regime for the world community. However, he failed to mention which new crimes the world have not known so far that he would like to expose.
Let us assume that the world community found new crime in Ethiopia related to the coming "election" of 2010 and then what ? What did international community do to the crime committed by TPLF in the 2005 election ? Is the hundreds life lost, thousands jailed and many exiled is not enough a crime that warrants action from the West that motivated Ato Teklemichael to conduct another election experiment to get sympathy for poor Ethiopians from the West ?
Is this not what the West have been doing for the last eighteen years in poor Ethiopia and paid the loyal opposition to do ? "Participate in any election, gradually, slowly and peacefully TPLF will comply with the peoples will and hand over power to the people ". Election to "expose" TPLF and educate the West about the undemocratic and tyrannical behavior of TPLF was tested in 2005 and TPLF learnt a big lesson and would not repeat such mistake again and gladly has already started the election campaign.
The Ethiopian people have also learnt their lesson and will not be part of such experiment again in 2010. The rejected election experiment of 2005 should not be repeated again and we have to test a new hypothesis, the total boycott of TPLF including the coming 2010 election.
Ato Teklemicahel's new call to bring the rejected election experiment as if it is new will not convince anyone except the known opportunists who are paid to sleep in the parliament and maybe recruit new comers. The West as usual care less for democracy experiment in Ethiopia and is unwise to repeat the same experiment to satisfy their interest and on the way buy five more years to expose our people for more killing and abuse.
