Abyi government doesn't have mandate to lead but this is the reason why he has to
Posted: 06 Jul 2020, 00:15
As I mentioned before, To live your life freely ( life), to move anywhere in the country and live where ever you choose (iberty), and to work and create wealth ( property) are the fundamental pillar of democracy and freedom.
If one of these three pillars is infringed then democracy is in trouble. Let's assume our childhood it is a true story. In my area, there was a bully. he is about four years older than most of us but he is in the same grade school as us. Whenever one of us going to school he stands by the side of the road and call us and searched and took whatever he got. Toys some time small changes. Most of the time we are trying our best to avoid him. So we were so terrified of him whenever it is time to go to school we have to wait for each other and walk together. This helps a little bit but not all of us go to school together at the same time. I got a ride a few days a week from my dad or one of us will come late almost always late and we all be late. If you are late the principal makes us clean the schoolyard. At some point, I told my parents and the bully got a warning. We have to fight every day for our liberty.
In a society, it is the same since we are tired of fighting and even impossible some time we need law and order. As a nation we collectively draft a constitution, this doesn't include our current constitution and agreed to follow those rules. This is the same as let say sharia law for Muslims. Or Gada for the Oromo. Once people agreed to respect the rules then they become stronger against anyone who wants otherwise. If one member of the agreed community wants to change the rule because he didn't like then he has to ask the whole community to consider his point of view.
As the community grows larger and also interacts with other community different opinions arises every day and all the community or the surrounding community has to assemble and this become unpractical and peoples are busy in their day to day life and couldn't attend every meeting. As result members of the community choose certain people who they think stand for their best interest to make a decision on their behalf. For their service, they pay them some money or grains like that. Those groups of peoples become government when the community is a country.
Negotiation is not the only part, in a small community once people agreed on their collective agreement that becomes the law of that community and anyone among them went against their law will be considered an outlaw. Instead of calling a mob every time someone becomes an outlaw. That same community agreed to give power to certain groups of the community mostly assumed, to be honest, and respected by the community to deal with the outlaw according to the collective agreement. By doing so the community traded their liberty for security. i.e those selected groups can detain someone until his/her action is verified against the collective agreement. That is the lost liberty.
In modern society, we have elected our MPs based on their promise, personality, point of view, values religion, culture, and so on. It is up to the individual whom to vote for. On top of that, there are some rules and regulation that guides what the candidate can do or not. However, once the MP has chosen he has the power to decide whatever he believes on behalf of us. to decide over our property, passing by-laws and setting fines for example property tax, parking tickets, and so on, and over our liberty through the use of police force. Nowadays candidates use any kind of tricks to be chosen supported by corporates, some interest groups, fear-mongering, alienating certain group society as long as they have the majority. In this aspect, democracy can be considered as a majority dictatorship. But true democracy is based on the goodness of human beings and based on the belief that the majority will not do harm to the minority. That is not always true for example slavery, systemic racism is perpetuated by the silence of the majority.
If the member of the parliament is not chosen by the peoples we can say there is not representation and the government can not be democratic because the people didn't agree to trade their liberty for security and service to that government. The situation in Ethiopia is the exact same thing.
TPLF came to power supported by a foreign power, I explained about in my previous posts, and is not chosen by the Ethiopians. Any election or appointment they did is not valid in the eyes of Ethiopian and it will be null when the right full government came into power. The current Abyi government is coming to power from the same TPLF government and yes until the free election is conducted it can govern to keep the peace.
TPLF and its allies cried that after September Abyi has no mandate that is wrong and is not acceptable by any measure. Because TPLF itself is illegal and has no mandate from Ethiopian people but maybe from it foreign financiers. So the main reason that Abyi government is in power is to secure peace and prepare the level playing field for a democratic election. So yes it can stay for a reasonable period of time until the country is at peace.
The more these hardliner groups create chaos they are extending the need for the Abiy government to stay. In the meantime, the Abyi government should do everything to ensure peace in the country and create a free and level election paly ground for every party. In order to do that
1) no party who wants to represent its people can not carry arm and participate in the election. The reason is simply that they may intimidate b
peoples to vote for them.
2) there should be a maximum amount of money parties can raise from individuals and it should be declared.
3) no foreign contribution of money should be allowed for the election.
4) parties should be able to campaign in every region of the competing parties without any restriction.
5) The security forces should be independent and under the election commission during the election time.
If this is done and a party wins the election then the government or cabinet that it forms will be close to the people and will saw abetter represntation for the future better democracy.
If one of these three pillars is infringed then democracy is in trouble. Let's assume our childhood it is a true story. In my area, there was a bully. he is about four years older than most of us but he is in the same grade school as us. Whenever one of us going to school he stands by the side of the road and call us and searched and took whatever he got. Toys some time small changes. Most of the time we are trying our best to avoid him. So we were so terrified of him whenever it is time to go to school we have to wait for each other and walk together. This helps a little bit but not all of us go to school together at the same time. I got a ride a few days a week from my dad or one of us will come late almost always late and we all be late. If you are late the principal makes us clean the schoolyard. At some point, I told my parents and the bully got a warning. We have to fight every day for our liberty.
In a society, it is the same since we are tired of fighting and even impossible some time we need law and order. As a nation we collectively draft a constitution, this doesn't include our current constitution and agreed to follow those rules. This is the same as let say sharia law for Muslims. Or Gada for the Oromo. Once people agreed to respect the rules then they become stronger against anyone who wants otherwise. If one member of the agreed community wants to change the rule because he didn't like then he has to ask the whole community to consider his point of view.
As the community grows larger and also interacts with other community different opinions arises every day and all the community or the surrounding community has to assemble and this become unpractical and peoples are busy in their day to day life and couldn't attend every meeting. As result members of the community choose certain people who they think stand for their best interest to make a decision on their behalf. For their service, they pay them some money or grains like that. Those groups of peoples become government when the community is a country.
Negotiation is not the only part, in a small community once people agreed on their collective agreement that becomes the law of that community and anyone among them went against their law will be considered an outlaw. Instead of calling a mob every time someone becomes an outlaw. That same community agreed to give power to certain groups of the community mostly assumed, to be honest, and respected by the community to deal with the outlaw according to the collective agreement. By doing so the community traded their liberty for security. i.e those selected groups can detain someone until his/her action is verified against the collective agreement. That is the lost liberty.
In modern society, we have elected our MPs based on their promise, personality, point of view, values religion, culture, and so on. It is up to the individual whom to vote for. On top of that, there are some rules and regulation that guides what the candidate can do or not. However, once the MP has chosen he has the power to decide whatever he believes on behalf of us. to decide over our property, passing by-laws and setting fines for example property tax, parking tickets, and so on, and over our liberty through the use of police force. Nowadays candidates use any kind of tricks to be chosen supported by corporates, some interest groups, fear-mongering, alienating certain group society as long as they have the majority. In this aspect, democracy can be considered as a majority dictatorship. But true democracy is based on the goodness of human beings and based on the belief that the majority will not do harm to the minority. That is not always true for example slavery, systemic racism is perpetuated by the silence of the majority.
If the member of the parliament is not chosen by the peoples we can say there is not representation and the government can not be democratic because the people didn't agree to trade their liberty for security and service to that government. The situation in Ethiopia is the exact same thing.
TPLF came to power supported by a foreign power, I explained about in my previous posts, and is not chosen by the Ethiopians. Any election or appointment they did is not valid in the eyes of Ethiopian and it will be null when the right full government came into power. The current Abyi government is coming to power from the same TPLF government and yes until the free election is conducted it can govern to keep the peace.
TPLF and its allies cried that after September Abyi has no mandate that is wrong and is not acceptable by any measure. Because TPLF itself is illegal and has no mandate from Ethiopian people but maybe from it foreign financiers. So the main reason that Abyi government is in power is to secure peace and prepare the level playing field for a democratic election. So yes it can stay for a reasonable period of time until the country is at peace.
The more these hardliner groups create chaos they are extending the need for the Abiy government to stay. In the meantime, the Abyi government should do everything to ensure peace in the country and create a free and level election paly ground for every party. In order to do that
1) no party who wants to represent its people can not carry arm and participate in the election. The reason is simply that they may intimidate b
peoples to vote for them.
2) there should be a maximum amount of money parties can raise from individuals and it should be declared.
3) no foreign contribution of money should be allowed for the election.
4) parties should be able to campaign in every region of the competing parties without any restriction.
5) The security forces should be independent and under the election commission during the election time.
If this is done and a party wins the election then the government or cabinet that it forms will be close to the people and will saw abetter represntation for the future better democracy.