Political Leadership And Democratic Governance - the Missing Link

The role of political leadership in promoting or mitigating the institution of democratic governance in societies is uncontestable. In particular, leaders in Third World countries have both a great opportunity and challenge to enact appropriate legislation and establish institutions that could promote democratic governance systems in their societies.

Unfortunately, the track record of many countries in Africa in this critical area of national development is not only spotty but in most instances retrogressive. In fact, many of the 'democratic' traditions instituted during colonial rule in many countries of Africa have given way to dictatorships of the right and left during the last 40 or so post-colonial years. Hence, most African countries have gone into the 21st century with either military or bureaucratic dictatorships with all the trappings of power, privilege, marginalization and exclusion that such systems inevitably mother.

A brief historical overview of Ethiopia's governance systems over the last century clearly indicates that the desire to promote democratic governance systems and institutions by political leaders has been overshadowed by their dictatorial impulses and practices. It would not be a misrepresentation of history if one reaches the conclusion that successive governance systems have essentially opted for the rhetoric of democracy and the praxis of dictatorship of one form or the other. The imperial order used the ideals of constitutional monarchy to institute what it considered to be 'parliamentary democracy' in the country. Of course, the Imperial order could neither conceive nor tolerate notions of opposition parties and a free press that inevitably go along with any genuine democratic order. Nonetheless, it went ahead with a number of regular national elections that supposedly created a representative parliament under the Imperial order. Those of us who were around can bear eye witness accounts of the political gymnastic that went into the election of parliamentarians. Some of us were astute enough to garner a few 'biriles of tej' in return for our votes. We all know the outcome-a rubber stamp parliament that neither understood its mandate nor dared to raise an eyebrow against the feudal system that lived under medieval conceptions of power and privilege. In a senyse, the feudal order could be regarded as more truthful because it kept neither its intentions nor its actions hidden from the public through the use of highly promissory democratic slogans.

The overthrow of the monarchy and the feudal system on which its governance system was based on by the military junta in 1975 ushered a new era of 'socialist democracy' - a dictatorship of the proletariat in a country where there was no proletariat to speak of. The metamorphosis of the Dergue from a military dictatorship to a socialist dictatorship under the leadership of the Workers Party of Ethiopia was a classic example of political gymanstic whose intent and outcome as only clear to the convoluted minds of its originators and perpetrators. There was neither socialism nor democracy under the 17 years of military dictatorship. The true emblem of the socialist democracy was one of organized state terror unleashed on a largely pacific and defenseless population. The thousands of Ethiopians killed, maimed, exiled and otherwise brutalized to submission tell the story of the second experiment with 'democracy. The political leadership was interested in unadulterated and absolute political power and it achieved it through the gun. Socialist democracy provided a cover and a legitimizing rhetoric.

The political ruse of the Dergue came at its seams when the Ethiopian people were no longer capable of taking the '17years of ' 'Chinese' political torture. It gave the insurgent political and military groups all its support to see the end of a brutal dictatorship that gave the name of democracy and socialism a real bad rap. The triumphal entry of EPRDF into Addis Ababa and EPLF into Asmara after 14 and 30 years of insurgent political and military activity respectively ushered the third wave of 'democracy'- this time around the new democracy had three important adjectives attached to it-namely federal, ethnic and revolutionary. The institution of legislative measures that allowed the formation of ethnic based political parties and a free press was an important dimension of the new development in the democratization of Ethiopian society. The critical question is wither or not the basic principals and practices of democracy have materialized in the country. in the last 14 years of EPRDF rule. Ethiopia must be the only country in the would that allows such a trivialization of the party system, At last count, there were more than 80 political parties legally recognized in the country. None of these political parties have been able to muster the kind of political support that is needed to create a credible opposition to the all powerful EPRDF. Once again, the trivialization of democracy and freedom of the press is going hand in hand. The Ethiopian people have yet to enjoy the fruits of a genuine democratization process in which people are not afraid to belong to a genuinely strong political opposition that is based on a concrete program of an alternative national vision of political, social, economic development rather than a highly contrived, myopic and ethnic-based conception of power and national development. Once again, our political leaders have chosen the difficult and exclusive option of establishing a governance system whose basic objective is to perpetuate an entrenched political elite and narrow political agenda for as long as it takes. Once again, the dream of instituting a pluralistic democracy which the tremendous wealth of our cultural diversity could build is shattered. Once again, our leaders have failed us in charting our a visionary and sustainable strategy of transition to democracy. If this is a misrepresentaion of the history of the role of our political leaders, I would like to hear an alternative construction of social reality.