Fault Lines of EPRDF’s Democracy

Democracy is a process exercised between the majority and the minority of the voters. To identify the majority from the minority, democratic systems conduct fair and free elections.

In democratic practice, therefore, the majority rules, and the minority struggles to make itself the majority. In this process, the majority accepts and promotes the basic human rights of the minority.

For me, free and fair election is the prerequisite for democracy because it creates a government that represents the majority and government the right to implement suitable policies that do not exclude minorities. In such a way, a nation’s wealth is distributed fairly.

In an interview with Al Jazeera regarding the overall situation of the country, including the latest national election, Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn defended his government’s human rights record by saying those who accuse his government are all trying to impose ‘neoliberal’ criteria. Unfortunately, he used the same ‘neoliberal’ criteria to announce the per capital income (amazingly the Premier announced our per capital income has reached 640 million dollars). In addition, the Prime Minister told Al Jazeera “democracy is not only election”.

As far as my understanding goes, the premier seems to think that the nation’s economic development is what democracy means. What he misses is that democracy which is instinctive to free and fair elections, is a precondition for nation’s involvements in economic development.

By what lawful right could one group or party carry out development activities? By what lawful right could one group or party manage and disseminate a nation’s wealth for citizens in one way or the other?

I think these questions not only indicate the relationship between free elections and development, they also reflect the reasons behind income inequality among the people. Above all, they indicate the big picture of democracy reflected with free and fair election.

Citizens and effective states lay at the core of power and politics. By ‘citizens’ I mean anyone living in a particular place, even if they are not formally eligible to vote, such as children. By ‘effective states’, I mean states that can guarantee security and the rule of law, design and implement effective strategies to ensure inclusive economic growth, and are accountable to and able to guarantee the rights of their citizens.

At an individual level, active citizenship means developing self-confidence and overcoming the insidious way in which the condition of being relatively powerless can become internalised. In relation to other people, it means developing the ability to negotiate and influence decisions. And when empowered individuals work together, it means involvement in collective action, be it at the village or neighbourhood level, or more broadly.

Ultimately, active citizenship means engaging with the political system to build an effective state, and to assume some degree of responsibility for the public domain, leaving behind simple notions of ‘them’ and ‘us’. Otherwise, in the memorable phrase of the French philosopher Bertrand De Jouvenel, ‘A society of sheep must in time beget a government of wolves’.

Feeling that one has a right to something is much more powerful than simply needing or wanting it. It implies that someone else has a duty to respond. Rights are long-term guarantees, a set of structural claims or entitlements that enable people, particularly the most vulnerable and excluded in society, to make demands on those in power, who are known in the jargon as ‘duty-bearers’. These duty-bearers in turn have a responsibility to respect, protect, and fulfill the rights of ‘rights-holders’. Rights, therefore, are naturally bound up with notions of citizenship, participation, and power.

In the words of Indian economist Amartya Sen, individuals need capabilities and the ability to exercise them. It is this ability that is undermined when people are poor, illiterate, destitute, and sick, lack vital information, or live in fear of violence.

Having the ‘right’ to go to school is of no use to girls if the pressure of domestic tasks, prejudice in the home or community, or coming last in line at family meal-times means that they must spend their days hungry, carrying water, cleaning, or looking after younger siblings. Capabilities determine what people can do and who they can be. The ability to achieve material security through productive labour is a crucial aspect of such capabilities.

The types of development strategies states pursue and the possibilities for achieving a redistribution of income, wealth and social benefits, depend substantially on politics. Politics refers to processes of cooperation, conflict and negotiation that shape decisions about the production, distribution and use of resources.

Outcomes from the political process further depend on the way power is configured or distributed, the types of relationships governments establish with different groups in society, and the institutions that structure relations and mediate conflict among competing interests. Organisation, contestation and claims making by groups with strong ties to the poor are crucial in producing redistributive outcomes that reduce poverty.

However, interest groups or social movements concerned with the welfare of the poor rarely organise around issues of poverty per se. Instead, they frame their discourse around rights, asset distribution, services, or earnings and benefits derived from work. This opens up the possibility of addressing the structural roots of poverty, social rights and issues related to redistribution.

A positive association between democracy and redistribution is posited by the median-voter theorem. According to the theorem, under universal suffrage, the median voter will earn the median income. However, when income is unequally distributed, the median income falls below the mean income.

Redistribution is expected to follow democratisation because the mean income in pre-democratic societies is universally higher than the income of the median voter. Since the decisive voter earns a below-average income, it is assumed that he or she will favour a higher tax rate and redistributive policies. In sum, democracy brings more people with below average incomes to the polls, and they collectively press the government to redistribute income downwards.

I contradict the Prime Minister’s assumption that the priority of people living in poverty is their basic needs. For me, people are the active subjects of their own development, as they seek to realise their rights. Development actors, including the state, should seek to build people’s capabilities to do so, by guaranteeing their right to the essentials of a decent life: education, health care, water and sanitation, freedom of speech, access to information and technology and protection against violence, repression, or sudden disaster.

An old development saying runs: ‘If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. If you teach him how to fish, you feed him for a lifetime.’ To accomplish this, I believe the human rights frameworks that improve the capability of individuals need to be applied.


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