Contested Power in Ethiopia African Social Studies Series

Editorial Board Martin R. Doornbos, Institute of Social Studies the Hague Carola Lentz, University of Mainz John Lonsdale, University of Cambridge

VOLUME 27

Th e titles published in this series are listed at www.brill.nl/afss Contested Power in Ethiopia

Traditional Authorities and Multi-Party Elections

Edited By Kjetil Tronvoll Tobias Hagmann

LEIDEN • BOSTON 2012 Th is book is printed on acid-free paper.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Contested power in Ethiopia : traditional authorities and multi-party elections / edited by Kjetil Tronvoll, Tobias Hagmann. p. cm. -- (African social studies series ; v. 27) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-21843-7 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Ethiopia--Politics and government--1991- 2. Political parties--Ethiopia. 3. Elections--Ethiopia. 4. Power (Social sciences)--Ethiopia. I. Tronvoll, Kjetil. II. Hagmann, Tobias. III. Series: African social studies series ; v. 27.

JQ3768.C67 2012 324.963’0721--dc23

2011036718

ISSN 1568-1203 ISBN 978 90 04 21843 7 E-ISBN 978 90 04 21849 9

Copyright 2012 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, Th e Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Global Oriental, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher.

Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to Th e Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. CONTENTS

List of Maps, Photographs, Tables and Charts ...... vii Notes on Contributors ...... ix List of Acronyms ...... xi

Introduction Traditional Authorities and Multi-Party Elections in Ethiopia ...... 1 Kjetil Tronvoll & Tobias Hagmann

Chapter 1 Electoral Politics in the Nuer Cultural Context ...... 31 Dereje Feyissa

Chapter 2 Fishing for Votes in the Somali Region: Clan Elders, Bureaucrats and Party Politics in the 2005 Elections ...... 61 Tobias Hagmann

Chapter 3 Family Connections: Inherited Status and Parliamentary Elections in Dawro, Southern Ethiopia ...... 89 Data Dea Barata

Chapter 4 A Revival of Tradition? Th e Power of Clans and Social Strata in the Wolayta Elections ...... 111 Lovise Aalen

Chapter 5 Cynicism and Hope: Urban Youth and Relations of Power During the 2005 Ethiopian Elections ...... 137 Daniel Mains

Chapter 6 Islam and Politics: Th e EPRDF, the 2005 Elections and Muslim Institutions in Bale ...... 165 Terje Østebø

Chapter 7 ‘We Say they are Neft enya; Th ey Say we are OLF’: A Post-Election Assessment of Ethnicity, Politics and Age-Sets in Oromiya ...... 193 Charles Schaefer vi contents

Chapter 8 Customary Institutions in Contemporary Politics in Borana Zone, Oromia, Ethiopia ...... 221 Marco Bassi

Chapter 9 Th e 2005 Elections in Maale: A Reassertion of Traditional Authority or the Extension of a Nascent Public Sphere? ...... 251 Donald L. Donham

Epilogue Th e ‘New’ Ethiopia: Changing Discourses of Democracy ...... 269 Kjetil Tronvoll

Index ...... 289 LIST OF MAPS, PHOTOGRAPHS, TABLES AND CHARTS

Maps

1 Administrative map of Ethiopia with regional capitals and fi eld research sites ...... xii 2 Borana and Areero provinces, Sidamo Region (1991) and main localities mentioned in the text ...... 228 3 Approximate area of displacement of the Borana from 1991 in Liiban Zone and other territories administered by the Somali Regional State...... 230

Photographs

1 Pamphlet ‘If we don’t mix, the ending will soon come’ ...... 131 2 Emperor Haile Selassie visiting the shrine of Sheikh Hussein in 1964 ...... 171

Tables

1.1 Election results from Laare polling station ...... 49 3.1 Candidates for the House of Peoples’ Representatives in three constituencies of Dawro zone ...... 98 3.2 Results of Forms 8 and 7 for Lomma Bossa constituency, Dawro zone, SNNPR ...... 98 6.1 Results of the 2005 national election in Bale ...... 166 8.1 Election results in Borana Zone ...... 240 8.2 Election results in Guji Zone ...... 241 9.1 Election results in Bunata, Koibe and Bala kebeles ...... 259

Charts

1.1 Nuer genealogy ...... 39 1.2 cieng Cany segments ...... 44 1.3 Th iang divisions ...... 56

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Lovise Aalen, Ph.D. in political science from the University of Oslo (2008), is a senior researcher at the Chr. Michelsen Institute in Norway. She researches democratisation, ethnic confl ict and governance in the Horn of Africa and is the author of Th e Politics of Ethnicity in Ethiopia (Brill, 2011).

Data Dea Barata, Ph.D. from the University of Bergen (2003), is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at California State University, Sacramento. He has published on a broad range of contemporary social issues in Ethiopia and his latest book is Rural Livelihoods and Social Stratifi cation among the Dawro, Southern Ethiopia (Addis Ababa University, 2008).

Marco Bassi, Ph.D. (1992) is a research associate at the University of Oxford and a former adjunct Professor of Anthropology at the University of Bologna. He is the author of Decisions in the Shade: Political and Juridical Processes among the Oromo-Borana (Red Sea Press, 2005).

Donald L. Donham, Ph.D. in anthropology from Stanford University (1979), is currently Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Davis. His latest book is Violence in a Time of Liberation: Ethnicity and Murder at a South African Gold Mine, 1994 (Duke University Press, 2011).

Dereje Feyissa, Ph.D in anthropology from the Martin Luther University in Halle-Wittenberg (2003), is currently a Humboldt Fellow at Bayreuth University. He is the author of Playing Diff erent Games: Th e Paradox of Anywaa and Nuer Identifi cation Strategies in the Gambella Region, Ethiopia (Berghahn, 2011).

Tobias Hagmann, Ph.D. in public administration from the University of Lausanne (2007), is a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley. He has published on local and state politics in East Africa and is co-editor of Negotiating Statehood: Dynamics of Power and Domination in Africa (Wiley Blackwell, 2011). x notes on contributors

Daniel Mains, Ph.D. in anthropology from Emory University (2007) is Wick Cary Assistant Professor of Honors at the University of Oklahoma, Norman. He is the author of Hope is Cut: Youth, Unemployment, and Th e Future in Urban Ethiopia (Temple University Press, 2012).

Terje Østebø, Ph.D. from Stockholm University (2009), is Assistant Professor at the Center for African Studies and the Department of Religion, University of Florida. He has published extensively on Islam in Ethiopia, including Localising Salafi sm: Religious Change among Oromo Muslims in Bale, Ethiopia (Brill, 2011).

Charles Schaefer, Ph.D. in African history from University of Chicago (1990), is Associate Professor of History and Chair of the International Studies Department at Valparaiso University. He is co- editor of Th e Red Terror Trials: Transitional Justice Challenged (James Currey, 2009).

Kjetil Tronvoll, Ph.D. in political anthropology from LSE (2003), is Professor of Human Rights at the University of Oslo and a senior partner of the International Law and Policy Institute. He has published extensively on the Horn of Africa, most recently War and the Politics of Identity in Ethiopia (James Currey, 2009). LIST OF ACRONYMS

AAPO All Amhara People’s Organisation Party AEUP All Ethiopian Unity Party ANDM Amhara National Democratic Movement APDO Anywaa People’s Democratic Organisation BBC British Broadcasting Corporation BESS Bethel Evangelical Secondary School CIDA Canadian International Development Agency CSA Central Statistical Agency CUD Coalition for Unity and Democracy DAG Development Assistance Group DWPDM Dil Wabi People’s Democratic Movement ECSC Ethiopian Civil Service College EHRCO Ethiopian Human Rights Council EIASC Ethiopian Islamic Aff airs Supreme Council ENDF Ethiopian National Defence Force EPDM Ethiopian Peoples’ Democratic Movement EPLF Eritrean People’s Liberation Front EPRDF Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front EPRP Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Party ESDL Ethiopian Somali Democratic League ETB Ethiopian Birr (currency) EU European Union FDRE Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia GLF Gambella Liberation Front GPDM Gambella People’s Democratic Movement GPNRS Gambella People’s National Regional State GSAP Gadda System Advancement Party HIV/AIDS Human Immunodefi ciency Virus/Acquired Immune Defi ciency Syndrome HPR House of Peoples’ Representatives ID Identity card IFAD International Fund for Agricultural Development IFES International Foundation for Electoral Systems IMF International Monetary Fund LPS Laare polling station MPDO Majangir People’s Democratic Organisation xii list of acronyms

NPDO Nuer People’s Democratic Organisation NEBE National Election Board of Ethiopia NGOs Non-governmental Organisations NPS Nyinyang polling station OALF Oromo Abbo Liberation Front OECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development OFDM Oromo Federalist Democratic Movement OLF Oromo Liberation Front OLNP Oromo Liberation National Party OLUP Oromo Liberation Unity Front ONC Oromo National Congress OPDC Oromiya Pastoral Development Commission OPDO Oromo People’s Democratic Organisation ONLF Ogaden National Liberation Front PBS Protection of Basic Services PCDP Pastoral Community Development Project PCI Pastoralist Communication Initiative PSNP Productive Safety Net Programme SALF Somali Abbo Liberation Front SEPDC Southern Ethiopian Peoples’ Democratic Coalition SEPDFU Southern Ethiopian People’s Democratic Forces’ Unity SEPDF Southern Ethiopia’s Peoples Democratic Front SEPDM Southern Ethiopian Peoples’ Democratic Movement SIM Sudan Interior Mission SNNPR Southern Nations, Nationalities, and People’s Region SODAF Somali Democratic Alliance Forces SPDP Somali People’s Democratic Party TGE Transitional Government of Ethiopia TPLF Tigray People’s Liberation Front UDN United Democratic Nationals UEDF United Ethiopian Democratic Forces UN United Nations UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientifi c and Cultural Organisation UNHCR United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees UNICEF United Nations Children’s Fund USAID United States Agency for International Development USD United States dollar (currency) list of acronyms xiii

Wogagoda Wolayta, Gamo, Gofa and Dawro WPE Workers’ Party of Ethiopia WSDP Western Somali Democratic Party WSLF Western Somali Liberation Front ERITREA YEMEN Axum SUDAN Tigray MEK'ELE

Gonder Afar SEMERA DJIBOUTI BAHIR DAR Amhara Dese Benishangul Gumuz Debre Markos ASOSA DIRE DAWA ADDIS SOMALIA ABABA Harari JIJIGA

GAMBELA Gore Asela Gambella Jimma Oromia

AWASA Robe DawuroSodo Somali Goba SNNP Arba Minch Gode Maale Negele

UGANDA KENYA

Map 1 Administrative map of Ethiopia with regional capitals and fi eld research sites INTRODUCTION

TRADITIONAL AUTHORITIES AND MULTI-PARTY ELECTIONS IN ETHIOPIA

Kjetil Tronvoll & Tobias Hagmann

Introduction1

Th is book addresses the intricate interrelationships between multi- party elections and traditional authorities in Ethiopia, as exemplifi ed by nine case studies from the country’s contested 2005 national and regional elections. Although multi-party elections in Africa have attracted considerable interest in recent years (see Bratton and van de Walle 1997; Nohlen et al. 1999; Villalón and VonDoepp 2005; Lindberg 2006), the role of traditional authorities in elections is severely under- studied. Th is holds particularly true if one considers the fact that over 300 multi-party elections have been held throughout Africa since the ‘third democratisation wave’ reached the continent between the late 1980s and 2008.2 Th is volume addresses this lacuna by analysing how clan elders, customary leaders and indigenous political organisations – which we subsume under the broad heading of ‘traditional authorities’ – participated in and fashioned multi-party elections in Ethiopia, Africa’s second most populous nation. Th e vast body of scholarly work on democratisation and electioneering in Africa and other parts of the world has diff erent emphases and approaches to understanding the phenomenon, and can be loosely grouped into fi ve diff erent strands of research.3 One body of work focuses on the structural preconditions for successful or failed democratisation processes (see, for example, Bunce et al. 2009); another

1 We are indebted to Markus V. Hoehne, Staff an Lindberg, Judith Vorrath and an anonymous reviewer for helpful comments on earlier draft s of this introduction. 2 Personal communication by Staff an Lindberg, 15 August 2008. For an overview of elections worldwide see also the IFES Election Guide, http://www.electionguide.org. 3 Th is classifi cation is used purely to illustrate the range of scholarly literature on the topic. One may obviously group research on democratisation and elections into other categories too. 2 kjetil tronvoll and tobias hagmann strand tries to explain the particularities of post-confl ict democratic transition (Paris 2004; Lyons 2005; Jarstad and Sisk 2008), while yet another assesses the pitfalls of democratisation and highlights, for instance, how elections generate violence (Snyder 2000; Mann 2005; Mansfi eld and Snyder 2005). More relevant to our particular study on elections and traditional authorities in Ethiopia are two other bodies of literature. Th e fi rst is dominated by political scientists and economists who study the conditions under which some variant of liberal democracy has gained a foothold in Africa.4 Th eir predominant concern lies with the formal aspects of democratic transitions such as electoral codes, political parties, campaigning, judicial reforms or power sharing. For proponents of this research strand democratisation and election studies in Africa have typically concentrated on understanding the capacities and constraints of ‘modern’ governance institu tions with reference to their own intrinsic objectives and standards. Democracy is assumed to be a universally shared norm and characteristic of political modernity, which is hoped to produce more participatory, representative and accountable governments in Africa. Consequently, this group of scholars measures democratisation as a function of a country’s ability to produce formal political institutions that are broadly based on universal principles and norms of liberal democracy. Formal institutions are, indisputably, crucial attributes of both established and emergent democracies; and the comprehensive Afrobarometer surveys show that Africans do indeed have similar perceptions of modern democracy as inhabitants of Western countries (Bratton, Mattes and Gyimah-Boadi 2005).5 Nevertheless, given their preoccupation with modern state and party politics, this body of work oft en has little to say about the ‘traditional’ sector or sphere of society. Th e latter is seldom considered relevant to understanding democratic transitions and is stereotyped as non-political, non-democratic and a relic of the past. Th e other approach to the study of democracy in Africa of relevance to the Ethiopia case – and generally represented in this volume – is dominated by anthropologists and historians. Th ey seek to understand contemporary political transitions through the prism of local actors’

4 Adherents of this research strand who specialise in the study of democratic transitions are known as transitologists (see Schmitter 1995). 5 http://www.afrobarometer.org/ traditional authorities in ethiopia 3 practices and meanings. Focusing mainly on non-state actors, indigenous structures or customary organisations, these authors emphasise cultural embeddedness, historical trajectories, and the geographical context of popular representation at local level. In doing so, they question liberal democracy’s alleged universality and instead draw attention to the empirically variegated forms of political representation that exist in particular places and at particular times (Koelble and LiPuma 2008). Unlike the former research strand, which is interested in the impacts of market, policy and constitutional reforms on democracy, proponents of the latter research strand seek to compre- hend democracy ‘from below’.6 Th is mission leads them to study the actors, processes and institutions of local democracy, e.g. how kinship groups defi ne decision-making in village aff airs along lines of descent, gender and age. Many of them have underlined the resilience of indigenous political structures, but little attention is paid to their involvement in the modern state, party politics, and multi-party elections. Very few studies, however, try to combine these latter two approaches to political transition in Africa as we do in this book. We use local institutions of authority and power in Ethiopia as an entry point to scruti- nise the consolidation and understanding of democracy as exemplifi ed by the 2005 general elections. Th e ‘local’ and the ‘national’, the ‘modern’ and the ‘traditional’ have therefore been researched and conceptualised together, rather than artifi cially compartmentalised (Young 1993, 207). Such an endeavour requires an ethnographic grasp of the various ways in which the exercise of political power through modern democratic institutions is interpreted, positioned and contextualised in relation to local expressions of authority and power. Given its distinctly multi-ethnic character, Ethiopia is a perfect case for studying the articulation between institutions of traditional authority and the conduct of multi-party elections in Africa. Th e 2005 elections are particularly well suited to this task as they were the most genuinely competitive elections held in Ethiopia so far, representing a moment of intense political struggle. Th ey provided large parts of society with an opportunity to contest the existing political order established by the ruling Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic

6 An allusion to the call of Bayart et al. (1992), among others, to study ‘politics from below’. 4 kjetil tronvoll and tobias hagmann

Front (EPRDF). Th is process involved complex strategies of co- optation, control and resistance between the incumbent government, political parties, ordinary citizens and traditional authorities, and went largely unnoticed by international observers. Th e notion of contested power captures these processes as both ‘modern’ and ‘traditional’ powers adopted ambiguous roles and positions to confront each other during election time. Although there is a long scholarly tradition regarding the study of chiefs and customary authorities in colonial and post-colonial Africa, there is a glaring absence of empirical accounts of the roles of traditional authorities in multi-party elections.7 Th is research gap also exists in Ethiopia, where most scholars interested in national politics have tended to concentrate on the institutional features of ‘ethnic federalism’ and its impacts on local confl ict dynamics as the starting point of their analysis (Young 1998; Vaughan and Tronvoll 2003; Keller 2005; Aalen 2006; Abbink 2006b; Turton 2006; ICG 2009). One exception is the anthology Ethiopia – Th e Challenge of Democracy from Below (Bahru Zewde and Pausewang 2002), which off ers comparative insights into local perceptions of state institutions. Th e nine chapters in the present volume analyse the relationship between traditional authorities and multi-party elections from the viewpoint of a diverse set of Ethiopians. Th e traditional authority and multi-party elections nexus is examined in very diff erent localities, with seven out of the nine studies located in the central regional states of Oromiya (Daniel Mains, Terje Østebø, Charles Schaefer, Marco Bassi) and Southern Nations, Nationalities, and People’s Region (Data Dea Barata, Lovise Aalen, Donald L. Donham), while two studies are situated in the so-called peripheral Gambella (Dereje Feyissa) and Somali (Tobias Hagmann) regions. Th e contributions in this volume forcefully demonstrate that democratisation, institution building and elections in Africa are evolving in a context enmeshed with customary forms of political, cultural and religious authority and power. It is necessary to fl ag up three particular fi ndings from these complex case studies concerning the roles played by traditional authorities in the elections. Firstly, both government and opposition parties relied

7 Among the few noteworthy exceptions is Lehman’s (2007, 315) study of chiefs’ involvement in South Africa’s 2000 and 2006 municipal elections, in which he con- cludes that ‘traditional authorities may serve as a democratizing function in local politics’. traditional authorities in ethiopia 5 on traditional authorities to mobilise voters on election day; secondly, they gave legitimacy to political actors, namely party candidates and the elections; and thirdly, they were instrumental in (pre-)selecting candidates for the elections, particularly those of the ruling party. We also wondered whether traditional authorities might have played a role in resource distribution and allocation during the election process; but our cases do not support such a hypothesis. Th ese fi ndings do not necessarily contradict the conclusions reached by other strands of democracy research; instead, they compliment and add nuance to more conventional election studies. Th is book is thus an important reminder that democratisation in Africa is best understood by making sense of how the adoption of new political practices and institutional procedures such as multi-party elections plays out and is perceived in local contexts. Democratic transitions are by defi nition exceedingly political and so are the labels used to gauge multi-party elections. Whether an election is described as ‘free and fair’ or, conversely, as ‘rigged’ and marred by irregularities and political intimidation is not only a matter of objective measurement, but oft en of taking sides with a particular constituency (Bjornlund 2004; Hagmann 2006). While this book provides the most in-depth and comprehensive scrutiny of Ethiopia’s 2005 elections thus far, it is not our ambition to provide an assessment of the elections’ democratic fairness.8 Nor do we strive to answer the question as to whether institutions of traditional authority are compatible with democratic principles or transitions to democracy. Rather, the aim is to account for how customary politics intersect with formal electoral politics in Ethiopia. Th e contributions in this book neither equate traditional authorities with backwardness, nor do they romanticise them. Instead, they emphasise that a variety of customary actors and institutions are important to electoral politics, both as opponents and facilitators of the incumbent regime. Moreover, this volume highlights that traditional authorities infl uence the perceptions of multi-party elections and the formal power wielded by the state and its representatives; and vice versa, multi-party elections have an impact on the role and positions of traditional authorities. A brief note on terminology and methodology is in order before positioning Ethiopia in the broader literature on traditional authorities

8 For studies assessing the conduct of the Ethiopian 2005 elections, see Abbink (2006), Lyons (2006), Lefort (2007) and Tronvoll (2009). 6 kjetil tronvoll and tobias hagmann in Africa. Firstly, as will become apparent in the next section, the terms ‘tradition’ and ‘traditional authorities’ are fraught with analytical fuzzi- ness and normative baggage. For example, there is controversy about what constitutes an elder and customary authority as both are contin- gent on local realities. For this reason there is not one but multiple understandings of tradition, the most basic one being that tradition comes from the Latin tradere, which translates as ‘that which is handed down’ (Hoehne 2007). Traditional authorities are thus not relics of the past but dynamic actors who ‘mediate the link between past, present and future’ (van Nieuwaal and van Dijk 1999, 4). Secondly, most of the contributors to this volume have made use of key informant interviews and some kind of participant observation in their fi eld research location.9 Designated fi eld research periods for this particular study have been relatively short (approximately one month), but all the contributors to this book were able to capitalise on their in-depth knowledge of the respective research sites, which they had gained during repeated stays in the same locality or region over several years, or in some cases even decades. Consequently, the present book not only provides insights into how traditional authorities involve in multi- party elections; it also provides a comparative update of local political dynamics across Ethiopia.

Dialectics and dynamics of traditional authorities in Africa and Ethiopia

Over the past two decades the literature on traditional authorities in Africa has off ered important insights into the nexus between traditional authorities and decentralisation, the semi-offi cial role of chiefs in local development and their continued importance for land management and allocation. Many authors have emphasised the ‘remarkable resilience’ and ‘continuing importance’ of traditional leaders (Logan 2009, 107). Th ree broad key arguments can be distilled from the literature on contemporary traditional authorities in sub-Saharan Africa (for a more nuanced discussion the reader is referred to van Nieuwaal and van Dijk 1999; Ray and Reddy 2003; Vaughan 2005; Buur and Kyed

9 Most contributors carried out fi eld research aft er 15 May 2005 as Ethiopian authorities had signalled to the project leader and co-editor, Kjetil Tronvoll, that international researchers were welcome only aft er election day. traditional authorities in ethiopia 7

2007). Partly contradicting each other, they refl ect the multiple and evolving confi gurations that exist between state, society, and customary leaders across the continent. Th e fi rst, and arguably most prominent, view asserts that traditional chiefs, elders and clan leaders are colonial inventions with little current popular legitimacy. Th e ‘invention of tradition’ debate triggered by Ranger and Hobsbawm’s (1983) book of the same title forcefully decon- structed the idea of timeless and static chieft aincy. Instead, it emphasised the constructed character and oft en recent fabrication of African ‘traditions’ by European colonialists and African nationalists in the 19th century. Mamdani (1996) famously argued that chiefs were part of the ‘decentralised despotism’ that colonial powers exercised to govern rural Africans via a system of indirect rule. Th is sceptical view of traditional authorities draws attention to the loss of moral authority that customary leaders experienced as they were exploited and co- opted by external actors, from national governments to foreign companies and NGOs. Ethiopia does not fi t the pattern of invented colonial chiefs, as it was not colonised but ruled by a state-appointed nobility rather than customary authorities.10 Its long and proud history of centralised government accrued little state-sanctioned power to local indigenous chiefs and leaders. Imperial and revolutionary state- and nation-building did not rely to any major extent on traditional authorities, and state appointees had relatively few connections with the local population, although both regimes enlisted and appointed selected local chiefs to garner political support locally (Abbink 2005, 178–181).11 Emperor Haile Selassie’s government awarded friendly chiefs noble titles and privileges of the Imperial order (Tronvoll 2009c). During the Derg’s socialist dictatorship, state collaboration with customary institutions remained minimal (Pankhurst and Getachew Assefa 2008, 75). While an expanding state bureaucracy, commodifi cation and urbanisation have signifi cantly altered customary leaders’ position since the 19th century, traditional authorities continue to play an important

10 Although some argue that the 19th century imperial state-building drive, by which northern highlanders subjugated the country’s southern and peripheral peoples and territories, represents a case of ‘internal colonialism’ (Holcomb and Sisai Ibssa 1990). 11 Th e titling of elders thus occurred primarily as a result of customary practices rather than of a state-sponsored process. Titled positions are either hereditary and passed on from father to son, or else they occur within dominant or ‘aristocratic’ clan lineages in a given ethnic group. 8 kjetil tronvoll and tobias hagmann role – ranging from the more symbolic to the powerful – in managing community aff airs in many parts of present-day Ethiopia. Th is holds particularly true for the multi-ethnic Southern Nations, Nationalities, and People’s Region (SNNPR) or Southern region, parts of Oromiya region and the border regions of Afar, Somali, Gambella and Benishangul-Gumuz where most pastoral groups live. While individual clan leaders and chiefs have been, and continue to be, co-opted – but not formally incorporated – by the Ethiopian state, customary authority has not been discredited in toto in Ethiopia and plays a vital role in community aff airs. A second and opposing viewpoint suggests that traditional authorities must be considered as an ‘original African institution’ (Skalník 1996) that enhances local democracy. Chiefs and customary leaders are somewhat romantically portrayed as indigenous African grassroots representatives that predate the advent of repressive, bureaucratic colonial institutions and are therefore more legitimate than the state. Despite a history of co-optation by the colonial state, customary leaders play a vital role in post-colonial African politics as they develop new ‘strategies of legitimating power and wealth’ in changing political circumstances (Lentz 1998, 46). Particularly in rural areas where state presence is nominal, traditional authorities successfully compete and overlap with bureaucratic, religious and kinship authorities (Bierschenk and Olivier de Sardan 2003). In northern Mali, eastern Congo or Somalia, where protracted confl ict has led to partial or complete state collapse, traditional authorities shoulder state-like tasks by managing confl icts and providing basic security at local level (Menkhaus 2007; Bellagamba and Klute 2008; Raeymaekers et al. 2008). Th e most comprehensive survey of local perceptions of traditional leaders was conducted by Afrobarometer and involved some 5,700 respondents in seven southern African countries. In her presentation of these research fi ndings, Logan (2009) reports that most survey participants do not see any contradiction between local government and traditional leadership, and that allegiance to the latter is part of a typically hybrid African political system. Whether or not traditional authorities enhance the ‘democratic character’ of political life in Ethiopia must be answered with some pro- visos. It is diffi cult to generalise as the country’s population is made up of over 80 ethno-linguistic groups with distinct cultural traditions and languages (for an overview see Tronvoll 2000). Most of these groups practise or are familiar with distinct customary norms regulating traditional authorities in ethiopia 9 family, community and religious aff airs.12 A rich and sophisticated body of customary law co-exists with federal and regional statutory law across Ethiopia (Pankhurst and Getachew Assefa 2008). Traditional authorities play a prominent role in adjudicating intra- and inter-group confl icts on the basis of customary law, which is mostly unwritten but highly regulated and adaptive to new circumstances. While the importance of customary law in Ethiopia may be seen as an indicator of cultural self-determination and, ultimately, of local norms of representation and decision-making, its modalities are oft en at odds with Western democratic values, since they discriminate against youth, women and minorities and usually exclude them from customary legal processes. Furthermore, indigenous forms of community representation such as age groups or elders’ councils are characterised by a male-dominated gerontocracy. Having said this, some of Ethiopia’s communities have, both historically and presently, traditional institutions that – within the bonds of patriarchy – act in accordance with certain democratic principles of community representation. Th is is notably the case of the Oromo gadaa age grade system, which ethnographers and Oromo nationalists have praised, but also romanti- cised as an ‘indigenous African political system’ (Asmarom Legesse 2001) whose separation of powers has been compared to that of constitutional democracies. A third argument suggests that there has been a ‘resurgence’ of traditional authorities and a ‘re-traditionalisation’ of politics in Africa since the 1990s (Chabal and Daloz 1999; van Nieuwaal and van Dijk 1999; Englebert 2002). Th e comeback by traditional authorities as state-recognised community representatives, resource managers and peacemakers occurred in the context of democratisation and decentralisation programmes that assigned traditional leaders new roles in local government (Lutz and Linder 2004; Buur and Kyed 2007). In a number of African countries including Mozambique (West and Kloeck-Jenson 1999; Buur and Kyed 2006), Sierra Leone (Fanthorpe 2005; Jackson 2005) and South Africa (van Kessel and Oomen 1997; Beall et al. 2005; LiPuma and Koelble 2009), postconfl ict decentralisation was coupled with a delegation of important state functions to traditional authorities. Th ese state functions include

12 Th e Ethiopian constitution of 1995 recognises the adjudication of disputes related to personal and family laws by customary and religious laws and courts (art. 34, 5). 10 kjetil tronvoll and tobias hagmann taxation and community representation, and they have for malised the position of elders or chiefs as powerful, government-recognised entities. Aft er ousting the Derg from power in 1991, the EPRDF did decen- tralise, but it did not re-traditionalise the Ethiopian polity. Th e ruling party went to great lengths to advocate ethnic and cultural diversity within a multicultural federation composed of ethno-national groups and enshrined the right to ethnic self-determination in the new constitution. Th e Tigray People’s Liberation Front’s (TPLF) conception of ethnicity is grounded in the Marxist-Leninist tradition that informed Stalin’s dealings with the Soviet Union’s nationalities (Vaughan 2003). It has therefore made sure that ethnic groups participate in national politics via their modern elites and political parties rather than through traditional authorities. In other words, the EPRDF’s philosophy of ethnic politics has been markedly modernist and provides no space for customary powers within the representative institutions of the country.13 In Ethiopia’s Southern region, a resurgence of deference to traditional religious and political leaders occurred in the 1990s following the downfall of the Derg. But the EPRDF’s post-1991 discourse of cultural and ethnic autonomy did not translate into recognition of traditional authorities by the Ethiopian state (Abbink 2005, 178–179). While traditional authorities are not formally recognised, regional and local administrations regularly mobilise pro-government elders to implement policy. In the border regions, selected clan elders work as advisors or ammakari on the payroll of the district or woreda authorities. In the Somali regional state, their task mainly consists of informing the government about security matters and mediating inter-clan confl icts (Hagmann 2007). While the fi rst argument encourages us to examine the emergence of titled elders such as chiefs critically, the second argument draws attention to customary authorities’ continued relevance in everyday African politics, while the third argument emphasises their malleabil- ity and dynamics in post-colonial contexts. Bearing in mind the dialec- tical relations between the colonial and post-colonial state and traditional authorities in Africa, a number of propositions can be

13 During its armed struggle against the dictatorial Derg government (1975–91), the TPLF sought to abolish traditional hierarchies and cultural institutions, which it considered discriminatory and a backward infl uence on the peasantry (Young 1997). traditional authorities in ethiopia 11 formulated regarding their roles in multi-party politics. Firstly, traditional authorities are intrinsically contemporary actors whose acts and roles are seen to be linked to the past. While there are clear boundaries for what is locally perceived as morally appropriate and therefore in line with ‘tradition’, these boundaries are subject to change and negotiation (Hoehne 2007). Whether or not, and to what degree, traditional authorities’ involvement in modern elections is perceived as legitimate can thus only be established by taking into account the perceptions and opinions of those on whose behalf these authorities speak and act.14 Secondly, in order to remain relevant to present-day politics, traditional authorities have to constantly modernise, i.e. adapt to the constraints and opportunities of new political contexts such as regular elections. It is important to note that this is a two-way process. Elections are bargained, interpreted and infl uenced by expressions and holders of traditional power in various localities, while at the same time the electoral process itself impinges on and reconstitutes these very same expressions and holders of traditional authority. Th irdly, traditional authorities are concomitantly empirical actors – or what Bierschenk and Olivier de Sardan (1997) call ‘strategic groups’ – and a repertoire or ‘discursive genre’ (Bayart 2005, 110) that can be utilised by a multitude of diff erent actors for a multitude of diff erent purposes.15 In elections elders, chiefs or customary leaders operate as strategic groups with identifi able interests and strategies to mobilise voters, promote preferred candidates and infl uence the election outcome. As a powerful societal ideal, rhetoric and resource, traditional authority is not monopolised by elders or traditional leaders alone, but bestows legitimacy on whoever-government or opposition-can credibly claim to operate in line with local political customs.

‘Empty democracy’: Ethiopia’s electoral experiences in retrospect

Since Ethiopians were ruled under a feudalist-imperial monarchy until 1974 and a socialist dictatorship until 1991, their experience of

14 In this sense, traditional authorities’ legitimacy hinges on both their ascribed and their performative abilities (Buur and Kyed 2006). 15 Strategic actors ‘are composed of actors who defend shared interests in the appropriation of resources, in particular by means of social and political action’ (Bierschenk and Olivier de Sardan 1997, 240). 12 kjetil tronvoll and tobias hagmann multi-party elections is recent and the result of the EPRDF’s coming to power.16 Although elections under Emperor Haile Selassie and Lt Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam primarily served to perpetuate power, Ethiopia was not completely void of pluralistic politics before 1991 and political competition thrived within the imperial and socialist systems of governance. Until the adoption of the country’s fi rst constitution in 1931, the Emperor’s power was absolute, unlimited and unquestionable. A legislative body consisting of two houses was established, but members of the lower house – the Chamber of Deputies – were chosen by the nobility and local chiefs, while members of the Senate were appointed directly by the Emperor (Aberra Jembere 1998). In furthering the modernisation of the imperial state, Emperor Haile Selassie introduced a new constitution in 1957, creating a Chamber of Deputies that for the fi rst time was elected by universal suff rage every fourth year. Political parties continued to be banned and individual candidates competed using their own means and standing in their local community. Interestingly, these elections were ‘fi ercely contested’ and few seats were safe for re-election: only 59 of 210 sitting members were re-elected in the second election in 1961, and only 85 out of 250 in the 1965 elections. Th e Emperor maintained his prerogative to appoint Senate members, but the introduction of an elected Chamber of Deputies freed up political debate in the country considerably (Clapham 1969, 142–143, 151). Despite the important eff orts put into voter registration, voter turnout in the fi nal elections under the Emperor in 1969 was minimal (Markakis 1974, 279). Th e elections of individual candidates introduced by Haile Selassie were curbed aft er the military coup d’état of 1974, which eventually thrust Lt Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam into power in 1977. In a bid to crush political pluralism and consolidate its regime, the military leadership purged political opponents and unleashed terror on the urban population in a period that came to be known as ‘the red terror’ (Markakis 1987; Clapham 1988; Bahru Zewde 2009). Following the 1975 land nationalisation and the creation of peasant associations or kebeles, the Derg draft ed a new constitution in 1987 establishing a People’s Democratic Republic run by the Marxist-Leninist Workers’

16 Th is section is a shortened and updated version of a section previously published in Tronvoll (2009b). traditional authorities in ethiopia 13

Party of Ethiopia (WPE).17 Th e new constitution formally vested state power in an elected national assembly, the Shengo. Candidates for the Shengo elections were, however, nominated by the state cadre system at kebele level, and the process was entirely controlled by the WPE. Non- offi cial candidates were refused nominations, and the candidate the WPE had placed fi rst on the list was evidently expected to win (Clapham 1988, 95). Founded in 1975, the TPLF had grown out of a group of nationalist Tigrayan students in Addis Ababa. Ideologically committed to Marxism-Leninism, it successfully mobilised aggrieved Tigrayan peasantry in its armed struggle against the Derg, which mirrored the earlier insurgency by the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF) (Young 1997; Aregawi 2009). Th e military junta of Lt Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam was ousted in May 1991 by EPRDF forces, a coalition of ethno- nationalist liberation fronts whose most powerful constituent was and still is the TPLF led by Prime Minister Meles Zenawi.18 Th e EPRDF promised to implement an ambitious programme of political reforms, including democratic standards and the respect of far-reaching human rights (Harbeson 1993; Tronvoll 2000). In June 1991 an all-inclusive ‘Peaceful and Democratic Transitional Conference of Ethiopia’ hosted by the EPRDF in Addis Ababa approved a Transitional Charter as the supreme legal basis for governing Ethiopia during the transitional period that lasted up to 1995 (Vaughan 1994).19 Th e EPRDF and the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) were the main architects of the Charter, which was intended to seal a decisive break with the country’s past authoritarian culture as the Charter announced a ‘politics of plurality’ (Leenco Lata 1999, 26). Th e Charter incorporated the rights and liber- ties articulated in the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Th e June 1991 conference agreed on elections to a new national assembly at the end of the transitional period and established a transitional government consisting of a legislative (Council of Representatives) and an

17 Derg stands for ‘committee’ in Amharic, referring to the Coordinating Committee of the Armed Forces, the Police and the Territorial Army, which was established in June 1974. 18 Th e other fronts were the Ethiopian Peoples’ Democratic Movement (EPDM), later renamed Amhara National Democratic Movement (ANDM), the Oromo People’s Democratic Organization (OPDO) and the Southern Ethiopia’s Peoples Democratic Front (SEPDF). 19 Certain pan-Ethiopian nationalist organisations such as the historic Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Party (EPRP) were banned from participating. 14 kjetil tronvoll and tobias hagmann executive branch (Council of Ministers).20 Th e transitional period drew to a close when the new constitution of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia came into force in August 1995 (FDRE 1995). Th is established a bicameral parliament: the House of Peoples’ Representatives (HPR), composed of 547 members directly elected for fi ve years, and the House of the Federation consisting of 108 representatives for each of the country’s ‘nationalities, nations and peoples’, including minority groups. Th e House of the Federation does not leg- islate, but is in charge of constitutional interpretation and decides on issues related to national self-determination (Assefa 2007). Since the fi rst multi-party elections for local and regional assemblies in 1992, scholars have evaluated Ethiopia’s democratisation in critical terms. Some prophesied that the democratic transition would fail in its incipient stage (de Waal 1992; Walle Engedayehu 1993; Harbeson 1998); others were unsure whether the elections were an end to or just the beginning of a transition period (Lyons 1996; 2006) – or simply an extension of it (Harbeson 2005). A sober assessment of Ethiopia’s election record since 1992 casts serious doubts over the incumbent regime’s democratic credentials (Pausewang et al. 2002; ICG 2009; Tronvoll 2009a). With the notable exception of the 2005 ballot, elections in federal Ethiopia have resulted in very little genuine multi-party competition and only limited opportunities for expressing dissent. A comprehensive review of multi-party elections under the EPRDF reveals the following common trends. Firstly, the EPRDF and its allied parties – oft en referred to as affi liate or satellite parties – have monopolised most electoral processes due to their organisational strength, political determination and readiness to intimidate and harass opposition candidates. Secondly, the ruling party’s grip on local state institutions, particularly the kebele, allows it to exert considerable control over the rural population, which depends on the goodwill of the state for access to land and public services. Th irdly, elections have always been more ‘free’ and competitive in major urban centres such as Addis Ababa, where a more cosmopolitan, and internationally monitored, public space exists that is less controlled by the EPRDF. Fourthly, as a result of the ruling party’s dominance Ethiopia’s opposition groups have weak organisational capacity, limited voter outreach, and are at times

20 ‘Transitional Period Charter of Ethiopia,’ Negarit Gazeta, 22 July 1991, Article 12. traditional authorities in ethiopia 15 disorganised and riddled with internal rivalries.21 Fift hly, electoral contests and party politics in general have been characterised by distrust, refusal of dialogue, and the prevalence of conspiracy theories between competing political elites. Taken as a whole, the state of electoral democracy in Ethiopia is perhaps best summarised by this quote from an informant in SNNPR recorded in Data Dea Barata’s chapter for this book: ‘Th is government gave us empty democracy.’ Th e fi rst multi-party regional and district or woreda elections were held one year aft er the Derg’s fall on 21 June 1992. Despite the condu- cive juridical framework of the Transitional Charter, the EPRDF’s political dominance frustrated its ‘junior’ government partners to the point that the OLF, the All Amhara People’s Organisation Party (AAPO), and other political parties withdrew from the Transitional Government of Ethiopia (TGE) and the election process.22 All non- EPRDF parties accused the EPRDF of intimidation and harassment. Consequently, the 1992 elections were entirely controlled by the EPRDF and marked by an absence of electoral competition. Th e most comprehensive election observation study of the time concluded that the elections fell well short of achieving their proclaimed objectives and were impaired by acute administrative and logistical shortcomings (NDI and AAI 1992, 3–4). Ethnic unrest related to the electoral process in Oromiya region and the subsequent crackdown on OLF fi ghters prevented the 1992 election from conveying a message of multi-party politics to the population at large. On 5 June 1994 elections to the constitutional assembly, charged with revising and ratifying a draft constitution, took place. Th ey were conducted in an atmosphere of growing distrust and polarization. Widespread breaches of electoral standards were observed, as well as repression of opposition parties. Prior to the elections a concept paper discussing various constitutional principles was disseminated for consultation among a small portion of the public. Th is provided an opportunity for open criticism but failed to make a signifi cant impact upon the fi nal text to be voted on (Abbink 1995). Voters were basically asked to express their preference between two crucial articles in the draft

21 Th is phenomenon is characteristic of many opposition parties in Africa (Rakner and van de Walle 2009). 22 Th e few remaining non-EPRDF representatives in the TGE withdrew in 1993 to establish the opposition Southern Ethiopia Peoples’ Democratic Coalition (SEPDC). 16 kjetil tronvoll and tobias hagmann constitution: whether they favoured state or private land ownership (Art. 40.3 and 40.4) and whether they wanted the contentious principle of self-determination ‘up to and including secession’ (Art. 39) to be included as a constitutional clause. Many voters did not understand the purpose of the elections and falsely believed they were voting for local councillors. Opposition parties continued to boycott the election process and left citizens without any opportunity to select candidates of their choice (Pausewang 1994). Th e fi rst federal and regional elections were held on 7 May 1995. Th ey were meant to showcase the democratic culmination of the transitional period, but took place in a context of political polarization where the opposition withdrew from the elections due to the absence of a level playing fi eld (Lyons 1996). A research-based observation report dismissed the elections as ‘neither fair, free nor impartial’ (Tronvoll and Aadland 1995, 59), concluding that although the technical performance of the balloting had improved since previous elections, there were widespread violations of the Electoral Law. More seriously, government offi cials quelled local anti-EPRDF sentiments and stirred up apprehension among the rural population, leading to conformity in voting behaviour. Some political openness and debate were allowed in Addis Ababa, which represented some progress on earlier elections. However, the use of coercion in rural areas signalled the beginning of a new governmental strategy. In order to compel the electorate to register and participate in the non-competitive elections – presumably in order to make a display of popular support – the authorities threatened non-participants with exclusion from the rural land reforms to be conducted in the aft ermath of the elections (Aspen 1995; Tronvoll and Aadland 1995; Poluha 1995; Getie Gelaye 2004). Multi-party competition was revived when the opposition parties abandoned their non-engagement strategy in advance of the 14 May 2000 federal and regional elections. One novelty was the public broadcast of a debate in November 1999, in which all contending parties presented their programmes and openly criticised their opponents. However, while the government allowed opposition leaders to talk freely to international representatives and their fragmented ethnic constituencies in the capital, they faced considerable restrictions from local authorities and EPRDF cadres when campaigning in rural areas. In constituencies where opposition parties posed no challenge to the incumbent, they were relatively free to conduct their political activities. traditional authorities in ethiopia 17

In districts where the opposition managed to challenge the ruling party, however, severe infringements and irregularities occurred (Pausewang and Tronvoll 2000). Th ere was widespread harassment of opposition candidates, election rigging and violent incidents including killings in Southern region where opposition parties threatened the EPRDF monopoly (Tronvoll 2001). Open and blatant violations of the electoral process forced the National Election Board to order re- elections in several constituencies in SNNPR on 31 August, which allowed the opposition Southern Ethiopian Peoples’ Democratic Coalition (SEPDC) to win nine seats in the House of Peoples’ Representatives, in addition to three others won by opposition/independent candidates (Pausewang et al. 2002). Key EPRDF leaders were greatly disappointed by this ‘loss’ and ordered cadres to be more vigi- lant in upholding the party’s grasp of the rural electorate. Th us, when local elections were conducted in December 2001, the process was even more controlled and manipulated by the government, resulting in several clashes and violent incidents (Pausewang and Aalen 2001). Th e 15 May 2005 federal and regional elections constitute a radical turning point in Ethiopia’s election history. Th ey have been somewhat optimistically labelled ‘founding’, ‘formative’ and ‘genuine’ by veteran observers of Ethiopian politics (Clapham 2005; Harbeson 2005; Lyons 2006).23 In the run-up to the elections, the citizenry witnessed an unprecedented openness and plurality of political opinions. Live television and radio debates between government and opposition leaders sparked popular interest and permitted politicians to criticise government policies and candidates quite frankly. For the fi rst time the EPRDF faced a real challenge at the ballot box from a coordinated national opposition (Lyons 2006). Two opposition alliances – the United Ethiopian Democratic Forces (UEDF) and the Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD) – fi elded candidates in the majority of the country’s constituencies.24 Aft er the close of polls on election day, and a few

23 For reasons of limited space we can only off er a summary chronology of the intricate events surrounding the May 2005 elections and subsequent developments up to 2006. More comprehensive analysis of Ethiopian national politics during this period can be found in Smidt (2005), Abbink (2006), European Union (2006), Ishyama (2007), Arriola (2007; 2008), Melakou Tegegn (2008) and Aalen and Tronvoll (2009b). 24 Th e 2005 elections are also noteworthy for being the fi rst time that a large coordinated international election observer mission had been undertaken in Ethiopia. Th e European Union deployed over 200 observers in every region apart from Somali region, which conducted elections on 21 August 2005. 18 kjetil tronvoll and tobias hagmann hours into counting, EPRDF realised that it had lost Addis Ababa and that the opposition had received a majority of urban votes. Th e incumbent party therefore ordered an immediate halt to the counting of ballot papers. Ensuing protests were rejected while government offi cials instructed the National Electoral Board to review the election-day process. Th e EU observer mission gave a negative assessment of the closing and counting process in almost half of the urban polling stations it observed and even more in rural stations (European Union 2006, 2). Th e opposition contested the election results in 299 separate claims on the grounds of alleged irregularities during the ballot count, but only 31 of the complaints resulted in the National Election Board ordering repeat elections.25 Aft er election day, the human rights situation deteriorated rapidly as the government banned all demonstrations, whilst state media published statements by EPRDF offi cials claiming election victory. In mid- June, security forces shot indiscriminately at demonstrators in Addis Ababa, killing several dozen people. Aft er a dubious recount and re- elections in selected constituencies, the National Election Board proclaimed the EPRDF victorious. Although the UEDF and CUD had dramatically increased their representation in parliament compared to earlier elections, they rejected the election results.26 Renewed nation- wide demonstrations were called, in which over 100 demonstrators were killed in Addis Ababa at the beginning of November 2005.27 Subsequently, government security forces embarked on a heavy- handed crackdown against opposition supporters, the private media and civil society representatives in Addis Ababa and other opposition strongholds. About 20,000 to 30,000 opposition members and sympathisers, mostly affi liated to the CUD, were detained for shorter and longer periods. Th e CUD leadership, including the newly elected mayor of Addis Ababa, was arrested on charges of instigating violence,

25 Unless otherwise specifi ed, all election results referred to by the authors of this volume were sourced from the National Election Board of Ethiopia’s (NEBE) website http://electionsethiopia.org. 26 Opposition parties won 172 and the EPRDF and its allied parties 372 seats in the House of Peoples’ Representatives. In Addis Ababa, the CUD won 137 out of 138 seats on the city council. 27 A total of 193 people were killed during the June and November 2005 post- election demonstrations, according to the report by the offi cial inquiry commission. ‘Ethiopian Opposition Dismisses Probe into Killings’, Reuters, October 30, 2006. traditional authorities in ethiopia 19 attempted unconstitutional change of government and even attempted genocide. What had begun as the most signifi cant moment in Ethiopia’s democratisation process at the start of the year and resulted in a record voter turnout of 80 to 90 percent in May had turned into a bloody aff air by the end of year, ushering in a period of increased authoritarianism by the EPRDF government (Abbink 2006a). In a reversal of the 2005 elections, the EPRDF won the April 2008 local and by-elections by a landslide. Although more than 3 million woreda and kebele council members were voted in across the country, no independent election observers were present. Th e crackdown on opposition supporters that began at the end of 2005 left many voters disillusioned about the meaningfulness of these local elections (Aalen and Tronvoll 2009b). While the EPRDF had thoroughly misjudged its popular support in 2005 (Lefort 2007), it had dramatically expanded its party base by 2008 by making access to public posts and services increasingly dependent on membership of one of its regional parties. Th e ‘systemic pattern[s] of repression and abuse’ (Human Rights Watch 2008, 1) by government offi cials signaled a revival of the tactics that the EPRDF has already employed before 2005 to intimidate, harass and exclude opposition candidates (Aalen and Tronvoll 2009a).

Traditional authorities and multi-party elections in Ethiopia

Which roles did traditional authorities play in the 2005 Ethiopian elections? Were they actively involved in campaigning and mobilising voters and, if so, for which political party? Which strategies did they pursue and to what degree can these be described as ‘traditional’? Were clan elders and customary leaders able to defend their community’s interests in the election process or were they co-opted by one or all of the political parties? How did they engage with party and state offi cials before, during and aft er the elections? As the contributions to this book demonstrate, the answers to these questions vary greatly according to the local context and the diff erent junctures of the election process. Since traditional authorities intersect not only with political parties but also with a wide range of other social groups, interaction patterns in election times defy sweeping generalizations. Almost all authors underline, however, that political parties and state offi cials relied to varying degrees on customary leadership and repertoires to mobilise voters in rural Ethiopia. Th e contributions in this book recount the multiple 20 kjetil tronvoll and tobias hagmann experiences that traditional authorities and other social groups made in Ethiopia’s 2005 federal and regional elections. Unsurprisingly, a very diff erent picture emerges when the 2005 election events are told from the vantage point of urban unemployed youth, marginalised low-caste groups or peripheral pastoral groups. Despite these variations, four recurrent themes in the articulation between institutions of traditional authority and the conduct of the 2005 Ethiopian elections deserve a mention. Firstly, traditional authorities’ elbow room during the 2005 elections must be understood in relation to a number of constraining political factors. Th e most important of these is the de facto confl ation of the EPRDF and the local and regional state institutions under its control. All the contributors provide evidence that, at the local level, citizens perceive the state, the government and the party as one and the same, and neither the National Election Board, nor local kebele offi cials are any exception to this rule. Ethiopia’s highland communities have a long history of popular non-distinction between power and authority projected by the ‘state’ and/or the ‘government’, which are both expressed by the Amharic word mengist (Vaughan and Tronvoll 2003, 34). Before and during the 2005 elections local EPRDF offi cials established, and in some regions reactivated, a sub-kebele structure charged with peasant mobilisation for state-led rural development activities and political control at neighborhood level (Human Rights Watch 2005; Aalen and Tronvoll 2009a; Segers et al. 2009). Although the importance and impact of this sub-kebele structure has not been uniform across the country and absent from the border regions, it is symptomatic of the government’s attempt to keep the rural populace acquiescent. In many ways the EPRDF’s expansion of administrative control at the local level echoes the Derg’s earlier policy of population control, which Christopher Clapham (2002, 14) has succinctly described as a process of ‘encadrement’. Th e recent expansion of the sub-kebele structure and the mass recruitment of party cadres can be seen as challenges to customary authorities as the Ethiopian state increases its administrative grip. Th is observation also applies to religious authorities as Terje Østebø’s chapter on Bale illustrates. While some Muslim institutions remain outside the EPRDF’s realm, other religious organisations including the shari’a courts have been co-opted by the ever-suspicious party-state. As they are in charge of land allocation, kebele administrations are important competitors for customary authorities in Ethiopia. traditional authorities in ethiopia 21

Secondly, several of the chapters in this book reveal how modern party politics reproduce traditional structures and relations of domination, including cultural hierarchies and the social stigma attached to lower status groups.28 In their quest for electoral gains, government and opposition parties exploited traditional fi gures representing historically privileged groups, a pattern most prominent in multi-ethnic SNNPR. Donald L. Donham describes how, in South Omo, the UEDF and partly also the EPRDF deliberately recruited members from Maale aristocratic lineages to secure peasant support. As Lovise Aalen reports in her chapter on Wolayta, the EPRDF relied on descendants of the dominant clans and social groups to fi ll the ranks of its local party cadres, thereby reviving old hierarchies and inequalities. Data Dea Barata describes how multi-party politics are recreating the traditional yara hierarchy among the Dawro. Although the low-caste Manna potter group votes in the elections, some of its members are assigned roles in the election process that are reminiscent of their subject status. Yet electoral politics do not only reproduce traditional hierarchies. Among Ethiopia’s segmentary lineage groups, multi-party elections have accentuated competition along clan lines. Th is was most notably the case among the Nuer in Gambella region whose sub-clan groups (or cieng) and clan elders competed fi ercely for party candidatures on the ruling party’s ticket. As Dereje Feyissa’s detailed ethnography demonstrates, the principle of ethnic-based representation sparked a confl ict-ridden dynamic of tribal fragmentation in the run-up to the elections. In this process of inter- and intra-clan competition, modern party and traditional clan politics combine at diff erent levels of clan segmentation until they become indistinguishable. Th irdly, precisely because they were so contested, the 2005 federal and regional elections provided traditional authorities with considerable opportunities to further their constituencies’ and their own interests. In locations where the EPRDF and its allied parties were expected to win, clan elders lobbied to have their kin and political allies included on the ruling party’s list of candidates. Where opposition parties managed to challenge the EPRDF, traditional authorities’ strategic value as potential vote mobilisers was even more signifi cant. As Tobias Hagmann’s chapter illustrates, this was particularly the case in the

28 Th is is an observation supported by other political science Africanist literature; see for instance Herbst (2000). 22 kjetil tronvoll and tobias hagmann

Somali region where elections were conducted on 15 August, three months aft er the general poll, allowing a group of Ogaadeen elders to wrestle important concessions from a temporarily weakened federal government. Like their predecessors, the 2005 elections were not only about determining which party held how many parliamentary seats, but also an opportunity to strengthen one’s bargaining power vis-à-vis the regional and federal administrations. In his analysis of electoral politics in the Borana and Guji zones, Marco Bassi describes how the Borana customary leaders’ stance towards the 2005 elections was motivated by their grievances resulting from territorial disputes with their neighbours in the Somali region as they strove to use the elections to gain advantages for future negotiations about the disputed regional boundary. In the political economy of ethnic claims that is characteristic of Ethiopia’s ethnic federalism, elections off er ethnic groups a chance to renegotiate their share of the regional, and to a lesser degree federal, cake (Hagmann and Alemmaya Mulugeta 2008; Fekadu Adugna 2010). As several of the contributors demonstrate, the educational background of potential party candidates is crucial to securing infl uence, government employment and other state-sponsored benefi ts. Party leaders and traditional authorities have promoted and vaunted candidates with higher formal educational qualifi cations, and the ‘symbolic capital’ (Bourdieu 1985) of education was frequently a decisive factor in the pre-selection of candidates. Combined with eff ective political strategizing, it allowed groups to vote one of their kin into offi ce and to gain or maintain access to state resources that have been increasingly devolved to local level (Paulos Chanie 2007). Fourthly, the 2005 elections were not simply a moment of intense confl ict between the EPRDF and the opposition, but also took on the contours of an inter-generational confl ict. Ethiopia has one of Africa’s largest youth populations, which for the fi rst time in general elections vented its frustration at the government’s unkept promises of democratisation and development. Th is was notably the case of urban and more educated 20- to 30-year-old youths. Th is generation has no or only limited memories of the Derg’s state repression, since they have grown up under a government that has constantly propagated democratic rights. Particularly for urban youth, many of whom aspire to a job in the public sector (Serneels 2007), the 2005 elections were an opportunity to reject the EPRDF by either boycotting the poll, supporting the opposition and/or actively demonstrating against the regime. As Daniel Mains argues in his chapter on unemployed urban youth in Jimma, youth traditional authorities in ethiopia 23 emerged as a distinct social category in Ethiopia in 2005. By expressing their disinterest and cynicism towards the elections, young urban men signalled their refusal to enter into patron-client relations with the state who sought to engage with them through the party-run youth associations or mahabar. Th e important role of youth in the 2005 Ethiopian elections is illustrated by their prominent involvement in post-election demonstrations in Addis Ababa and cities in the Amhara and Oromiya regions and SNNPR. Derided by the government as adegegna bozeni or ‘dangerous hoodlums’, youthful opposition supporters and ‘trouble- makers’ became the prime target for federal police and other security forces during the November 2005 crackdown. In Oromiya region in particular, students and youth from the countryside have continued to protest against the government, leading to repeated clashes with security forces over recent years. As Charles Schaefer observes in his chapter on Oromiya region, it was in many ways a power struggle between elder elite rulers and youthful opposition that erupted during the 2005 elections. Th e Ethiopian case demonstrates the complexities and subtleties of how formal politics and power projected through multi-party elections are unfolding, and how informal institutions of power as traditional authorities perceive and react to them. Th e role of traditional authorities in elections is an area of research deserving of greater attention in Ethiopia and in Africa in general, as elections are a major and much- contested discursive and symbolic moment of political interaction, in which both formal and informal actors clash over defi ning and defam- ing political legitimacy and the ‘content’ of elections. Th e study of traditional authorities in elections must thus be seen as complimentary to conventional elections and democracy research as it will help to develop a ‘multilayered’ methodological approach to election studies (Tronvoll 2009a). Th e following chapters shed some light on the power of traditions and dynamics of identifi cation that marked Ethiopia’s contested 2005 elections. Th e authors vividly demonstrate how institutions of traditional authority overlap with multi-party politics in Ethiopia’s post-1991 democratisation. Revealing how spheres of modern and customary politics infl uence, shape and even reconstitute one another in Ethiopia, this book provides a comparative ethnography of the contested powers of the 2005 elections, thereby contributing to an emergent anthropology of democracy (Paley 2002). It also high lights the contemporaneousness of traditional authorities as observed 24 kjetil tronvoll and tobias hagmann in an era of multi-party elections, in which customary forms of authority complement modern party politics and – as in other African states – are intrinsically related to contemporary statehood and formal governance.

Bibliography

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CHAPTER 1

ELECTORAL POLITICS IN THE NUER CULTURAL CONTEXT

Dereje Feyissa

Introduction

Th e May 2005 election was one of the main events in the recent political history of Ethiopia. Th e remarkable voter turnout, the high profi le participation of opposition parties, and the lively political debate it generated showed that Ethiopia, too, has joined the global electoral bandwagon. Amidst worldwide changes in national politics, a lot remains to be seen as to how local cultural practices have shaped globally situated electoral politics. Th is paper is a contribution to understanding the cultural framing of electoral politics in the Gambella region in May 2005 with a special focus on the experience of the Nuer. Th e major focus of this chapter is on what it means to transplant an electoral mode of governance into societies based on diff erent cultural logics. Th e emphasis is on the interplay between electoral politics and the traditional Nuer mode of governance. Th is interplay is illustrated by two fi ndings: one, the Nuer local identifi cation unit (the cieng) serves as a cultural framework through which the election is experienced and made sense of; and two, electoral politics have generated a primordial form of identifi cation among the Nuer; a society which is otherwise best known for a successful assimilation system. Th e paper is structured in fi ve sections. Section one gives a regional perspective of the election. Section two presents an ethnography of the May 2005 elections among the Nuer with special reference to the Laare polling station, the only polling station in Gambella Regional State where there was genuine political competition. Section three discusses the weight of tradition on electoral politics, i.e. how the Nuer have experienced electoral politics not as individual political actors but through their collective identities. Section four analyses the impact of electoral politics on the Nuers’ mode of identifi cation and how political competition has induced a drive towards essential purity in a society 32 dereje feyissa that is conspicuously assimilationist. Th e fi nal section provides an out- look for the long-term impact of election on the political viability of Nuer society.

Th e regional perspective on the election

Th e main actor in electoral politics in the Gambella People’s National Regional State (GPNRS) is the Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF). Although the ruling regional party, the Gambella People’s Democratic Movement (GPDM), is not a member of the EPRDF, it is nevertheless affi liated with and controlled by it. Th is political arrangement fi ts in with the way the EPRDF relates to the four peripheral states.1 Th e EPRDF’s power is evident in the various areas of the political process. For one, the very creation of the GPNRS as one of the constitutive parts of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia suddenly transformed Gambella from an obscure district with a relatively small population into a regional state.2 Of more relevance to the everyday life of people living in the region has been the creation of categories of people that have a direct bearing on political entitlement. Th ere are fi ve ethnic groups that are politically recognised in the GPNRS as ‘indigenous’ people. Th ese are: the Anywaa, the Nuer, the Majangir, the Opo, and the Komo. Based on the 2007 census conducted by the Central Statistical Agency (CSA), the Gambella Region has total population of 306,916. Th e main ethnicities in the region are the Nuer (46.65%), the Anywaa (21.17%), the Majangir (4%) and the small Komo and Opo communities representing less than one percent each. Th ere is also a diff erent category of people consisting of migrants from various parts of the country. It is ethnically diverse and consists largely of Amhara, Oromo, Tigreans, Kembatta and Keff a. Th is category of people are referred to by various names: gaala (by the Anywaa), buny (by the Nuer) and habesha (their own description). In recent times the term habesha has become politicised as it is largely associated with the Amhara and the Tigreans. Instead, a more neutral and topographic

1 Th ese peripheral regional states are Gambella, Benishangul-Gumuz, Afar and Somali (Young 1999). 2 Th e Gambella Regional State is the second smallest regional state of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia aft er the Harari Regional State. electoral politics in the nuer cultural context 33 term – degegna (highlanders) – is used as a generic term to refer to the migrants. Most of the highlanders came to the Gambella region as part of the 1980s resettlement programme and currently constitute 28 percent of the region’s population.3 Th e boundary between highlanders and ‘indigenous’ people is marked at diff erent levels. At local level it is depicted in the language of colour: the ‘red’ (i.e. lighter-skinned) highlanders are contrasted with the ‘black’ indigenes. Th e term ‘highlander’ is also used as a metonym for the Ethiopian state. Ever since it was established, the Ethiopian state has been introduced through, identifi ed with and represented by highlanders who came from the centre (Addis Ababa) as government offi - cials. Th e local population however do not make distinction between highlanders from the centre and long time highlander residents of Gambella. Th is confl ation of the highlanders and the Ethiopian state is evident from the extent to which tension between the Anywaa or the Nuer and the Ethiopian government oft en results in tension between locals and resident highlanders. As such, the federal government also falls on the red side of the colour boundary. Th e boundary between highlanders and indigenes has taken on a new political dimension in the post-1991 period, in which they have emerged as ‘residual’ groups because they belong – according to the way identity politics is organised by the EPRDF – to one or the other regional state on the basis of their ethnic identity. Th e EPRDF’s power is also visible in the allocation of administrative power among the ‘indigenous’ people, which suggests that there are various shades of ‘indigenousness’. Up until the recent falling-out between the Anywaa and the EPRDF, the Anywaa occupied a dominant political position in the GPNRS on the basis of their settlement history and their contribution to regime change. Th eir settlement history in the Gambella region has given the Anywaa a position of relative seniority vis-à-vis the Nuer and the highlanders.4 Th is is evident in their disproportionate political representation and in the distribution

3 Th rough the resettlement programme, 60,000 farmers from Wello, Tigray and Kembatta were resettled in the Gambella region in 1985. Some of them went home aft er the regime change in 1991, but the majority of them remained in Gambella, which they now consider their home. 4 Th e Anywaa are said to have migrated to the Gambella region in the 18th century, whereas the Nuer started to migrate at the end of the 19th century (Collins 1971). A signifi cant number of Nuer have migrated to the Gambella region since the outbreak of the civil war in southern Sudan in the 1960s. 34 dereje feyissa of key posts in the regional council since 1991: presidency for the Anywaa, vice-presidency for the Nuer, and the post of secretary for the Majangir. Th is stark imbalance in power-sharing induced an intense Nuer ‘politics of inclusion’, which culminated in their deadly confl ict with the Anywaa in 2002. As part of confl ict resolution eff orts, the EPRDF introduced a new power-sharing arrangement in 2003 that ostensibly balanced the Anywaa’s historical justifi cations with the Nuers’ demographic argument for political entitlement. Political representation in the new regional council was accordingly shared equally between the Anywaa and the Nuer. As expected this has created discontent among the Anywaa, who interpret what the federal government and the Nuer consider to be an act of long-overdue political redress as an usurpation of their legitimate political dominance of the GPNRS. Th e EPRDF has also redesigned the platform of parties, shift - ing from a regional to an ethnic profi le. All the regional parties were dissolved and replaced by new ethnic PDOs: the APDO (Anywaa Peo- ple’s Democratic Organisation), the NPDO (Nuer People’s Democratic Organisation) and the MPDO (Majangir People’s Democratic Organ- isation). Under the auspices of the EPRDF, these ethnic parties formed a new regional umbrella organisation called the GPDM.5 Th e election process was set in motion with the allocation of 81 seats in the regional council and 3 for GPNRS representatives in the national House of Peoples’ Representatives. Out of the 81 seats the APDO and the NPDO were allocated 33 each, the MPDO 11 and two each for the two small Opo and the Komo communities, represented by the APDO and the NPDO respectively. As ‘outsiders’, the highlanders were not considered in the plans for political representation of the Gambella region. Th e political stakes in Gambella were high in the run-up to the elections: the deadly confl ict between the Anywaa and the EPRDF/ highlanders ongoing since 2003 and the political struggle between the Anywaa and the Nuer; the prospect of discovering oil and the resulting tension between federal and regional interests; the issues of ‘immigra- tion’ and the political status of the highlanders; competing jurisdic- tions over land; and the prospect of peace in Sudan and its political ramifi cations for the Gambella region. Against the backdrop of these considerable political stakes that directly aff ected the lives of ordinary

5 By 2002 there were four regional parties, although de facto they represented the interests of either the Anywaa or the Nuer. In a further act of imposition EPRDF has replaced the GPDM by a unifi ed regional party known as Gambelle Peoples Democratic Unity Movement (GPDUM) in 2007. electoral politics in the nuer cultural context 35 people, one would have expected a vibrant issue-based campaign in the run-up to polling day. However, by the standards of the May 2005 national elections, or the 2000 election in Gambella when a regional opposition party ran, there was less political competition during the May 2005 elections in Gambella. Th is was for two reasons: fi rst, the fact that two of the major social groups involved in confl ict (the Anywaa and the highlanders) were not politically active; and secondly, the opposition parties did not or could not make any serious eff ort to compete in the regional election.6 Th e Anywaa and the highlanders, who make up half of the region’s population, were not active in the election for reasons related to the confl ict situation. Th ere was much discontent among the Anywaa about the way in which the government had handled the 2002 confl ict between the Anywaa and the Nuer – and even more so the confl ict between the Anywaa and the highlanders aft er December 13, 2003. Many educated and prominent Anywaa offi cials were imprisoned for allegedly organising and participating in the 2002 confl ict, but to date none of them has ever been tried in court. More than fi ft y Anywaa policemen were also dismissed from their jobs for the same reason. In fact, it is from the ranks of these policemen that the Anywaa shift as (rebels, bandits), who later evolved into the Gambella Liberation Front, emerged, spurred on by their resentment for what they regarded as the ‘unbalanced’ actions of the federal government in dealing with the confl ict.7 Th e shift as targeted not only the army but also the civilian highlanders, because of the confl ation between highlanders and the Ethiopian state. Th e growing tension between the Anywaa on the one hand and the EPRDF and highlanders on the other had culminated in the December 2003 massacre of the Anywaa living in Gambella town by civilian highlanders and members of the army. A lot has still to be found out about the circumstances of the massacre. Th e trigger for this massacre was the killing of eight government offi cials by armed Anywaa groups. According to a Human Rights Watch (2005), p. 12 report entitled Ethiopia: Crimes against Humanity in Gambella Region, while the individuals who carried out the attack have reportedly never been caught, it is widely assumed, both within and outside of Gambella, that the ambush was the work of an armed Anywaa group or of Anywaa

6 Th e GPNRS contributes only three seats to the HoR. Th e opposition parties therefore showed little interest in competing in the GPNRS elections. 7 Compared with the Anywaa, very few Nuer policemen and offi cials were imprisoned. 36 dereje feyissa shift as. Hours aft er the incident, members of the Ethiopian National Defence Force (ENDF) and highlander civilians launched a brutal attack on Gambella town’s Anywaa population. Th e exact number of Anywaa killed has not yet been established. Th e government acknowledged 67 deaths, whereas human rights groups put the fi gure at over 400. Th e Anywaa are bitter about the way this issue has been handled by the government. For one thing, the government has not properly identifi ed the cause of the troubles. Th is is evident from its shift ing discourse on the confl ict: an alleged orchestration by ‘anti-peace elements’;8 misconstruing it as ‘a tribal confl ict’ between the Anywaa and the Nuer; blaming it on Anywaa ‘narrow nationalists’ and highlanders’ ‘chauvinists bent on genocidal intents’. Th e role of the army was neglected until the Commission of Inquiry set up by the Ethiopian government, itself accused of partisanship by human rights groups, nevertheless implicated some members of the army in the killings. Two years aft er the massacre, only a few culprits had been tried.9 To the Anywaa, the continuous blame-shift ing gave the impression that the government was trivialising their suff ering, whereas the delayed trial has produced yet further evidence that the incumbent – much like the previous government – continues to treat its peripheral people like second-class citizens. Th is sounds like severe criticism to a government that bases its power on being a champion of minorities’ rights. From the Anywaa’s perspective, what is driving the confl ict in Gambella is the EPRDF’s desire to control oil exploration in the region. Amidst growing discontent, an Anywaa rebel group – the GLF (Gambella Liberation Front) – was formed and engaged in sporadic attacks on government establishments as well as on civilian highlanders. Th e bitterness of Anywaa men and women, and the armed insur- rection, created a climate of fear that had an adverse eff ect on political participation. Some Anywaa who showed an interest in running in the 2005 elections changed their minds for fear of being labelled shift a. As it transpired, only one Anywaa dared to run for election as an independent candidate – and was subjected to political harassment.

8 Th e OLF and the government of Eritrea were initially identifi ed by the EPRDF as the agents behind the trouble in the Gambella region. 9 Acknowledging its failure to respond eff ectively to December 2003 killings the government of Ethiopia established in 2004 a Commission of Inquiry into the incident. Th e Commission implicated unidentifi ed members of the Ministry of Defense in the killings. In March 2005, six government soldiers were charged with involvement in the December 2003 killings. electoral politics in the nuer cultural context 37

Th e highlanders, too, were politically alienated. Th e GPNRS is offi - cially designated as a ‘minority state’ by the federal government, and highlanders are generally not allowed to run for election in the GPNRS, ostensibly to protect what the EPRDF regards as ‘national minorities’.10 Th ey are neither recognised as a separate political constituency nor reorganised by their ethnic affi liation. Despite the constitutional right of every citizen to elect and be elected provided he or she is competent in a local language, in practice a more basic classifi cation dominates the politics of group entitlement. Th e participation of a multi-ethnic opposition party might have created a new political space for the highlanders. Th ere is an incongruity between the political exclusion of the highlanders on the one hand and their economic dominance and pre- ponderant position in the regional skilled labour force on the other. Nearly all the big businesses are run by highlanders, and they make up more than 50 percent of civil servants. Paradoxically, although they feel insecure politically and fear for their lives and property, they are also feared by the indigenous people for their economic power and their symbolic association with the Ethiopian state. Th is underlines the highlanders’ very complicated political status in the Gambella region. Th eir identifi cation with the Ethiopian state still holds at a time when the majority of the highlanders do not support the EPRDF, even though the latter is itself perceived as ‘highlander’ by the local people. High- landers see themselves as victims of displaced aggression. When the disgruntled Anywaa policemen emerged as shift a, it was civilian highlanders that were the main victims. Neither the regional nor the federal government could off er them the protection they pleaded for. It was only when government offi cials were targeted, particularly on Decem- ber 13, that the federal government, through its army, got involved and sided with the highlanders, thus providing further evidence in the eyes of the Anywaa that there was no distinction between the government and the highlanders aft er all. Th e attempt by the EPRDF to extricate itself from the political crisis in Gambella during the election debate by blaming the highlanders for their ‘genocidal intent’ further embittered the highlanders. Against a background of mounting discontent, both

10 Godere woreda is the exception where two highlanders run for the election, one representing the MPDO/GPDM and one representing the CUD (Coalition for Unity and Democracy). Th is exception is due to the fact that their population in the woreda outnumbers the indigenous Majangir and also because the Majangir play a relatively minor political role at regional level. 38 dereje feyissa the Anywaa and the highlanders seem to have given up hope of being able to protect their interests through peaceful political struggle. Th e election apathy among the Anywaa and the highlanders, on the other hand, contrasts sharply with the higher level of political participation among the Nuer, who fi elded fi ve of the six independent candidates in a vibrant competition between independent and party candidates.

Th e Nuer perspective on the election

Th e Nuer are a Nilotic-speaking agro-pastoralist people. Although the majority of the Nuer live in southern Sudan, they nevertheless constitute 46 percent of the population of the Gambella region. Overall, they are divided into thirteen named territorial groupings. Each group is sub-divided into a number of segments called cieng in the Nuer language. Th e Nuer are a classic example of a society based on segmentary lineage organisation in the anthropological discourse on non-state African societies (Fortes and Evans-Pritchard 1940). At the heart of the segmentary lineage organisation is the primacy of agnation as the principle of political organisation, which creates and regulates order in the absence of formal organisations of power. Th e main political units of the segmentary lineage organisation are defi ned as territories (locality), but it is descent (agnation) that provides the ‘structuring principle’. Evans-Pritchard made a distinction between a clan and a tribe, which belong to two diff erent social domains – kinship and the political respectively. While using the term ‘tribe’ to describe the political unit, Evans-Pritchard distinguished primary, secondary and tertiary tribal sections, as well as local village communities, despite the fact that the Nuer use only one word, cieng, to signify a territorial section of any size. Th e word cieng literally means home or community. Unlike a tribe, the Nuer clan is conceived to have a number of inherent, positive qualities; ‘the largest group of agnates who trace their descent from a common ancestor and between whom marriage is forbidden and sexual relations considered incestuous’ (Evans-Pritchard 1940, 192). According to this model the smallest tribal segment – the village community – correlates with the smallest clan segment, the minimum lineage. Evans-Pritchard noted the segmentary nature of the tribe in purely balanced oppositional terms. Th e nested hierarchy that emerges operates through the principle of segmentation, smaller units forming a electoral politics in the nuer cultural context 39 wider unit until they all stand as one in opposition to non-Nuer groups. Th us, the ciengs have no absolute existence but rather emerge in specifi c situations, called into being in opposition to similar units. Th e segmentary lineage organisation, however, misconstrues the lived experiences of the Nuer as much as it reveals the principles of Nuer social organisation (Dereje Feyissa 2003). Th e Nuer who live in the Gambella region are called Jikany. Th e Jikany consist of three tribes: the Gaajak, Gaajok and Gaaguang, each one sub-divided into various levels of cieng. Th e Jikany trace their origin back to a mythical ancestor called Kiir.

Chart 1.1 Nuer genealogy

Source: author’s fi eldwork 40 dereje feyissa

Th e Nuer have developed an assimilation society par excellence. Th e Nuer ‘social pot’ transmutes, if not melts, so successfully that it leaves no room for the internal dissent of other assimilationist systems. Th is integrative process works at two levels: non-Nuer (mainly Dinka and Anywaa) becoming Nuer, and re-affi liation of cieng membership among the Nuer. Th e process of assimilation operates through three interrelated Nuer concepts that mix descent and locality: diel, rul and jaang. Th e diel are members of the dominant lineage, which Evans- Pritchard called aristocratic clan; rul are Nuer immigrants who attach themselves into the diel clan through affi nal ties; and a jaang is a for- eigner who either joins the diel through adoption or attaches himself through affi nal ties. It is through these interrelated identity concepts that the process of social conversion occurs among the Nuer. Th e concept of diel is roughly similar to the fi rst-comer, but diel is a framework for inclusion, not exclusion. Th e general trend is that the rul attaches himself by marrying into a diel family and over generations his descendants will fully settle in the new place and become gaatniyat (sons of daughters). Th e jaang are oft en integrated into a cieng through adoption. Th e jaang’s and rul’s background matters mainly for marriage purposes; as the diel are exogamous, they have good marriage prospects. In both cases, however, newcomers are encouraged to join the diel, an ideology that eventually creates real social and economic ties. Th e ‘Nuer way’ works towards integration with a built-in logic of excel- ling, the newly recruited outsiders becoming ‘more Nuer’ than the ‘original’. Immigrants, both Nuer and non-Nuer, could be reminded of their background as outsiders if they conspicuously undermine the local community. Otherwise, nobody is culturally and morally allowed to remind somebody who is fully settled and meets local standards of his ‘foreign’ background. In fact, anyone who is questioned about his background easily elicits sympathy. Th rough adoption and inter-marriage the rul and the jaang settle into the diel’s community, ultimately forming an expanding political community that is referred to in its entirety as a diel. Th e Nuer have reacted enthusiastically to electoral politics as it has off ered them a chance to participate in the state. With the success of their proportional political representation at regional level, Nuer politics has shift ed to intra-ethnic competition. Th e cieng is a politically active unit because it is also the major unit of economic cooperation and community defence. Th e power struggle among the Nuer elites has focused on the offi ce of the vice-presidency – the highest political electoral politics in the nuer cultural context 41 prize – and political representation of the three Jikany tribes and the various ciengs within each tribe. Chuol Pech, a member of the Gaaguang tribe, was elected as the fi rst Nuer vice-president in 1995. In 1997 the regional government collapsed and its entire leadership was imprisoned on charges of corruption. Nuer politics had been dominated by the Gaajak tribe and ever since then has been fi ercely contested by the Gaajok. Within the Gaajak, Nuer politics was dominated by the cieng Th iang, who monopolised every level of administrative power in the Nuer zone from 1997 to 2001, from woreda council and zonal administration all the way up to members of parliament in the federal House of Peoples’ Representatives. Gac Reth, a Th iang, had replaced Chuol Pech as the Nuer vice-president up to 2000. Mirroring the Anywaa political strategy that is based on the claim of being indigenous, the Th iang, as Nuer ‘fi rst-comers’ to the Gambella region, consider the other Gaajak ciengs as largely foreign (meaning Sudanese), a strategy they employed until recently to legitimate their dominant political position. Th iang political domination has been a particular source of resentment to the cieng Cany/Gaajak. Th e death of the Th iang vice-president in May 2001 rekindled the power struggle, from which the cieng elites emerged triumphant, outmanoeuvring the other ciengs through multiple Cany affi liations to all the regional parties. Aft er a two-year power vacuum, Keat Tuac, from a cieng Cany, became the vice-president in 2003. Subsequently, the power struggle has shift ed back and forth between the ciengs Cany/Gaajak and Gaajok since 2003. Th is political competition has aggravated the traditional cleavage between the Gaajak and the Gaajok. Th e Gaajak are very suspicious of the Gaajok, who are more educated and occupy a dominant political position in southern Sudan, even within Gaajak constituencies. In the events leading up to the May 2005 elections, Nuer politics was dominated to all practical intents and purposes by the rivalry between the two Gaajak and Gaajok factions within the NPDO. Over the course of time the Gaajak split into two, thereby increasing the factions vying for power from two to three. Nuer constituencies were organised into four polling stations. Below I focus on electoral politics among the Gaajak, particularly at the Laare polling station, where the election was hotly contested. When describing intra-Gaajak cieng politics, I will touch upon issues related to inter-ethnic political competition and the role of the federal government in regional politics. Th is requires an exposition of the complex political mobilisations within the segmentary lineage system occurring in various ciengs. 42 dereje feyissa

Electoral politics among the Nuer commenced with an allocation of seats by the NPDO at tribal level. Th e Nuer seat quota in the regional council (33) was distributed fi rst along tribal lines: Gaajak (17), Gaajok (9) and Gaaguang (7). Th is was on the basis of demographic size and settlement pattern in the two Nuer woredas.11 Political representation was more contentious among the Gaajak due to the issue of which cieng would get how many seats. Of the fi ve ciengs the cieng Reng was excluded from the beginning because they did not have a kebele of their own. Th ey are the newest Nuer migrants from southern Sudan to the Gambella region, and their politics of recognition vis-à-vis the Anywaa at regional level and among the Nuer have not yet borne fruit (Dereje Feyissa 2003). Th e remaining four ciengs have diff erent kinds of political capital. Th e Th iang have more kebeles in Gambella with a longer settlement history. Th e cieng Nyajani are most numerous, but they have the shortest settlement history and a smaller educated elite. Th e cieng Cany are in the numerical minority but are more educated. Th e cieng Wau, on the other hand, are in a majority among the Gaajak when cross-border settlements are taken into account, but they are less politically oriented towards Ethiopia. Th e Th iang demanded a new boundary line for allocating the 17 seats. Drawing on the basis of Kiir’s genealogy, they categorised the four ciengs into one descent group called Khun (see diagram 1). In order to further legitimate their sense of a separate identity they replaced the name Gaajak with Gaaguong. Both Gaajak and Gaaguong are ‘ox names’ of the ancestor Khun. Gaaguong was Khun’s original ox name and used to refer to his three descendants. Gaajak is Khun’s second ox name and was coined aft er the Th iang joined them. Th e activation of a separate cieng identity by the Th iang is greatly resented by the remaining Gaajak ciengs, who fear that this undermines their political standing vis-à-vis the Gaajok, who are their competitors at tribal level. Aft er a series of negotiations within the NPDO, political representation was decided as follows: Th iang (6), cieng Cany (4), cieng Nyajani (4) and cieng Wau (3). Th e nomination was undertaken within each cieng through the community elders. Although the Th iang did not get everything they expected, they at least managed to gain more seats than any other single Gaajak cieng. A second contentious electoral issue was the question of female representation, which led to a second round of nominations. Aft er the fi rst

11 Th e Gaajak make up the majority and live in the Jikow woreda, whereas the Gaajok and the Gaaguang share the Akobo district. Two new Nuer woredas - Matar and Nyinyang - were created in 2007. electoral politics in the nuer cultural context 43 nomination round was over, the EPRDF asked the NPDO to include women and elders. As part of its inclusive rhetoric, the EPRDF pledged to increase women’s participation by 30 percent and to allow for a greater representation of local notables. Accordingly, ten seats from the Nuer quota were allocated to women and cieng elders. Th is demand, particularly the issue of female representation, was very contentious as Nuer society is strongly patriarchal. In Nuer political terms, the double affi liation of women (to their patrilineal and affi nal ciengs) calls their primary loyalty into question. Interestingly, ciengs who ‘happened’ to have educated women received the news with consternation, i.e. as if it were a plot by some ciengs to undermine the political standing of the others. Coming from the centre, the issue of women’s representation was nevertheless passed, entailing a second round of nominations. All three female nominees – from Th iang, cieng Cany and cieng Nyajani – were elected.12 Th is also created an opportunity for some of the nominees to eliminate potential contenders for the position of vice-president. Th is was particularly true of the competition between the incumbent vice- president, Keat Tuach, and Bol Keat. Keat and Bol not only belong to the cieng Cany but also to the cieng Jockroal of the cieng Cany segment, although they diff er at the second level of segmentation: In the second round of nominations, Bol was replaced due to charges of corruption by Tut, a new candidate from cieng Kolthiang of a diff erent segment (cieng Duop) from Bol’s (cieng Juony). Interestingly, the corruption charge was enacted retrospectively. Th e charge was fi rst fi led on Bol in 2004 by his Gaajok boss at the Regional Management Institute, a higher learning institution run by the regional government, but he was ‘rescued’ by Keat in an act of Gaajak solidarity. Th e corruption charge became an issue in the new context of electoral competition, particularly aft er Bol showed an interest in the position of vice-president. Disappointed at his replacement, Bol and the other three nominees left the party and registered to run as independent candidates. All of the Nuer independent candidates were party ‘defectors’ aft er their replacement in the second round of nominations. Bol went

12 For a similar contentious issue of women’s political representation in the Somali regional state, see Dereje Feyissa (2010), where women political exclusion is justifi ed by references to their ‘in-betweenness’ in inter-clan relations, since they appear as ‘people without a clan’. Reacting to this mode of exclusion, Somali women have sarcastically asked for their own ‘clan’, should this be the only possible unit of political representation at regional and sub-regional government level. 44 dereje feyissa

Chart 1.2 cieng Cany segments

Source: author’s fi eldwork on campaigning on a ticket of providing more eff ective leadership to the Nuer, accusing Keat of undermining Nuer political gains vis-à-vis the Anywaa, being susceptible to Gaajok manipulation, and ‘abandon- ing’ the cieng Cany project.

Political manoeuvres and strategies among the Nuer during the 2005 election

Keat Tuach, the incumbent vice-president, reacted to the challenges the independent candidates posed by introducing a mixed cieng polling station, the Laare polling station. Previously, the Gaajak constituency was organised along the lines of the new division of Th iang and the other Gaajak ciengs (now referred to as Gaaguong) into the Laare and Nyinyang polling stations respectively. Fearing his own cieng Cany constituency and counting on the Th iang through kinship ties and electoral politics in the nuer cultural context 45 political networks, Keat managed to divide the cieng Cany at the two polling stations in such a way that his and Bol’s ciengs fell within the same polling station, the LPS. At the LPS, nine of the 17 Gaajak seats and two minority seats for the Opo were up for grabs. Th ese seats were further allocated as follows: six were allocated to Th iang, three to cieng Cany and two to Opo (an ethnic minority within the Nuer Zone). At the NPS, eight seats were competed over: four for cieng Nyajani, three for cieng Wau and one for cieng Cany. All eight candidates in the NPS were party candidates. By contrast, 11 seats were contested at the Laare polling station by 14 candidates, of whom 11 were party and three independent candidates. From the three independent candidates two were Th iang and one (Bol) was a cieng Cany. At the level of cieng affi liation, therefore, eight of the candidates were Th iang (six party and two independent), four were cieng Cany (three party and one independent) and two were Opo. Although the Th iang independent candidates bore a grudge against the party due to their having been replaced, they nevertheless converged with the Th iang party candidates to maximise Th iang political representation at the Laare polling station. In Th iang terms, therefore, ‘Plan A’ was to make sure that eight of the 11 seats would be occupied by Th iang (the six party and the two independent candidates). What was at stake for the Th iang was not only the post of vice-president which they briefl y lost to the cieng Cany (2003–05), but also their current resource confl ict with the other Gaajak ciengs, particularly the cieng Nyajani and the cieng Reng. Th e Th iang had reservations about the way the Keat administration handled their confl ict with the cieng Reng and the cieng Nyajani, who were increasingly encroaching on their rangeland. Keat’s kinship ties with the cieng Reng and the cieng Nyajani were perceived as evidence of his ‘favouritism’. As the two seats for the Opo were not up for competition – they were reserved as minority seats in the regional council – they needed only one cieng Cany candidate to fi ll the quota. Th is one non-Th iang candidate could be any of the four cieng Cany candidates (three party and one independent candidates), including Keat and Bol. As a result, both Bol and Keat campaigned on the Th iang ticket. Keat fared better in winning the support of the Th iang thanks to a kinship network that helped him forge a political alliance between his own cieng and the Th iang. Th is political alliance was created through his ‘informal’ adviser, Chuol Gew himself a cieng Cany related to the Th iang through marriage. Chuol represents the new generation of educated Nuer and Anywaa who resent the growing 46 dereje feyissa federal infl uence over the region’s politics through its own political representatives – also called ‘advisors’ (ammakari) – and the EPRDF’s neo- patrimonial system, which has severely undermined the political legitimacy of the federal order (Aalen 2002; Hagmann 2005; Dereje Feyissa 2006). Coming from the centre, the federal advisers readily fall into the category of ‘highlanders’, further reinforcing the categorical association between the highlanders and the Ethiopian state. Keat’s kinship network translated into a political alliance with David Hoth, the Jikow woreda chairman, another important political actor during the election. Outmanoeuvred by Keat in winning the support of the Th iang, Bol shift ed his political strategy to playing the indigenous card. In his campaign among the cieng Kolthiang in Bien kebele, Bol tried to undermine party candidate Tut’s chance of winning the election by labelling Tut’s cieng – the cieng Duop segment within the cieng Kolthiang – ‘foreign’. Historically, the cieng Duong were part of Gaajok but had migrated to the cieng Cany area and attached themselves to the Kolthiang. For the villagers the political competition at this level took a diff erent form. Th e competition between Tut and Bol was not framed and perceived as party versus independent candidate but rather in terms of which cieng should represent the Kolthiang. Bol and his observer and campaign manager, Pal Debol, were from cieng Jouany and Tut is from cieng Duop (see diagram 3). Th e cieng Duop and the cieng Dar have political grievances, contesting cieng Juany’s political domination. Pal Debol and Bol Keat were senior offi cials in the regional council. Drawing on internal discontent within the cieng Kolthiang, Tut for his part framed the contest in moral terms: it was now time to end the cieng Duop’s monopoly over Kolthiang political representation. A similar mode of exclusion was adopted among the Th iang, particularly in the competition between Peter Lual and Yie Choul. Both Peter and Yie were nominated to represent the cieng Jenyang/Th iang in the fi rst round, but the party voted for Peter in the second round of nominations. Yie then took the issue to the cieng Jenyang – a cieng which both belong to – labelling Peter an outsider, not a ‘real’ Th iang. By claiming the status of a descendant of the dominant lineage, Yie hoped to replace Peter. In fact, he managed to mobilise the cieng Jenyang constituency who petitioned the NPDO to have Peter replaced by Yie. Th e cieng Jenyang consists of two segments: the cieng Mek and the cieng Gac. Th e cieng Mek got one of the seats from the Th iang quota, which was competed for by its two segments: the cieng Buoy and the cieng Juc. Within the cieng Buoy there are two segments – the cieng Deng and the cieng Mankoryom. Just as in the cieng Kolthiang of the electoral politics in the nuer cultural context 47 cieng Canyin which the cieng Duop are perceived as being politically dominant, the cieng Deng are perceived to be dominant in issues related to community leadership among the cieng Mek. Both Peter and Yie are from the cieng Deng. Yie drew on the cieng Juc’s discontentment and hoped thereby to undermine Peter’s chance of winning the election. Th is caused a heated political debate among the cieng Mek. Taking account of Peter’s party-backing, the cieng Mek elders tried to persuade Yie not to run as an independent candidate for fear of undermining the cieng Mek’s political representation should their competition favour non-cieng Mek or even non-Th iang candidates. Yie refused to heed the elders’ advice and registered to run as a independent candidate. He campaigned on the diel ticket, mobilising in particular the cieng Juc, who in fact fi led a petition to the regional council about the ‘illegiti- macy’ of Peter representing the Th iang. In one of the cieng Mek elders’ meetings, Peter defended his Th iang identity through his mother and highlighted Yie’s ‘dubious’ genealogy: In that meeting I raised the issue of diel. I told them that my mother is a diel in cieng Jenyang as well as in cieng Mek and in cieng Buoy [gaatniyat]. I discovered that Yie’s mother is not a cieng Jenyang and the origin of his grandfather is not clear. I reminded the elders that there are a lot of people who are not originally cieng Jenyang and the issue of diel will bring division among the people. Many people in cieng Jenyang are originally Gaguong, and this would spoil Th iang politics.13 Had it not been for his political alliance with the Keat faction, the level of opposition could have cost Peter any chance of passing the nomination, let alone winning the election. As it transpired, Peter in fact got the least votes of all the Th iang party candidates. Th e strongest competition in the LPS was instead between Bol and Keat. As Bol prepared to challenge Keat, the federal establishment started to show some interest in their contest, in as much as this could enhance the chances of its own favoured candidate, Sunday Gac, a Gaajok, for the offi ce of vice-president should Keat fail to win the election. Sunday had a smaller constituency among the Gaajok. His cieng, the cieng Leng, live predominantly in southern Sudan and they have only two kebeles in Akobo woreda. Had it not been for their federal backing, the Cieng Leng would have had the same political fate as the cieng Reng among the Gaajak. In fact, in May 2003 his Gaajak competitors within the Nuer party organised a demonstration in Gambella

13 Interview with Peter Lual, fi eld notes, 18 May 2005. 48 dereje feyissa town protesting against his growing infl uence by labelling him a ‘for- eigner’. Sunday renegotiated his political weakness when he earned the blessing of the federal government by off ering a more eff ective political performance in the aft ermath of the December 2003 violence in Gambella than Keat who took a more moderate position. Keat’s moderate position came with a high political cost at all levels. At the federal level he appeared to be too indecisive and hesitant to implement the wishes of the ruling party. At the regional level he was too moderate in speaking up for Nuer interests. At the tribal level he appeared to have been outshined by the more shrewd Gaajok politicians. At the level of cieng Cany he ‘failed’ to favour his fellow ciengmen like his Th iang pre- decessor who favoured his cieng comrades. Amidst mounting challenges the beleaguered vice-president intensifi ed his political alliance with the Th iang. His faction, in collaboration with the Th iang leadership in the Jikow district council, managed to imprison fi ft y of Bol’s supporters under the pretext of being, following the EPRDF’s newly coined electoral political language, adegegna bozené or ‘dangerous hooligans’. A day before the election Pal Debol, Bol’s election observer, was also imprisoned aft er an incident between supporters of Tut and Bol in Bieyen kebele. As the result from the Laare Polling Station shows, all 11 party candidates (representatives of the Nuer People’s Democratic Organisation), including Keat, won the election, but Keat got the least votes with a narrow margin of victory over the Th iang independent candidate, whereas Bol came in last. Th e cieng quota system severely compromised the competitive nature of the election. It was already decided at the party level how many seats were to go to which cieng. Th e LPS was organised as one constituency and all the registered voters were given 11 cards to elect the 14 candidates. Th e winners were those who got the fi rst 11 highest votes. In principle, four cieng Cany or eight Th iang could have been elected. Th e NPDO, however, made sure that the quota system would hold, i.e. six Th iang and three cieng Cany, all being its representatives. In the Gaajok constituency, Sunday won in the Burbey polling station, where one independent candidate participated. Th ere are three ciengs within the Gaajok. Th e largest is cieng Queck, followed by cieng Nylieth and the smallest is cieng Leng, to which Sunday belongs. Th e allocation of seats within the Gaajok does not represent their demographic size but their diff ering levels of access to the federal government. Although the cieng Leng has only two kebeles, they received three seats, whereas the second largest Gaajok cieng only got two. electoral politics in the nuer cultural context 49

Table 1.1 Election results from Laare polling station No. Name Gender Cieng Representation Vote 1 Gatlual Pal Male Th iang NPDO 24,367 2 Mulugeta Ruat Male Th iang NPDO 23,033 3 Yak Pal Male Th iang NPDO 21,549 4 Boam Nuen Male Th iang NPDO 19,677 5 Sara Nyayom Female Th iang NPDO 19,023 6 Peter Lual Male Th iang NPDO 18,070 7 Juc Lenga Male Opo NPDO 17,532 8 Koang Ukway Male Opo NPDO 17,422 9 Nyamol Peter Female cieng Cany NPDO 15,239 10 Simon Tut Male cieng Cany NPDO 14,598 11 Keat Tuach Male cieng Cany NPDO 14,558 12 Pod Wal Male Th iang Independent 11,879 13 Yie Choul Male Th iang Independent 10,777 14 Bol Keat Male cieng Cany Independent 6,018 Source: National Election Board of Ethiopia, Gambella Offi ce

On the basis of the May 2005 elections, the new regional council was formed in October 2005. It elected Omot Obong, an Anywaa, as president; Guaneryer, a cieng Cany candidate, as vice-president; Keat Tuac as party chairman; and Sunday Gac as head of security. Amidst mounting pressure at various levels, including from his own cieng, Keat seems to have recognised the limits of his backers and gave in to a cieng Cany candidate from the NPS. At cieng level, the cieng Cany maintained their dominant position by occupying two of the senior offi ces – the offi ce of vice-president and that of party chairman. By accepting the election of a relatively obscure Nuer candidate as vice-president, the federal government seems to have struck a delicate power balance while promoting its own favourites to two of the highest decision making power positions, the offi ce of the presidency and head of regional security.

Th e weight of tradition in electoral politics

Th e multiparty electoral system – a particular mode of political representation that arose under specifi c historical conditions in the West – is currently though of as universally applicable. It is being introduced 50 dereje feyissa into various societies and is off ered as a package. Th is electoral package includes taking the individual as the unit of political action; inclusiveness of the various sections of the society; and competition on a level playing fi eld and along clearly identifi able ideological platforms. Most of these elements have already been compromised at national level by the ruling party which acts as ‘midwife’ to the global electoral regime in Ethiopia by privileging collective identities (nations, nationalities and peoples) as the unit of political action, coupled with a dominant political centre, despite or because of the decentralisation project (Turton 2006; Clapham 2009; Aalen and Tronvoll 2009). Th e issue of ‘groups fi rst’ is justifi ed on the basis of the historical specifi city of the Ethiopian state, which has victimised some of its ethnic minorities (Endrias Eshete 2003). As we go further down the scale, the election is repack- aged when it enters diff erent cultural spaces. On the surface it would appear that electoral politics among the Nuer is dominated by two power-holders: the EPRDF and its affi liate, the GPDM. It is true that both have played a dominant role in electoral politics in terms of defi ning the relevant identity markers for the competition as well as selecting the nominees. Closer scrutiny, however, reveals the weight of Nuer culture in the entire election process. As we have seen in its ethnography, the main unit of political action among the Nuer is the cieng of various sizes. Th e political actors are thus largely collective, not individuals. Th e infl uence of Nuer culture on electoral politics is evident in various areas. Although political representation was allocated at party level, it basically followed tribal segmentation. Similarly, although the nomination was tightly controlled by the party, the cieng elders had a say and the nominees underwent a ‘vote of confi dence’ in their respective ciengs. Th e issue of genealogical ‘purity’ in political representation was also dealt with by the elders. Th e cultural framing of the election was also evident from the controversy that surrounded the issue of women’s political participation. Nor did the election evolve along ideological lines; there was no opposition party operating among the Nuer, and the divisions between ‘the party’ and the ‘independents’ was fought along cieng lines. Besides, kinship ties, not ideological linkages, were the basis for political alliances, as is evident from the alliance between Keat and David. Th e dynamics of electoral politics among the ciengs requires a brief discussion of Nuer social organisation. As described in the ethnography, the cieng is the unit of political action within which the Nuer experienced the election. Although the electoral politics in the nuer cultural context 51 object of struggle is political offi ce, the issue at stake is the diff erential access of the ciengs to the state. Why should the cieng matter in the context of electoral politics? For one thing, membership of a cieng matters because it is a salient form of collective identity. Unlike the extreme relativity of the cieng in the anthropological representation of the segmentary lineage organisation, the ciengs also have an autonomous existence beyond enmity among the various segments. Although there are endless possibilities for segmentation, ciengs on a wider scale form a relatively stable unit of social identifi cation. At all levels of segmentation, the cieng is a unit of society bound by ties resulting from a network of kinship and other social links in relation to the dominant lineage from which it takes its name. It is also bound by the need for mutual defence in the context of an economic system that involves periodic cattle raiding and counter-raiding, which are seen by local people as a mechanism of ‘resource redistribution’. Cieng politics also revolves around the issue of access to, and control over, key natural resources, particularly riverside land that not only serves as dry season pasture but also for fl ood cultivation. Talking about land scarcity in Gambella may sound paradoxical, as the region has one of the lowest population densities in Ethiopia. However, the low level of production technology and the growing pressure on riverside land, which constitutes only 0.5 percent of the region’s landmass, has created scarcity in a context of relative abundance. Th e ciengs are variously positioned in the distribution of this strategic resource. Among the Gaajak, for instance, the Th iang have occupied the best rangeland, whereas the Cieng Nyajani and the Cieng Reng are marginalised. Whereas Th iang politics gravitates around maintaining their privileged access to the riverside lands, Cieng Nyajani and the Cieng Reng politics focus on renegotiating their marginality. Th e Th iang have so far managed to maintain the status quo, not only on the basis of their ‘fi rst-comer’ right but also because of their dominant political position in regional politics. Political power thus defi nes the economic status of the ciengs. It is this nexus between political power and economic status that has precipitated the rise of a separate political identity among the Th iang vis-à-vis other Gaajak ciengs. Th e ciengs also vary in their access to modern goods and services. Ciengs such as the Th iang are nearer to the regional town and the new district centres with their nascent urbanisation. Unlike other communities whose expectations of the state are lukewarm at best, what we observe among the Nuer is an enchantment with the idea of the state 52 dereje feyissa because participation in the state matches the local ‘modernist project’: the desire to improve their material conditions along with their ‘modern’ neighbours, the highlanders, the Anywaa and the Dinka in southern Sudan. Living at the fringes of ‘modernity’ there is a growing sense of relative deprivation among the Nuer. Th ey feel that they lag behind their neighbours in Ethiopia and in Sudan. Participation in the state is seen as a means of catching up with their neighbours, particularly through public education. It is for this reason that the words kume (government) and turuk (educated) have become the buzzwords of the contemporary Nuer. Th is is evident from the pace at which the Nuer are urbanising and thus are getting closer to the state and from their remarkable visibility in the fi eld of education. Unlike their Anywaa neighbours, the Nuer do not feel they have ‘lost’ what Kurimoto (2001, 270) called a ‘primordial modernity’. Referring to a myth, Kurimoto discussed the Anywaa’s perception of their lack of modernity in terms of the seizure of knowledge and technology by the white people with whom the Anywaa had once shared it. On the other hand, the Nuer feel that they are deprived of the modernity to which their highlander neighbours have privileged access. Nor do the Nuer feel ‘expelled’ from modernity like their Zambian counterparts (Ferguson 1999). Th ey are, rather, engaged in what appears to be a ‘project of catching up’. As Donham (1999, xv) noted, scholars need to appreciate ‘the consequences that fl ow from the apparently simple fact that some actors view their societies as “behind” and therefore in need of a way to “catch up” ’. It is the salience of cieng as the unit of social identifi cation that explains the various levels of political competition that follow the segmentary line. Th e fi rst level of cieng segmentation to which the contest- ants belong is tribal: the Gaajak, Gaajok and Gaaguang. Th ese are not just relative social units but signifi cantly canalise the social, economic and political experiences of individuals who identify with them. Th is level of segmentation is made relevant in the new electoral context in as much as, for instance, the political competition between the incumbent vice-president, Keat, and the federal-government-backed Sunday was perceived and represented as a political competition between the Gaajak and the Gaajok. Th e federal government was drawn into this level of inter-cieng political rivalry while minding its own interests. What was at stake for the federal government was ensuring political control over a volatile but economically crucial region. Th e political electoral politics in the nuer cultural context 53 future of southern Sudan, which shares a large border with the GPNRS, is uncertain. Should southern Sudan secede, this would have a profound impact on the political process in the GPNRS. Th e economic signifi cance of Gambella has also risen on the national economic agenda ever since oil exploration started in June 2003. Although the economic feasibility of the oil reserves is yet to be identifi ed, the fact that the Malaysian-based oil company Petronas is operating in the region is a sign of the potential for oil discovery. With the falling-out of the Anywaa with the EPRDF on issues related to political representation in the regional council and control over this imagined strategic resource, the federal government appears to have thrown in its lot with Anywaa loyalists and the Nuer. Whether there is a deliberate policy of co-opting one or the other cieng remains to be seen, but a preference for individuals who can off er eff ective political service is drawing the federal government into cieng politics. Th e choice of Sunday fi ts into a general pattern of the neo-patrimonial modus operandi of the EPRDF: co-opting regional political actors with a weak constituency but strong personalities. Th e weak point invites patronage, whereas the strength makes them a convenient client to implement the wishes of the ruling party. Th e second level of cieng segmentation that became relevant during the election is the political competition among the fi ve Gaajak ciengs, particularly between the Th iang and the cieng Cany. Th e fi nal electoral battle was fought at a fourth level of segmentation within the cieng Cany and expressed in the political competition between Bol and Tut among the cieng Kolthiang. Th e controversy that surrounds women’s political representation also highlights the cultural framing of the election. Although matrilin- eal ties are important, Nuer society is basically patriarchal. Th e role of women in Nuer politics appears to be to link two agnate groups. Th e core of a cieng is the diel, the dominant lineage, to which newcomers are attached. People become affi liated to the diel either through adoption or through marriage ties. Men from other lineages marry a woman from a diel family and the descendants become gaatnyiet, ‘children of girls’, in reference to their assimilation into the dominant lineage. Th is is one of the mechanisms through which processes of assimilation occur among the Nuer. Th is way the cieng combines patrilateral, matri- lateral and affi nal relations. Apart from this connecting role, women are excluded from politics unless they wield occult power, such as by being a magician (ghok) Women’s exclusion from politics is justifi ed 54 dereje feyissa by referring to their ‘inherent’ lack of leadership qualities.14 It is against this cultural background that the issue of women’s representation – an imposition by the EPRDF, itself responding to the inclusive dimension of the electoral package – was contested among the Nuer.

Electoral politics and the ‘primordialisation’ of Nuer identifi cation

Th e metaphor of the melting pot has long been used to describe assimilationist societies, a term which has now fallen into disrepute with the rise of ethnicity and other forms of identity politics that have revealed the imperfections of assimilation policies.15 Th e Nuer melting pot might be more transmuting than melting, but by general assimilation standards it is a success story. In fact, it is the success, not the failure, of Nuer assimilationism which is politicised in the context of institutionalised ethnic politics in post-1991 Ethiopia in which Nuer neighbours, such as the Anywaa, have become more refl exive towards, and thus apprehensive of, not only the territorial but also the cultural expansion of the Nuer. Th is fl exible but eff ective identity system has been undermined since 1995 by the introduction of electoral politics among the Nuer, particularly the drive towards primordial ‘purity’ and the ensuing political fragmentation. An example of election-induced political fragmentation from the ethnography is the emergence of a separate Th iang identity. Although there is already an economic incentive for the Th iang to move towards a separate cieng identity vis-à-vis the other ciengs of Gaajak, it is electoral politics that puts a premium on a separate identity for Th iang elites in the competition for power. In propa- gating a separate cieng identity, the Th iang elites laid their claim to a genealogical charter, expressed particularly in the foundation myth (the Kir mythology) of the Jikany Nuer, to which the three tribes – Gaajak, Gaajok and Gaaguang – belong. In a further act of boundary creation, the Th iang re-enacted the older ox name of Khun Guong and designated the four Gaajak ciengs as Gaaguog – children of Khun – and

14 One myth which relates to this discourse warns of the consequence of women’s leadership: ‘Once upon a time a woman became a leader. Th e fi rst thing she did during her administration was to ban the cattle from grazing. Th is endangered the very foundation of Nuer society. It is for this reason that women have been banned from leadership ever since.’ Th iang Luany, a Nuer elder from Kurgeng town, Jikow, 3 June 2005. 15 In fact the term melting pot is replaced by the metaphor of the salad bowl to describe American society, which has for long been hailed as a classic example of the melting pot. electoral politics in the nuer cultural context 55 themselves as Mathiang. Th e Th iang politics of a separate identity bore fruit in the 2005 elections, when they managed to get the lion’s share of the Gaajak seat quota, almost equal with the Gaaguang and the Gaajok tribes. Th is mode of seat allocation changed the hitherto tripartite political competition (Gaajak, Gaajok and Gaaguang) into quadripar- tite, with the addition of Th iang as a separate political unit. Th e signifi - cance of this new election-driven political rift was made relevant in the competition among the candidates at the Laare polling station. By competing on the Th iang ticket, Keat and Bol appeared to have legitimated the Th iang’s claim to a separate political identity. Th e success of the Th iang’s centrifugal identity politics could result in further political fragmentation of the existing and stable units of wider identifi cation; for they are all vulnerable to ‘deconstruction’ at a number of other levels as well. Perhaps more threatening to the viability of Nuer society is the politicisation of the diel/rul/jaang distinction. It is the downplaying of purity of descent and origin that underlies the genius of Nuer assimilation. Like any other social system the Nuer society, too, has its weak points by the standards of what it aspires to achieve – complete integration. Th e discourse of cieng purity in the context of electoral politics is expanding these ‘weak’ points into a rather assimilationist system. Aspects of the election-motivated drive towards primordial purity abound in the ethnography presented in Section two. Th is is evident, for instance, in Bol’s attempt to out-compete Tut by highlighting his ‘foreign’ – or worse, Gaajok – origins. Th e most conspicuous and controversial example of this is the diel/jaang distinction among the Th iang at the LPS, particularly in the competition between Peter Lual and Yie Choul. Peter and Yie were nominated in the fi rst round to represent the Th iang, but Yie was dropped in the second round of nominations. Disappointed by his rejection, Yie then appealed to the cieng Jenyang community by framing the issue in terms of cieng purity. In fact, Yie has managed to mobilise many Th iang who went all the way to the regional council to protest against Peter’s nomination on the grounds that he is not a ‘real’ Th iang. In order to substantiate the identity politics among the cieng Jenyang, I carried out a micro-census to learn about the social location of Peter and Yie and the implications of cieng purity on the viability of Nuer society. Th e micro-census was conducted among the cieng Buoy, a tertiary division of the cieng Yoi, because it is to this lineage that Peter’s family are attached. Cieng Buoy is in turn composed of four ciengs: cieng Deng, 56 dereje feyissa cieng Minydot, cieng Dong and cieng Machar. Th ese four ciengs live in twenty-two villages collectively called Kurtony in Jikaw district. One of these villages is called Wechdeng, where most of the cieng Deng lineage lives. More specifi cally, the census was conducted in Wechdeng village. Seventy-eight families live in Wechdeng village in three clusters of homesteads:

Chart 1.3 Th iang divisions

Source: author’s fi eldwork electoral politics in the nuer cultural context 57

Th e census results show the following social composition of the Wechdeng village: 60 percent (47 families) of the 78 families are non- agnates (not agnatically related to the diel of the village). Of the 47 non- agnates, 79 percent are cognates; 13 percent followed friends; 9 percent are affi ne and 4 percent are Dinka who have attached themselves to diel and already married into the diel. Th e 40 percent agnates are dispersed in three sub-villages (thirteen, four and fourteen in each), forming their own jigoal doal or homestead, which could ultimately expand into ciengs, thus forming a diff erent pool of agnates. Th e category of the cognates is itself diverse, serving as a new nodal point to which new relatives of all sorts are attached. Th is is particularly the case in the sub- village of Jigoal Bilnyang where twenty-two of the forty-three homesteads are composed of cieng Wau, the primary section of the Gaajak (like the wider category of the Th iang), the majority of whom followed two of their relatives to Wechdeng village. Th e same is true of the seven cieng Reng and cieng Nyajani homesteads in Jigoal Bilnyang homestead. Th e diverse composition of Wechdeng village reveals the principles of group formation and means of social inclusion among the Nuer. As the name clearly suggests, Deng was a Dinka. He left his village in Ngok country and came to Kurtony when he was still young. He was an orphan and grew up with his uncle. Deng felt disgruntled with his relatives. As the story goes, one day Deng hunted a giraff e, but his mother gave the heart to his uncle because the heart is very important among the Dinka. Deng was angry and left his mother. Upon reaching Kurthony village as jal tang (a long-distance guest), he was given food by his peers. He fi rst made contact with Buoy, who later adopted him as his son, and Deng was called Deng Buoy. Deng proved his strength at hunting and fi ghting. Once he led the villagers, invaded Anywaa and brought many cattle back with the booty. He married a wife, fully integrated himself into cieng Buoy and managed to establish the biggest cieng within the cieng Buoy, i.e. he formed his own lineage, the cieng Deng. Th e composition of Wechdeng village and its diff erent modes of recruitment and levels of integration obviously challenge the primacy of agnation as a basis of group formation among the Nuer as it is represented in the segmentary lineage system. But it also shows the relevance of patrilineal descent as a framework for social inclusion. A village such as Wechdeng is composed of agnates, cognates, affi nes, friends and immigrants, all assuming the common name of cieng Deng. Nevertheless, it is the family of Deng (which constitutes 40 percent of 58 dereje feyissa

Wechdeng village) that served as a basis for group formation, although in only two generations it was outnumbered by immigrants and non- agnatic relatives. To all practical purposes, it is their identity as cieng Deng that matters in social relationships, and they are mobilised politically as members of their locality (Wechdeng village). Agnatically, Peter is a cieng Nyajani. For the cieng Deng, he is their gaatnyiet, son of a daughter, and this is important in local identifi cation. Although Peter’s father still keeps his agnatic affi liation with the cieng Nyajani of Makuey village, to all practical intents and purposes Peter identifi es himself as a Th iang, not a cieng Nyajani. Th e potential impact of the primordialisation of Nuer identifi cation on Nuer villages such as Wech Deng is far-reaching. In fact, had Peter not mustered strong political support from the Keat faction in the party, the level of opposition was so strong that Yie might have replaced him. In concrete terms, cieng purity could alienate 60 percent of the inhabitants of Wechdeng, with a detrimental impact on inter-cieng competition. Any move towards reaffi liation along primordial lines, which is a possibility in the long run, would ultimately undermine the pillars of Nuer society – the conscious, integrative approach to identifi cation.

Conclusion

In the aforementioned discussion, the interplay between the traditional mode of governance and elections has become evident. Th e election was framed in Nuer cultural terms. Cieng was used as the cultural framework within which electoral politics is experienced; kinship ties were used as a basis for political alliance formation, and women’s political participation was made (non)sense through a cultural scheme of interpretation in which it appeared as if it were ‘male politics’ by other means. Th e interplay had also a weight on the election side; particularly on the long-term impact of the new discourse of ‘purity of descent’. Th e Nuer have craft ed a successful assimilationist identity system in which the idea of origin is consciously downplayed. As the micro census showed, more than fi ft y percent of a given village at any point in time is composed of families other than, but affi liated to, the dominant lineage. Th e discourse of cieng purity, though a rational choice at the individual level in the short term, is likely to undermine the viability of Nuer society in the long term, for it could ultimately result in an authenticity discourse along ‘pure’ and ‘non-pure’ Nuer lines. electoral politics in the nuer cultural context 59

Examples of ordinary people’s apathy towards electoral politics abound in the literature on democracy in Africa (Cowen and Laakso 2002). Contrary to this dominant trend, what we observe among the Nuer in Ethiopia is an enchantment with the idea of the state as a new diff erential in local politics and access to modern goods and services. Th is anomaly could be explained by reference to what Donham (1999) called local projects of modernity and its correlate, i.e., the urge to ‘catch up’. Once locally dominant in military and cultural terms, the Nuer are now acutely aware of the new power imbalance between them and their neighbours. Th ey have rightly identifi ed the key factor that made the diff erence, i.e., the diff erential access to and participation in the state both in Ethiopia and the Sudan. As a result, the Nuer have made sustained eff orts to ‘catch up’ by enhancing their participation in public education as well as their political standing in regional politics. Th is is the social backdrop against which the Nuers’ enthusiastic political participation in the elections should be viewed. Th e project of catching up, however, is Janus-faced, generating not only a new basis for solidarity at the inter-ethnic level but also accentuating internal political fragmentation. Th e EPRDF’s ethnic federalism and the group- based allocation of rewards have activated the layers of identifi cation within the segmentary lineage system that are evident in the new political salience of the cieng in electoral politics.

Bibliography

Following local usage, Ethiopian authors are referenced by their fi rst name. Aalen, Lovise. 2002. Ethnic Federalism in a Dominant Party State: Th e Ethiopian Experience 1991–2000. Bergen: Chr. Michael Institute. Aalen, Lovise, and Kjetil Tronvoll. 2009a. ‘Th e End of Democracy? Curtailing Political and Civil Rights in Ethiopia.’ Review of African Political Economy 36 (120): 193–207. Clapham, Christopher. 2009. ‘Post-War Ethiopia: Th e Trajectories of a Crisis.’ Review of African Political Economy 36 (120): 181–92. Collins, Robert. 1971. Land Beyond the Rivers: Th e Southern Sudan, 1898–1918. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. Cowen, Michael, and Liisa Laakso. 2002. Multiparty Elections in Africa. Oxford: James Currey. Dereje Feyissa. 2003. ‘Ethnic Groups and Confl ict: Th e Case of Anywaa and Nuer Relations in the Gambella Region.’ PhD thesis, Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg. —— . 2006. ‘Th e Experience of the Gambella Regional State.’ In Ethnic Federalism: Th e Ethiopian Experience in Comparative Perspective, edited by David Turton, 208–30. London, Oxford, Addis Ababa: James Currey and Addis Ababa University Press. 60 dereje feyissa

—— . 2010. ‘Literature Review on Gender and Youth in Reference to Violence, Confl ict and Peace Building in the Peripheral areas of Ethiopia’. DFID, Peace and Development Programme. Donham, Donham L. 1999. Marxist Modern: An Ethnographic History of the Ethiopian Revolution. Berkeley: University of California Press. Endrias Eshete 2003. ‘Ethnic Federalism: New Frontiers in Ethiopian Politics.’ Paper presented at 1st National Conference on Federalism, Confl ict and Peace Building, Addis Ababa, May 5-7. Evans-Pritchard, Edward. 1940. Th e Nuer: A Description of the Modes of Livelihood and Political Institutions of a Nilotic People. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ferguson, James. 1999. Expectations of Modernity: Myths and Meanings of Urban Life on the Zambian Copperbelt. Berkeley: University of California Press. Fortes, Meyer, and Edward Evans-Pritchard, eds. 1940. African Politics Systems. London: Oxford University Press. Hagmann, Tobias. 2005. ‘Beyond Clannishness and Colonialism: Understanding Political Disorder in Ethiopia’s Somali Region, 1991–2004.’ Journal of Modern African Studies 43 (4): 509–36. Human Rights Watch (HRW). 2005. Ethiopia: Crimes Against Humanity in Gambella Region. New York: Human Rights Watch. Kurimoto, Esei. 2001. ‘Capturing Modernity among the Anywaa of Western Ethiopia.’ In Rewriting Africa: Toward Renaissance or Collapse, edited by Esei Kurimoto, JCAS Symposium Series No.14, 263–80. Osaka: Japanese Centre for Area Studies. Turton, David, ed. 2006. Ethnic Federalism: Th e Ethiopian Experience in Comparative Perspective. London, Oxford, Addis Ababa: James Currey and Addis Ababa University Press. Young, John. 1999. ‘Along Ethiopia’s Western Frontier: Gambela and Benishangul in Transition.’ Journal of Modern African Studies 37 (2): 321–46. CHAPTER 2

FISHING FOR VOTES IN THE SOMALI REGION: CLAN ELDERS, BUREAUCRATS AND PARTY POLITICS IN THE 2005 ELECTIONS

Tobias Hagmann

Introduction1

Stereotypes abound whenever Ethiopians and foreigners refer to politics in Ethiopia’s Somali region or Ogaden.2 Th ese stereotypes tran- scribe the patronising attitudes of those who conceive themselves as ‘more civilised’ than the ‘backward’ pastoralists of the sparsely inhabited lowlands. Public statements relating to the 21 August 2005 elections in the Somali region are no exception to this rule.3 International election monitors from the US-based Carter Center and the European Union issued statements showcasing ethnocentric bias. Th e Carter Center (2005, 10) views the Somali region as ‘an anomaly in Ethiopia’ because the region is ‘clan and tribe-based’ and ‘elders are infl uential in the local communities’. Th e European Union (2005, 8) underlines Somalis’ allegedly bellicose nature as they ‘tend to solve their diff erences through confrontation’.

1 I am indebted to friends in Jijiga and Addis Ababa for research assistance, translation and accommodation during my fi eldwork in November and December 2005. I thank Dr. Mustafe Mohamed for stimulating discussions on the changing roles of Somali elders and for the title of this article. Asnake Kefale, Christine Bichsel, Kjetil Tronvoll, Mohamud H. Khalif, Mohammed M. Seid and an anonymous reviewer provided helpful comments on earlier draft s. 2 Th e Somali region incorporates the former Ogaden province and is commonly referred to as killil ammist in Amharic or ‘Region 5’ in English. I use the geographic names Somali region and Ogaden interchangeably. To distinguish Ogaden as a geographical area from the clan, I use the Somali spelling Ogaadeen to refer to the latter. 3 Th e postponement of the Somali region elections from 15 May to 21 August 2005 was announced by NEBE (2004) on 21 December 2004 and explained as follows: ‘Th is deferral is due to logistical reasons, as the people in this region are pastoralists and mobile registration units are needed to register voters. Because this requires intensive use of the Board’s resources, elections in this region cannot be held at the same time as (sic) the other regions.’ 62 tobias hagmann

In sharp contrast to such preconceived ideas, this article argues that political processes in Ethiopia’s Somali region are far from an ‘anomaly,’ that the infl uence of Somali elders must be understood in relation to contemporary state and party politics, and that negotiation – and not confrontation – was the predominant mode of the 2005 elections. Elders played multiple, infl uential, and contradictory roles before, during and aft er the 21 August 2005 elections. In the words of an Ogaadeen intellectual, ‘traditional elders become a key factor and force for the federal government to win and secure the elections’.4 As we shall see, the elders made use of, and were themselves used, as part of the typical political devices that have characterised the Somali region’s volatile post-1991 trajectory (Hagmann 2005). As an interviewee succinctly put it, ‘elders have become the battlefi eld between the federal offi cials, regional offi cials, the ONLF [Ogaden National Liberation Front], because everybody knows that the elders are the ones controlling the communities’.5 Th is article’s objective is to examine how elders’ authority was employed by diff erent constituencies to carry out the 2005 federal and regional elections at the interface between local and state actors’ interests. Given the controversial opinions that many Somalis express about (their) elders, any attempt to label or classify elders from an ‘etic’ perspective is problematic. Th e cultural ideal of the wise, respectful and politically disinterested Somali elder is very much alive. But the actual political context in which Somali elders have to operate – the proverbial battlefi eld mentioned above – renders their authority more intricate, their roles more diversifi ed, and their appreciation more contested. To illustrate this point I demonstrate empirically how Somali and non-Somali, federal and local, state and customary actors contended, negotiated and implemented the August 2005 elections in Ethiopia’s Somali region.6 Th e article begins with a review of how the ruling

4 In the context of the Somali region, the term ‘intellectual’ refers to male university graduates of whom many have studied at the Ethiopian Civil Service College (ECSC). Despite their relatively young age (about 30 years old), many of them have occupied important positions in the government and non-government sectors. Interview, Addis Ababa, 12 November 2005. 5 Interview, Jijiga, 3 December 2005. 6 Most of the data for this paper was collected during a one-month stay in the regional capital Jijiga. Between mid-November and mid-December 2005 I conducted semi-structured interviews with male informants who were involved in or had closely observed the elections. Th e elders, intellectuals, and government offi cials interviewed belonged to diff erent genealogical groups. Numerous informal discussions fishing for votes in the somali region 63

SPDP, in collaboration with federal offi cials and local lataliye or advisory elders, (pre-)selected and campaigned for candidates and how a vocal council of Ogaadeen elders made its political demands known to the federal government. Subsequently, I illustrate Ogaadeen elders’ successful eff orts to increase clan representation in the Somali region. I describe how, aft er convincing the Prime Minister to engage in negotiations with the rebel ONLF, Ogaadeen elders engaged in shuttle diplomacy between the ONLF and the Ethiopian federal government. Finally, I conclude by considering the relationship between kinship interests and political representation through the prism of the August 2005 elections and its immediate aft ermath. Before analysing these multifaceted interactions between ‘traditional’ and ‘modern’ authority in Somali region in more detail, some background about the history of titled elders in the Ogaden is required. Within the Somali clan lineages, elders (oday, pl. odayaal) historically and to this day play a vital role in mobilising, representing, and claiming customary authority.7 Th ey do so both as recognised and, increasingly, as self-proclaimed representatives of clan lineages and groups. Before the colonial era most Somali elders were untitled. Th ey enjoyed the support of their lineage group in a personal capacity as ‘eff ective negotiators, trusted mediators, moving orators, or wise and pious men’ (Menkhaus 2000, 185–86; see also Lewis 1999). Italian (southern Somalia), British (northern Somalia) and Ethiopian (Ogaden) colonial rulers nominated Somali elders as proxies of their colonial administration. In Somalia’s post-colonial period from 1960 onwards kinship gained importance at a higher level of segmentation, as state resources were dominated by more populous groups. Concurrently, traditional authorities ‘lost a considerable amount of during aft ernoon and evening chat sessions shed light on the more subtle aspects of the opaque interactions between clan elders, offi cials from the ruling Somali People’s Democratic Party (SPDP), and government representatives. 7 Somali society is composed of segmentary clan lineages that assign individuals a position on the basis of actual and fi ctitious patrilinear descent. Th e cultural ideal of the Somalis as an egalitarian society is expressed in I. M Lewis’ (1999) famous expression of the ‘pastoral democracy’. Th is thesis has been challenged by scholars emphasising stratifi cation on the basis of gender and class rather than genealogy (Ali Jimale Ahmed 1995; Besteman 1998). Th e ‘power’ of clan lineages in Somali politics is unanimously recognised at an empirical level and as such is manifest in all Somali inhabited territories of the Horn of Africa. However, no consensus exists as to how this power operates or, in sociological terms, how kinship translates into political agency. Similarly, the role of other, non-genealogical factors in enabling and hindering collective action is disputed. 64 tobias hagmann freedom and authority to decide on matters related to their community’ (Hoehne 2006, 12). With the collapse of the Somali state in 1991 traditional leaders regained their importance as political actors, most prominently as peacemakers and state founders in Somaliland, as well as war-makers in central and southern Somalia. Th e expansion of the colonial and post-colonial state into rural areas brought signifi cant changes to the institution of Somali elders. Hoehne (2006) rightly points out that elders’ involvement in modern politics bears the risk of loosing credibility in the eyes of their communities. More fundamentally, I would argue, a veritable multiplication, if not infl ation, of titled Somali elders occurred in the post-1991 period. Th is trend has its historical roots in the colonial period and can be observed – to varying degrees – in all Somali-inhabited territories in the Horn of Africa. Th e Ethiopian-Somali case exemplifi es this process. Before the Ogaden’s forced incorporation into the Abyssinian empire in 1897, titled Somali elders such as the suldan, garaad or ugaas existed only within the customary cosmos. Eminent titled elders mainly came from specifi c, ‘aristocratic’ clan lineages, and succession was oft en hereditary. In the 1930s the Ethiopian empire began to co-opt Somali chiefs from the numerically largest Darood clan to which the Ogaadeen lineages belong, among other things to counter Italian expansionism in the region (Barnes 2000). Emperor Haile Selassie attributed titles of the Imperial order such as fi tawrari or dejazmach to selected Somali elders in a bid to generate political loyalty. Th ese nominations deliberately undermined elders with existing customary titles, as they were awarded to prominent elders who were ready to serve the interests of the Ethiopian government.8 Aft er the 1977–78 Ethio-Somali war the Siyaad Barre government formally recognised some of the elders who had fl ed from the Ogaden to Somalia. Following the outbreak of the Somali civil war in 1991, many of these refugees returned to the newly established Somali region of Ethiopia. Interestingly, the Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) revived the policy of incorporating Somali elders into the government structure. At the end of 1999 and the beginning of 2000 elders were appointed to advise the

8 A good example is the Ethiopian government’s nomination of elders to counterbalance prominent elders with a pan-Somali agenda such as Sultan Bihi or Sultan Abdillahi in the run-up to the British transfer of the Haud and ‘Reserved Areas’ to Ethiopia in 1954. fishing for votes in the somali region 65 administration at district, zonal and regional level.9 Th ese elders are known in Somali as lataliye (advisor), respectively amakari in Amharic (advisor). Th e lataliye elders receive a salary and their main task consists of assisting the government in security and confl ict-related matters (Hagmann 2007).

SPDP and the ‘plastic hat elders’

Th is section describes the political situation in Somali region before the elections, how the SPDP and federal offi cials agreed on a candidate list, and lataliye elders’ assistance to the SPDP in selecting and campaigning for candidates. By the end of 2004 the Somali region’s ruling SPDP faced major political challenges prior to the impending elections. Firstly, in the eyes of most Somalis the SPDP had lost its appeal and partly discredited itself. Th e party had been established through the merger of the former Ethiopian Somali Democratic League (ESDL) and moderate ONLF representatives, orchestrated by the federal government in 1998 (Abdi I. Samatar 2004). By 2004 its lack of popular recognition and following was apparent. Th e party’s reputation had suff ered from the fact that its leadership constantly depended on instructions and backing from EPRDF cadres in various federal ministries.10 Before the elections a former member of the federal House of Peoples’ Representatives (HPR) confi ded that ‘the SPDP is not a real party’ and that ‘if there were free and fair elections they would get no seats in parliament, regional or federal’.11 A Jijiga elder observed that the ‘EPRDF created a party and selected those to join the party’.12 As well as this lack of political independence, the party had failed to enhance infrastructure and service development in the region’s vast rural areas. Secondly, there had been incessant competition between diff erent factions and senior SPDP offi cials ever since the Somali region

9 Th e lataliye elders were initially appointed for a fi ve-year period (2000–05), but no eff orts were made to renew their mandate through elections once it expired. Th is is indicative of the fact that the lataliye elders depend entirely on the discretion of their bureaucratic counterparts. 10 Federal cadres and offi cials provide policy direction to the SPDP and regularly intervene to resolve interpersonal rivalries and other disputes. In the words of a former bureau head, ‘whenever there is a problem between them, they run to the federal government to solve it’. 11 Personal communication, 26 January 2005. 12 Interview, Jijiga, 16 November 2005. 66 tobias hagmann had reverted to a de facto one-party state in the 2000 elections. Th irdly, highly controversial policies and unresolved inter-clan disputes such as the revived confl ict between Shekash and Ogaadeen in Fiq and Godey zones further diminished SPDP’s electoral support. Th e land transfer from Somali to Oromiya region following the October 2004 referendum (see Marco Bassi’s chapter in this volume) and pressure from the federal government to lay off hundreds of regional civil servants as part of ongoing decentralisation and civil service reforms further increased popular dissatisfaction. By March 2005 the SPDP, the Western Somali Democratic Party (WSDP), the Somali Democratic Alliance Forces (SODAF) and the Dil Wabi People’s Democratic Movement (DWPDM) declared their participation in the August 2005 elections. Th e WSDP and the SODAF had achieved marginal electoral gains in the 2000 national and regional, and the 2004 district elections. Th e DWPDM or Dil Wabi (literally meaning ‘people living next to the river’) represented the riverside communities along the Shabelle and Genale Rivers. Th ese were mostly comprised of Somalized Bantu13 as well as some Ogaadeen clans set- tling along the rivers who had become disillusioned with the SPDP. By April 2005 Dil Wabi and the WSDP formed an alliance in order to ensure that the two parties did not compete for the same seat in any given constituency. In a new political development in the Somali region, the national opposition, the Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD), fi elded candidates in ten of the region’s 23 constituencies for the federal HPR and in four constituencies for the regional state council (European Union 2006). With a few exceptions, most of CUD’s candidates were ethnic Somalis. Given the SPDP’s weaknesses, the EPRDF in particular feared that Somali politicians would run on an opposition ticket. In the words of a regional civil servant, the SPDP ‘feared that popular people would say “I am qinijjit” and that they would be elected immediately’.14 Before the SPDP could tackle the opposition parties, it had to agree on its own candidate list. Th e SPDP leadership collaborated closely in this process with offi cials from the Ministry of Federal Aff airs, commanders in the Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF), and lataliye

13 Such as the Rer Barre, Shabelle or Gosha, which are oft en referred to as jareer, literally meaning ‘thick hair’. Th e term Somalized Bantu is contested and of recent origin (Menkhaus 2003). 14 Qinijjit is the Amharic acronym for CUD. Interview, Jijiga, 17 November 2005. fishing for votes in the somali region 67 elders.15 From January 2005 onwards candidates judged suitable to represent the SPDP were screened and selected by senior Ministry of Federal Aff airs representatives in Jijiga, SPDP central committee members, and military offi cials.16 Given the divergent interests of diff erent factions within the SPDP, clan competition, and politicians’ personal aspirations, the consolidation of a candidate list for the 183 regional and 22 federal parliamentarians proved an arduous task. Everyone expected that only the SPDP would win any parliamentary seats. Its candidate list was therefore heavily contested and repeatedly changed. A meeting attended by the SPDP leadership and Ministry of Federal Aff airs offi cials in Dire Dawa produced a fi rst list of candidates in mid- January 2005. Individuals loyal to the regional president, Abdi Jibril, dominated the selection. In July 2005 a new candidate list was agreed upon during a SPDP meeting in Jijiga. Compared to the previous one this new list contained more younger and educated candidates, as SPDP vice-chairman Bashir Abdillahi Aydarus had advocated. At this point, as a regional civil servant expressed it, ‘everybody expected that this would be the fi nal list for the elections’.17 However, about two weeks before election day, senior Ministry of Federal Aff airs offi cials met the SPDP executive committee in Dire Dawa to draw up a fi nal list of candidates. As we shall see in the next section, federal offi cials instructed the SPDP leadership to integrate a number of new candidates at the very last minute. Individuals who sought to run for the SPDP had to seek endorse- ment from senior party members, federal military and security offi - cials. Ethiopian army commanders stationed in the military camps in major towns throughout the Somali region and at the Harar headquarters were actively involved in selecting SPDP candidates.18 According to a young intellectual, by mid-January 2005: SPDP leaders were instructed to consult the military offi cials in the region about the persons they want to select. To this end they came to

15 From mid 2004 the SPDP was chaired by Ambassador Mahmoud Dirir, then federal Minister of Mines and Energy, and co-chaired by Bashir Abdillahi Aydarus, then a regional bureau head, and Ali Mohammed Kunaye, the longstanding speaker of the regional state council. 16 Although, in some districts where political contestation was negligible, future candidates had been informally chosen by elders and SPDP up to one year before the election. 17 Interview, Jijiga, 17 November 2005. 18 Th is claim is also made by the Ogaden Human Rights Committee (2005, 4). 68 tobias hagmann

Harar and aft er they returned back they changed a list they adopted before.19 A former NGO worker recalls: Th e SPDP proposed candidates for all districts and then submitted this list for approval to the federal military, [to] the commanders in the diff erent districts.20 Aft er screening the candidates, the SPDP had to make sure that the chosen individuals were elected by their respective constituencies. For this purpose, campaigning committees were formed and sent to the region’s rural areas. In each of the nine zones one senior SPDP offi cial, usually a regional bureau head or HPR member, was given the task of overseeing campaigning in his home area. A civil servant summed up the central role of these senior SPDP offi cials who implemented the decisions of the EPRDF and the Ministry of Federal Aff airs as follows: When it comes to electing candidates for the party, this is done by the kabagalas [literally ‘pupil headmaster’]. (…) No one can interfere with the claims of the kabagalas. He is the gatekeeper who makes decisions, distributes and controls resources. (…) He is the representative of the EPRDF and the Ministry of Federal Aff airs at zonal level.21 Delegations of both lataliye and non-lataliye elders accompanied the campaigning SPDP offi cials. Up until August 2005 these committees persuaded local elders to promote the SPDP candidate(s) and to thwart opposition and independent candidates. Oft en a great deal of persua- sion was necessary to convince local elders to endorse SPDP candidates and the particular clan balance of power proposed by the ruling party. An elder from Jijiga summed up their endeavours thus: Th e party selects all the candidates to be elected. (…) Th ey send federal parliamentarians to their home region and tell the people that such-and- such candidate will be useful for the clan and to elect him.22 Apart from negotiation skills, the campaigners also made use of fi nancial incentives or promises of job opportunities in the regional administration to persuade independent candidates to step down. According to one informant, opposition and independent candidates received

19 Personal communication, 26 January 2005. 20 Interview, Jijiga, 6 December 2005. 21 Interview, Jijiga, 15 November 2005. 22 Interview, Jijiga, 16 November 2005. fishing for votes in the somali region 69 several tens of thousands of ETB to withdraw from their candidacy.23 In return, individuals who wished to join parliament also paid unspeci- fi ed amounts of money to elders and SPDP offi cials in order to ‘buy’ a place on the SPDP candidate list. ‘Th e candidates have to give money to the elders in order to mobilize the electoral base, for instance to make contacts with local leaders,’ an interviewee reported.24 All interviewees emphasised the instrumental roles that lataliye elders played in selecting candidates loyal to the government, campaigning for SPDP candidates and convincing independent candidates to step down prior to the August 2005 elections.25 An elder from Jijiga reported that ‘these lataliye elders tell their people to elect the government party candidate or otherwise the government will punish them’.26 A young civil servant explained: During election time in particular, the lataliye are important in politics because they go to kebeles, mobilise the people and impose the view of the government on the people.27 Another civil servant concluded that ‘what happened is that the party mobilized the elders to make sure that the population elected those offi cials from the SPDP’.28 Th e lataliye elders made strategic use of their customary credentials in order to defend party interests, particularly in districts where independent candidates were competing for seats. A civil servant recalls how the elders of his home area Kebribeyah convinced an independent candidate to withdraw from the elections: Th e politicians mobilized the elders and then asked them to go to the candidate to convince him to give up running for the elections. (…) Nobody can deny such a request from one’s elders. Th ey appeal to one’s moral conscience.29

23 According to another source, the regional government had spent ‘millions of ETB’ to secure political support in the run-up to the elections. Th is was mainly done by allocating contracts to infl uential contractors who represent both an economic and a kinship interest. Interview, Addis Ababa, 18 December 2005. 24 Interview, Jijiga, 25 November 2005. 25 Th e infl uential contribution by lataliye elders during pre-elections has already been recorded by Lister (2004). 26 Interview, Jijiga, 16 November 2005. 27 Interview, Jijiga, 16 November 2005. 28 Interview, Jijiga, 15 November 2005. 29 Interview, Jijiga, 18 November 2005. 70 tobias hagmann

A community development worker sarcastically mused that ‘the elders are the net with which the fi sh are to be caught’.30 Most interviewees expressed overtly negative judgements when asked about the lataliye elders. Th ey characterised the lataliye elders as ‘loudspeakers’ and as ‘handpicked by the government’.31 An educated elder compared them to angels who descend on the population and ‘tell what the government tells them to’.32 A businesswoman referred to them as ‘not good quality’.33 Th ey were also ridiculed by the Somali expression koofi yed bacle, literally meaning ‘plastic hat elders’, which encapsulates the idea of discredited traditional leadership (while respected Somali clan elders are associated with hand-woven hats).34 A businessman from the diaspora declared that ‘these elders do not tell the government what society wants, but they tell society what the government wants’.35 A regional bureau head established that ‘these lataliye elders were selected by the government because they have to transmit to the people what the government wants’.36 Interviewees oft en discursively juxtaposed the lataliye elders with what they considered to be ‘true’ elders. While the lataliye elders were associated with government and party politics, ‘true’ elders, as a civil servant put it, ‘are outside the government system; they are maybe in their homes, in the mosques, in their business’.37

[email protected] or the Ogaadeen elders’ initiative

While the lataliye elders were actively involved in supporting the SPDP in the run-up to the elections, another group of elders directly challenged the ruling party. Driven by their grievances, a group of Ogaadeen elders made eff ective use of the elections to increase their political infl uence within the region. Long before the 2005 elections, Ogaadeen elders had attempted to leverage political interests vis-à-vis the government. In 2003 a group of 33 Ogaadeen elders formed a guurti or

30 Interview, Jijiga, 9 December 2005. 31 Interview, Jijiga, 29 November 2005 32 Interview, Jijiga, 16 November 2005. 33 Interview, Jijiga, 23 November 2005. 34 Interview, Jijiga, 18 November 2005. 35 Interview, Jijiga, 19 November 2005. 36 Interview, Jijiga, 20 November 2005. 37 Interview, Jijiga, 18 November 2005. fishing for votes in the somali region 71 council of elders. Ugas Abdi Ahmed Hashi from the Reer Abdille sub- clan of Quabridehar was the leading fi gure of this guurti. In the words of one of its founders, the guurti wanted ‘to organise the Ogaadeen to fi ght for their rights and to solve their security problems’.38 Th is process must be understood in the context of the Somali region’s volatile internal politics. Ever since the ONLF was dislodged in 1994 and the distinctly pro-EPRDF political parties ESDL (1994–98) and SPDP (1998-present) came to power, large segments of the Ogaadeen clan felt that they were being deliberately disadvantaged by the EPRDF. Although their numbers are impossible to quantify, a majority of Ogaadeen individuals sympathise with the ONLF, because many consider it to be the only political organisation defending Ogaadeen genealogical interests. Th at said, there has oft en been disunity between Ogaadeen clan lineages in the past, and political fragmentation has increased during the ongoing ONLF insurgency and federal counter- insurgency (Hagmann and Mohamud H. Khalif 2005). As a result Ogaadeen clan elders have frequently been unable to translate their clan family’s numerical strength into political gains.39 At the beginning of 2005 a delegation of 28 members of the said Ogaadeen guurti travelled to Addis Ababa to present their complaints directly to Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. Th e elders were particularly concerned about the increasing level of insecurity and military repression in their home areas. Th ey represented the Somali region’s six predominantly Ogaadeen-inhabited zones: Godey, Qabridehar, Afdheer, Fiq, Wardheer and Degehabur. Eighteen of the 28 elders were individuals descended from clan lineages with a history of titled elders such as suldan or garaad. While the remaining ten elders were respected individuals, the delegation contained no lataliye elders. During their stay in Addis Ababa the Ogaadeen elders were actively assisted by a handful of educated relatives who rented a house for them and wrote letters to the Prime Minister on their behalf. One of them recalls the purpose of the elders’ mission: ‘At that time our petition was against the pressure from the government and the injustice we face from soldiers.’40 Th e Ogaadeen elders stayed in the capital for almost fi ve months, but their request to meet the Prime Minister went unanswered. Th ey were only received by

38 Interview, Jijiga, 26 November 2005. 39 It is generally but not unanimously assumed that the Ogaadeen clan lineages together represent the numerically largest kinship group within the Somali region. 40 Personal communication, 4 April 2006. 72 tobias hagmann bureaucrats from the Ministry of Federal Aff airs and eventually returned to Jijiga disappointed. Upon their return to the Somali region, the Ogaadeen guurti elders increased pressure on the federal government by engaging in a genuine public relations campaign. Firstly, they draft ed a political statement in which they complained about ‘the negligence of our problems by the federal higher offi cials’.41 Th e statement was handed to the BBC Somali Service’s correspondent and aired soon aft er. Secondly, the elders produced a manifesto entitled Th e Perils of the EPRDF Politics Towards the Somali Region that was posted on several websites reporting on politics in the Somali region on July 7. Written in English and signed in the name of ‘Elders and Intellectuals of the Somali Regional State of Ethiopia’ (2005), the manifesto was penned by a young Ogaadeen university graduate who had the backing of the Ogaadeen elders’ guurti. While the overwhelming majority of elders in the Somali region are illiterate, it is unlikely that even the literate ones would be able to produce an elegantly written English leafl et. Similarly, the Ogaadeen elders had to rely on the technological skills of their young relatives to register the email address [email protected] when publishing the manifesto online.42 Th e manifesto combines a lament about a lack of political representation in the region with blunt accusations levelled at the federal government for having ‘eliminated the Darod clan from the regional politics’. To support their claim a list of the clan and zonal affi liations of the then bureau heads in the regional administration led by Abdi Jibril was annexed to the manifesto. Th e main target of the elders’ criticism was the Ministry of Federal Aff airs, whom they accused of ‘mendacity, narrow-mindedness, political manipulation, unrelenting predatory intrusions and premeditated alienation and marginalisation of the majority’. Beyond the dramatic rhetoric employed in the document, it illustrates how ardently clan groups compete for power in the Somali region by courting the federal government. Although the manifesto denigrates ‘the vested interests’ in the Ministry of Federal Aff airs, its authors are far from opposing the federal government on principle. Th ree important statements illustrate this point. First, the Ogaadeen elders distance themselves from the ONLF, whom they blame for the

41 Interview, Jijiga, 26 November 2005. 42 ‘srse‘ stands for Somali Regional State of Ethiopia. fishing for votes in the somali region 73 naivety of ‘believing that political questions could be resolved through the barrel of the gun’. Second, they declare their willingness to support the EPRDF against the opposition CUD, which is referred to as ‘the emerging chauvinistic opposition parties’. Th ird, the elders ‘strongly recommend’ that a new regional party, to be established as a replacement for the SPDP, formally join the EPRDF party coalition. By June 2005, post-election contention between the opposition and the EPRDF had reached a fi rst peak at national level and there was increased pressure on the latter to win the impending Somali region elections. From the government’s perspective, an open confrontation with infl uential Ogaadeen leaders at a time when they needed their support to secure votes was out of question. In reaction to the EPRDF’s defeat in the Addis Ababa elections and the elders’ statement on the BBC Somali Service, the Ministry of Federal Aff airs decided to organise a meeting of Ogaadeen elders in Godey town. Th e declared purpose of the three-day gathering that began on June 25 was to provide the Ogaadeen elders with an opportunity to voice their concerns. About 90 Ogaadeen elders, senior federal and regional politicians including the Minister of Federal Aff airs, Abay Tsehaye, the Minister of Mines and Energy and SPDP chairman, Mahmoud Dirir, the regional president, Abdi Jibril, and Dr. Mohamed Serahiye, deputy speaker of the House of Federation, attended the meeting. Aft er an intervention by the regional government, only 12 of the 33 Ogaadeen guurti elders were allowed to participate. Th e remaining attendees were mostly lataliye elders or elders with leanings towards the government. A member of the Ogaadeen guurti recalls that ‘the regional government even penetrated into the Ogaadeen elders [guurti] and selected the moderate ones among us’.43 In Godey, EPRDF and SPDP offi cials were above all concerned with convincing the elders not to support qinijjit or CUD candidates in the forthcoming elections. Abay Tsehaye and other offi - cials repeatedly insisted on this point and condemned the CUD’s programme. According to one elder who participated in the Godey meeting, most elders present challenged the offi cials by denouncing what they perceived as a systematic marginalisation of the Ogaadeen clan lineages by the incumbent party and administration. In particular, they criticised the government’s line of argumentation according to which the ONLF is the main cause of the continuous underdevelopment of

43 Interview, Jijiga, 26 November 2005. 74 tobias hagmann the Ogaadeen inhabited areas of Somali region. In addition, they also blamed the regional government for not selecting candidates for the August 2005 elections that represented their communities’ interests. Towards the end of the meeting, the elders were asked to put their recommendations in writing. Aft er consultation they agreed that the government and ONLF should engage in negotiations, that Somalis should be free to elect whichever candidates they preferred, and that there should be a fairer power distribution among the region’s clan groups. Offi cials from the Ministry of Federal Aff airs and senior SPDP offi cials were not satisfi ed with these points. Aft er arguments behind the scenes, Abay Tsehaye accepted the appeal to negotiate with the ONLF. However, federal and SPDP offi cials forced a redraft of the recommendations to be presented in plenary session, according to which ‘the Somalis should not support and elect qinijjit’. 44 On the eve of the close of the meeting, the elders were asked to appoint 18 representatives, three from each of the six Ogaadeen-inhabited zones, to form a delegation to be received by the Prime Minister.

From Godey to the Palace: Meles Zenawi and the Somali elders

Th e 18 Ogaadeen elders were led by Ugas Mohammed Dulane and met Prime Minister Meles Zenawi in Addis Ababa on 29 June.45 It was the fi rst time that elders from the Somali region had been personally received by the Prime Minister. In view of this novelty and in remem- brance of Meles Zenawi’s earlier refusal to meet the elders at the beginning of the year, the event was widely interpreted as a political success for the Ogaadeen. During the meeting the elders deplored the insecurity and underdevelopment of their home areas and requested more political representation in line with their clans’ population size. Furthermore, they asked the Prime Minister to engage in negotiations with the ONLF. Meles Zenawi acknowledged the problems described by the elders and promised to take care of them personally.46 At the same time he repeated Abay Tsehaye’s call to the Ogaadeen elders not

44 Interview, Jijiga, 26 November 2005. 45 Th e Sultan is the brother of former regional president and federal Minister of Water Resources, Abdulrashid Dulane. 46 According to one elder who was present at the meeting, the Prime Minister told the elders that ‘From now on you will stop being a boy whose mother died and who is looked aft er by a stepmother.’ Interview, Jijiga, 26 November 2005. fishing for votes in the somali region 75 to elect CUD candidates in the 21 August elections. While no written record exists of this meeting, all sources concur that the Ogaadeen elders and the Prime Minister agreed on the following quid pro quo. Th e elders off ered their support for SPDP candidates in the coming elections in return for the government’s readiness to engage in negotiations with the ONLF and to promote politicians selected by the elders. An Ogaadeen intellectual who followed the meeting closely summed up the outcome of the negotiations thus: Th e Prime Minister told the elders (…): ‘We will give you ministerial posts in Addis, make the regional president an Ogaadeen, and six Somali region politicians to be nominated will become ambassadors. Plus, we will enter into discussions between ONLF and EPRDF for a peaceful solution!’47 SPDP politicians and clan leaders in the region observed Meles Zenawi’s reception of the Ogaadeen elders suspiciously. Non-Ogaadeen groups in particular perceived the 29 June meeting between the Prime Minister and the Ogaadeen as an aff ront. Th ey accurately feared that the Ogaadeen clan groups would be in the EPRDF’s good books once more, which would entail a loss of power for the non-Ogaadeen clan lineages in the approaching elections. Upon the return of the Ogaadeen elders to Jijiga, the non-Ogaadeen elders were summoned by the regional government to constitute delegations to be received by the Prime Minister likewise. Two separate groups were formed on the basis of clan and geographic affi liation. Th ey had separate meetings with Meles Zenawi in Addis Ababa at the end of July. Th e deputy speaker of the state council, Sultan Abdirahman Bade, led a fi rst delegation. Th is was composed of 15 elders representing the clans of Jijiga and Shinille zones. Th e second group of a similar number brought together elders from Liban and Afdheer zones. According to an elder who participated in the second meeting, the discussions with the Prime Minister revolved around ‘the backwardness and lack of development’ in the region as well as its security situation. According to him, this particular elder had told Meles Zenawi: Th e region belongs to Somalis, not only to the ONLF. As we are responsible for security, it would be better if all the elders in the region met to discuss the issue of insecurity.48

47 Interview, Addis Ababa, 12 November 2005. 48 Interview, Jijiga, 20 November 2005. 76 tobias hagmann

In the meantime, the Ogaadeen elders prepared their next move. In an attempt to publicise the outcomes of their meeting with the Prime Minister, they organised a press conference in Jijiga at the beginning of July. ‘We showed the media the letter signed by Meles Zenawi that showed his willingness to negotiate with the ONLF,’ one of them recalled.49 Government offi cials had previously asked the Ogaadeen elders not to inform the press about their meeting with the Prime Minister. Th e elders deliberately and repeatedly disregarded this instruction. Th ey were aware that public attention would increase their leverage on the federal government to hold its promises. Further- more, the elders reorganised their guurti in view of the upcoming negotiations between the ONLF and the government. About 100 Ogaadeen elders gathered in Jijiga in July to establish a new standing committee ‘in order to be able to speak out, develop positions without having to call on all the elders’.50 As a result a 25-member guurti was elected, comprising four representatives for each of the region’s six Ogaadeen-inhabited zones and a chairman. Th e reorganisation of the Ogaadeen guurti occurred without any government involvement. Yet, according to observers, its political strength was soon hampered by divided loyalties and a lack of resources and education among most of the elders. Th e Ogaadeen elders’ lobbying for a greater say in the Somali region paid off shortly before the 21 August elections. As has already been mentioned, the SPDP executive committee was forced to modify the list of SPDP candidates a fi nal time at their Dire Dawa meeting two weeks before election day. Under the instructions of the Minister of Federal Aff airs, Abay Tsehaye, the SPDP had to accept nearly forty Ogaadeen candidates for both the federal and the regional parliament on its fi nal list of candidates. As a consequence, several SPDP candidates were forced to step down shortly before the elections to make way for the candidates chosen by the elders. National Election Board offi cials silently endorsed these last minute replacements for SPDP candidates. Th is was all the more surprising since some of the new candidates had been living abroad until shortly before election day.51 A number of well-known politicians stood out among the

49 Interview, Jijiga, 3 December 2005. 50 Interview, Jijiga, 26 November 2005. 51 According to Ethiopian electoral law (art. 38, 1d) candidates have to live in the same locality for two years to be eligible to be a candidate. fishing for votes in the somali region 77

Ogaadeen elders’ candidates. Th ey included two former regional presidents (Mohammed Maelin ‘Khadr’ and Abdulrashid Dulane), a former vice regional president (Abdullahi Hassan ‘Lugbuur’), two former bureau heads (Mahdi Ayuub Guled and Abdi Mahamed Fidaar ‘Guure’), two politicians who had gone into exile because they feared arrest on charges of corruption (Sultan Korfa Garane and Abdi Adan Abdi ‘Raho’) and a former convict (Abdi Ali ‘Shagax’). All these politicians were appointed to prominent positions as a result of the 21st August elections.52 Th eir readmission to leading positions within the SPDP and the new regional cabinet elected aft er the August elections caused quite a stir. According to one interlocutor, they ‘were brought back in the name of elders and Ogaadeen interests. It is a fi lm, a kind of drama’.53 However, not all the Ogaadeen politicians owed their comeback to their elders. When asked about how some of them had managed to secure a place on the SPDP’s candidate list, a former regional bureau head responded that they had been ‘dictated by the federals to be included in the candidate list’ because ‘they had good relations with individuals in the Ministry of Federal Aff airs’.54 Likewise, a civil servant who was involved in organising the Ogaadeen guurti concluded that: Th e way the regional administration is selected is through recommenda- tion and preference by the federal agents, which are: one, from intelli- gence and security; two, from the Ministry of Federal Aff airs, and three, from the federal army.55 A number of these ‘resurrected’ politicians had a criminal record or were under investigation by federal prosecutors. Th e Somali region public had its own view of these nominations and jokingly referred to

52 Mohammed Maelin ‘Khadr’ became the Minister of State for Labour and Social Aff airs in the EPRDF’s new federal cabinet in October 2005. Abdulrashid Dulane was appointed Ethiopian ambassador to Japan in April 2006 and Abdullahi Hassan ‘Lugbuur’ was elected as the Somali region’s new president in September 2005. Mahdi Ayuub Guled was appointed the Somali region’s security coordination offi ce head and Abdi Mahamed Fidaar ‘Guure’ as water bureau head in September 2005. Sultan Korfa Garane and Abdi Adan Abdi ‘Raho’ were elected as members of the federal HPR in the 21 August elections. Finally, Abdi Ali ‘Shagax’ replaced Mahmoud Dirir as the new SPDP chairman in September 2005. 53 Interview, Jijiga, 3 December 2005. 54 Interview, Jijiga, 29 November 2005. 55 Interview, Jijiga, 3 December 2005. 78 tobias hagmann the new regional cabinet elected in September 2005 as the xukuumada jeelka or ‘prison government’. On the whole, the outcome of the 21 August 2005 elections in the Somali region refl ected the aforementioned political manoeuvres by Ogaadeen and non-Ogaadeen lataliye and clan elders as well as federal offi cials to impose SPDP candidates. Once the SPDP candidate list was endorsed ‘everybody knew the elections were done’.56 Th e election results impressively illustrate this fact. Th e SPDP won 161 out of 183 seats on the regional state council and all 23 seats in the federal HPR.57 Only fi ve women were elected to the regional parliament. A number of unlawful election practices helped the SPDP to secure its overwhelming electoral success. Among the more apparent irregularities noted by election observers were the selling of ballots, the stuffi ng of ballot boxes, multiple and underage voting, and the fact that all voting documents were in Amharic and not in Somali (Carter Center 2005; European Union 2005; 2006). Four people were killed and several injured on the day before the beginning of voter registration when three bombs exploded in Jijiga on 24 July. As a result of the withdrawal of the opposition parties from the election on August 16, the opposition did not win a single parliamentary mandate. Instead, independent candidates won all non-SPDP seats in the regional parliament. Th e WSDP, the SODAF and Dil Wabi all withdrew on the grounds of serious irregularities during voter registration. Th ey accused the armed forces of having ‘taken control of some polling stations and impounded ballots and registration books’ (IRIN 2005).

From the Palace to the bush: Ogaadeen elders between the ONLF and the government

Ogaadeen elders’ determination to initiate a dialogue between the federal government and the ONLF was primarily a reaction to the mounting human costs of the ONLF insurgency over the last few years. Although the Ogaadeen rebels’ military capacities had been relatively embryonic a decade earlier, they had increased in recent years. Since the beginning of 2005, the ONLF had received arms from Eritrea,

56 Interview, Jijiga, 17 November 2005. 57 Th e SPDP won 22 mandates in the federal HPR for Somali region and one for Dire Dawa. fishing for votes in the somali region 79 which had also started training the rebels as part of their proxy war against Ethiopia (United Nations 2005). Yet even before the Eritrean involvement, skirmishes pitting ONLF fi ghters against ENDF soldiers and regional militias had become frequent in the home territories of clans backing the ONLF.58 As a result, the Ogaadeen population became increasingly torn between the ONLF and the federal military. Popular pressure for a cessation of hostilities between the ONLF and the Ethiopian government had been gaining momentum prior to the 2005 elections. By pressuring the government to open negotiations with the ONLF, the Ogaadeen guurti elders were in line with the wishes of major sections of their communities. Th e EPRDF was seriously challenged by the national CUD opposition before and aft er May 15 and was thus inclined to give in to the demand for negotiations with the so-called Ogaadeen ‘anti-peace elements’. Aft er their meeting with the Prime Minister, the Ogaadeen guurti elders gradually became involved as the go-betweens between ONLF and the federal government. Between July and the end of 2005 Ogaadeen elders carried messages back and forth between the Prime Minister’s Offi ce in Addis Ababa and the ONLF leadership in the bush. Th e elders most actively involved in carrying messages between the ONLF and the government were Sultan Abdurahman Dulane Rafl e, Sultan Fowsi Mohamed Ali and Ugas Abdi Ahmed Hashi. Th is pre- negotiation process was initiated by a letter by Meles Zenawi dated 14 July. In this correspondence addressed to the Ogaadeen guurti elders, the Prime Minister expressed his appreciation for the elders’ initiative to further peaceful negotiations between ONLF and his administration. Meles Zenawi declared his willingness to discuss with the ONLF ‘wherever and whenever they want’59 on the condition that the ONLF recognised the Ethiopian constitution. Two of the Ogaadeen guurti elders contacted ONLF deputy chairman Mohamed Ismail Omar and eventually visited him in an unknown location in Degehabur. Th e latter responded on 26 August by reiterating the ONLF’s readiness to negotiate provided that a third-party was present during talks to be held in an appropriate foreign country. Furthermore, the deputy chairman

58 Th e ONLF draws most of its support from the Ogaadeen sub-clans of Mohammed Zubeyr, Bah Gerri, Makahil and Tolomogge. Th roughout 2005 there were indications that some of the Jijiga-based Darood clan lineages were joining ONLF ranks. 59 Interview, Jijiga, 26 November 2005. 80 tobias hagmann requested that neither the Ogaadeen guurti elders, nor any other Ogaadeen individual should act as third party. A group of 11 Ogaadeen guurti elders delivered this response letter to Addis Ababa where they met with Meles Zenawi, Minister of State for Federal Aff airs, Melaku Fenta, several of his senior offi cials, and ENDF chief of staff General Samora Yenus. Th e Prime Minister responded to the ONLF on September 9. He accepted direct negotiations, without a third party though, and proposed that the elders be included as ‘participants’ in future negotiations. Furthermore, he identifi ed Sudan and Yemen as host countries for potential future talks. At the same time he off ered to make the necessary preparations, including the provision of travel documents for ONLF offi cials. Th e Ogaadeen elders again met Mohamed Ismail Omar in the bush on 27 September. Th e ONLF commander rejected both Sudan and Yemen as host countries for negotiations on the grounds that they were neither neutral nor capable of playing a third-party role. Instead he proposed European countries, particularly Norway or Sweden, but also a number of Arab countries including Libya, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, or the United Arab Emirates as potential hosts. Th is time the elders faxed the ONLF letter from Jijiga to Addis Ababa. On 8 October the Minister of Federal Aff airs, Abay Tsehaye, responded with a fax addressed to the Ogaadeen elders, but not to the ONLF. His correspondence laconically stated that the ONLF had failed to mention the country where negotiations should take place and that his government would not accept a third party other than local clan elders. Th ereupon, the nascent dialogue between the ONLF and the government hit its fi rst deadlock. A series of accusations and counter- accusations between the Ogaadeen guurti elders and regional offi cials ensued about who was to blame for the lack of progress. Some elders contemplated issuing a statement accusing the ONLF of not being seriously committed to the peace process. In late December one faction of the guurti informed the federal government that they were unable to continue mediating. At the same time they accused the SPDP of boycotting their peace eff orts. Finally, another meeting between Ogaadeen elders and the Prime Minister took place on 4 January 2006. Meles Zenawi encouraged the elders to continue their mission and informed them that his government would accept a number of Arab countries the ONLF had previously put forward as possible hosts for negotiations. He also insisted on the presence of the Ogaadeen elders at future talks with the ONLF. fishing for votes in the somali region 81

What were the positions of the diff erent actors involved in the ONLF/government pre-negotiations? Th e ONLF had greeted the Ogaadeen elders’ peace proposal with scepticism. On the eve of June 29, the day the elders met Meles Zenawi for the fi rst time, ONLF foreign spokesman Mohamed Siraad Dolaal rejected the idea of unilateral and unconditional disarmament. In an interview with the BBC Somali Service he underlined that the ONLF’s armed struggle was fought on behalf of the Ogaadeen communities. However, as events unfolded, ONLF leaders had to embrace the negotiation off er as they didn’t want the Ogaadeen elders to turn their backs on them. Losing the support of their elders would have dealt a major blow to the organization. As a result, the ONLF stated its willingness to dialogue with the EPRDF in a declaration of good intent made public on 18 July. Nonetheless, the ONLF remained perplexed by the Ogaadeen elders’ peace initiative; from their perspective the role of the Ogaadeen elders should be to assist the armed struggle, not to mediate between the ONLF and the government. Th e ONLF has long been internally divided with regard to the critical question of whether or not the post- 1991 Ethiopian federal political system allows the (Ogaadeen) Somalis to achieve self-determination.60 Despite these internal divisions and the upsetting experiences of negotiating with the Ethiopian government following the 1998 murder of the ONLF’s chief negotiator by Ethiopian security forces, the ONLF (undated) had always maintained that: We stand ready to dialogue with our colonizer with no preconditions subject to the presence of an independent international observer (state or organization) to witness any discussions or agreements. At the same time, the ONLF had grave doubts whether the government was serious about its 2005 peace off er. Th e rebels’ insistence on third- party involvement and a neutral country as the host for negotiations refl ected its security concerns. As the weaker party in the confl ict, the ONLF had and still has a vital interest in internationalizing both the confl ict and future peace negotiations with the Ethiopian government.

60 Th e ONLF’s exiled leaders in Europe and the Arab Gulf States have tended to advocate that the Ogaden secedes from Ethiopia, while many of its senior members in the Somali region have a more pragmatic and less hostile approach to EPRDF’s ethnic federalism. 82 tobias hagmann

Th e Ethiopian government’s preoccupations were entirely diff erent: it wanted to minimise the involvement of foreign governments in its dealings with the ONLF. Th e government sought to avoid another country – particularly a European donor government – getting involved in negotiations. Instead, it argued for the Ogaadeen elders to play an active role as mediators. Federal offi cials were surprised to discover later that parts of the ONLF rejected their own traditional leaders. Th e government also faced the diffi cult task of appeasing the ONLF – and more generally the Ogaadeen clans – without upsetting non-Ogaadeen groups in the Somali region. As is oft en the case with federal government’s policy towards the regional states, the federal ministries had dif- ferent positions regarding the impending negotiations with the ONLF. Offi cials from the infl uential Ministry of Federal Aff airs repeatedly tried to pressure the elders to act as third-party mediators. According to the Ogaadeen elders however, Meles Zenawi understood their diffi - cult position and suggested instead that an elders committee composed of both Ogaadeen and non-Ogaadeen elders should facilitate and attend, but not broker, future talks with the ONLF. Th e federal military on the other hand was sceptical about mending fences with the Ogaadeen rebels. Military offi cers worried that negotiations would bestow political recognition on the ONLF, thereby increasing the rebels’ attractiveness to young Ogaadeen recruits. Furthermore, both the federal and regional armed forces have enjoyed considerable infl u- ence in local politics by presenting themselves as the guarantors of security in the Somali region (Hagmann 2005). Finally, in the course of events, the Ogaadeen elders had manoeuvred themselves into an extremely delicate position by the end of 2005; in the eyes of many observers, they had jeopardised their political credibility. Th eir eff orts to stop the violence visited upon their communities reverted to a balancing act between the ONLF, the federal government, regional offi cials, and their own communities. Each of these constituencies attempted to draw the guurti elders on to their side. Th e Ogaadeen elders soon found out that the ONLF was not willing to engage in talks without preconditions and would not accept them as mediators. Military and SPDP offi cials in the region in turn accused some of the elders of being pro-ONLF. Some observers also questioned whether the Ogaadeen elders were not increasingly ‘out of tune’ with their clansmen who supported the ONLF. Others criticised the fact that the government covered the elders’ ‘diplomatic’ fishing for votes in the somali region 83 expenses.61 Th e standing committee established by the elders subsequent to their meeting with the Prime Minister suff ered considerably from these centrifugal dynamics. Several elders complained that elders working for the government’s security branch had infi ltrated their guurti. Other elders were physically threatened by security personnel within the region that opposed a peace deal with the rebels.62 One prominent Ogaadeen elder complained, ‘We don’t want to be misused under the pretext of third-party for neither the government nor for the ONLF’.63 Most observers judged the elders’ initiative rather critically. An Ogaadeen intellectual from the region described the elders’ mission as ‘one part of a three-pronged propaganda war’ by the government.64 Another Ogaadeen from the diaspora concluded: (…) Th e move is a politically expedient attempt by Meles to use the Somalis and not a genuine eff ort to fi nd a lasting solution to the confl ict.65 Hopes for a resumption of negotiations were dashed two years later when fi ghting between the Ogaadeen rebels and the Ethiopian government escalated following a major ONLF attack on the Abole oilfi eld in Degehabur in April 2007. ENDF forces responded with a massive counter-insurgency campaign against the ONLF, established an economic blockade within the Somali region and targeted all Ogaadeen civilians suspected of aiding the insurgents (Human Rights Watch 2008).

Conclusion

Th e analysis of the 21 August 2005 elections in Somali region contra- dicts outsiders’ stereotypes about the region. Th e participation of

61 Rumours circulated that prominent Ogaadeen elders had received a considerable amount of money from federal offi cials for agreeing to negotiate with the ONLF on their behalf. 62 Sultan Fowsi Mohamed Ali, one of the key mediators, was arrested in Jijiga on 28 August 2007 and sentenced to 22 years’ imprisonment in May 2008. He was accused of involvement in two hand grenade attacks, but the actual reason was to prevent him from testifying to a UN fact-fi nding mission visiting the Somali region in the aft ermath of the escalation of the ONLF insurgency and counter-insurgency in 2007 (Amnesty International 2009). 63 Interview, Jijiga, 26 November 2005. 64 Personal communication, 4 April 2006. 65 Personal communication, 25 July 2005. 84 tobias hagmann

Ogaadeen (and other Ethiopian) Somalis in multi-party elections cannot be reduced to violence and tribalism. Instead, this chapter illustrates how the 2005 elections were bargained in a complex and contested process that involved clan elders, party and federal offi cials. It is obvious that the 2005 elections failed to off er Ethiopian Somalis a real choice between diff erent political alternatives. With the exception of Jijiga town, where the former mayor and WSDP candidate Ali Yusuf Isse ‘Dhada’ unsuccessfully challenged the SPDP monopoly, the majority of the region’s voters was not exposed to electoral competition. In the Somali region, the actual elections did not take place on 21 August, but rather during the turbulent pre-selection of SPDP candidates and in the similarly contested vote for the SPDP’s new central committee in September 2005. In this sense, the 2005 elections did not alter the ways in which political representation is determined in Ethiopia’s Somali region as a handful of actors who either support or contest the region’s patronage politics continue to eff ectively control political decision-making. Th e only change that did occur was a readjustment of the region’s internal power balance in favour of the Ogaadeen clan lineages. Th eir success came about through the concomitance of diff erent factors, namely CUD’s electoral gains in the 15 May elections to the detriment of the EPRDF, which couldn’t aff ord any additional contestation from the Somali side; support for the Ogaadeen by Jijiga zone’s smaller Darood clans who were afraid of losing land to the Oromiya region; and the leadership of the Ogaadeen guurti elders. In summary, the 2005 elections did not fundamentally reconfi gure relations between customary and state authorities in Somali region. Rather, elders’ political strategies emerged in a context of an ongoing multiplication and diversifi cation of titled Somali elders as described in the introduction. Yet the role of clan lineages in shaping political representation, the ambivalent position of lataliye elders between the state and communities, the fi erce competition for command over customary authorities and the wider implications of the 2005 elections for regional and national politics are worthy of attention. Pre-election processes and outcomes in the Somali region were strongly infl uenced by individuals’ membership in a clan group. For both candidates and voters a joint genealogy at a relatively lower level of segmentation is a precondition for receiving or granting political support. In line with the principle of ethnic federalism, political representation in the Somali region at the legislative and executive fishing for votes in the somali region 85 levels refl ects the region’s genealogical composition and cleavages. As a businesswoman tellingly observed ‘in killil ammist the seat you occupy is not for the society at large, but the seat belongs to the clan’.66 As the successful lobbying of the Ogaadeen elders in the run-up to election day demonstrates, the 21 August elections represented an intense moment of clan competition within the region. At the same time, and contrary to what one might assume, there is no causal relationship between kinship and individuals’ electoral preferences. Th e fact that elders chose to either endorse or reject candidates selected by the SPDP in the run-up to the elections indicates that individuals’ ideological orientation and position within existing power relations involving political parties such as the SPDP, clan leaders, communities, federal and regional policymakers and security forces are as important in determining political preferences as clan affi liation (Hagmann 2005). In this sense, the multiplication of titled Somali elders is paral- leled by a fragmentation of genealogical groups as clan leaders are co- opted by and espouse the agendas of political parties and state institutions. In her ethnography of the Mzeina Bedouins’ political identity, Lavie (1990, 91) talks about the ‘Mzeina disrespect for, yet dependency on, their sheikh’. Th e same applies to Somali communities in Ethiopia and their lataliye elders. On the one hand the lataliye elders implement SPDP – respectively EPRDF – decisions and policy, which undermines their popular legitimacy; on the other hand the SPDP is the Somali region’s only political party trusted by the EPRDF and thus the only avenue by which government and administrative positions can be acquired. Some lataliye elders are aware of their uncomfortable position between opposing demands from the SPDP and their relatives. One Degodia elder, who is both a district lataliye in Liban zone as well as a member of the Degodia’s elders council headed by the waber (king), self-critically explained: Th is new role is burdensome; it is much more burdensome than the former role we used to have as elders. Th e public sees us as elders that are only implementing government policy rather than clan interests. (…) Whenever there is a clash between the people and government interests, we are forced to follow government interests. Th is has negative consequences for our reputation from the side of the public.

66 Interview, Jijiga, 23 November 2005. 86 tobias hagmann

Yet the same elder also stated, ‘When the government pressures me, I also try to get some concession from the government.’67 Th e preceding sections point to the fi erce competition for infl uence over titled and untitled Somali elders. Before, during and aft er the August 2005 elections, elders were wooed, claimed and manipulated by the Somali region’s competing interest groups, as well as exhibiting their own political agency. To mobilize communities, modern political organizations continuously depend on the customary repertoire of which the elders are the embodiment. Th is holds true for the SPDP as well as for the ONLF, and for local as well as federal government. As a consequence Somalis perceive their elders as employees of regional and local government, as advocates of community interests, as inform- ers for the security services and rebel groups, or as army collaborators. As one interviewee observed, ‘Th ese lataliye elders have become like politicians, running from one meeting to another and losing touch with the community.’68 From the community viewpoint, elders lose credibility as they distance themselves from the Somali ideal of a trusted and impartial mediator and clan representative through their involvement in modern party politics. On the other hand, elders’ increased access to government resources transforms them into gate- keepers of considerable value to those who have their attention and backing. One other impact of the continuous demand for elders’ political ‘services’ is the commercialization that customary authorities experience. Th is is apparent from the government salaries paid to lataliye elders, the provision of funds for confl ict resolution and mediation activities or, in the case of the 2005 elections, from the fact that politicians paid elders to promote their candidatures. Finally, politics in the Somali region need to be considered in a broader Ethiopian context. Following the CUD’s unexpected electoral gains in the May 15 elections, the Somali region suddenly became a ‘potential kingmaker’ in national politics, propelling the EPRDF to secure all of the region’s seats in the federal parliament.69 Meles Zenawi later on declared in an open letter to the Ethiopian Herald that the August 2005 elections in the Somali region ‘have been of marginal impact to the outcome of the election at the national

67 Interview, Jijiga, 20 November 2005. 68 Interview, Addis Ababa, 18 December 2005. 69 Expression used by Berhanu Nega during a talk held at the School for Oriental and African Studies in London, 1 July 2005. fishing for votes in the somali region 87 level’.70 Th is might be true of the EPRDF’s short-term struggle to win a parliamentary majority in 2005, but doesn’t necessarily apply to the longer term. Th e CUD’s upturn motivated a rapprochement between the EPRDF and the Somali region’s political elite, which materialized in the signing of an EPRDF-SPDP cooperation agreement in early November 2005.71 Preoccupied fending off popular dissent in the country’s central highlands, EPRDF temporarily had to accommodate political demands from its peripheral lowland regions. In an attempt to garner the goodwill of key Somali constituencies, the federal government gave in to the Ogaadeen elders’ demands for negotiations with the ONLF and abandoned the idea of restructuring the SPDP. If the EPRDF’s newfound aff ection for the Somalis was motivated by strategy, many Somalis have come to view the EPRDF as a lesser evil than the CUD following the 2005 elections. In line with government propaganda, a majority of Somalis, the ONLF included, fear that a future federal government run by a pan-Ethiopian nationalist party like the CUD would reverse the little political freedom that Somalis have come to enjoy under EPRDF’s ethnic federalism. Although the national opposition parties had partly encouraged Somali elders and communities to challenge the SPDP before May 2005, few Somali leaders came out in support of the CUD aft er elections. In the words of an Ogaadeen elder: ‘We have our own feeling toward qinijjit. We believe that if the CUD comes to power, they will not even accept what is in the constitution.’72

Bibliography

Following local usage, Somali authors are referenced by their fi rst name. Abdi I. Samatar. 2004. ‘Ethiopian Federalism: Autonomy Versus Control in the Somali Region.’ Th ird World Quarterly 25 (6): 1131–54. Ali Jimale Ahmed, ed. 1995. Th e Invention of Somalia. Lawrenceville, NJ: Red Sea Press. Amnesty International. 2009. Report 2009 – Ethiopia. London: Amnesty International. Barnes, Cedric. 2000. ‘Th e Ethiopian State and its Somali Periphery, circa 1888–1948.’ PhD thesis, University of Cambridge.

70 Meles Zenawi, ‘Easy to Remove the Garbage that has Covered Lumps of Truth.’ Ethiopian Herald, August 31, 2005. 71 ‘EPRDF Signs Cooperation Agreement With Five Parties,’ Ethiopian Herald, November 10, 2005. 72 Interview, Jijiga, 26 November 2005. 88 tobias hagmann

Besteman, Catherine. 1998. ‘Primordialist Blinders: A Reply to I. M. Lewis.’ Cultural Anthropology 13 (1): 109–20. Carter Center (Th e). 2005. ‘Final Statement on the Carter Center Observation of the Ethiopia 2005 National Elections.’ September 2005. Atlanta: Carter Center. Elders and Intellectuals of the Somali Regional State of Ethiopia. 2005. ‘Th e Perils of the EPRDF Politics Towards the Somali Region.’ Wardheernews, July 7, 2005, http:// www.wardheernews.com/articles/July/10_document_srse.htm (accessed: July 11, 2005). European Union. 2005. Preliminary Statement on the Election Appeals’ Process, the Re-run of Elections and the Somali Region Elections. Addis Ababa: European Union. —— . 2006. Ethiopia Legislative Elections 2005: European Union Election Observation Mission Final Report. Addis Ababa: European Union. Hagmann, Tobias. 2005. ‘Beyond Clannishness and Colonialism: Understanding Political Disorder in Ethiopia’s Somali Region, 1991–2004.’ Journal of Modern African Studies 43 (4): 509–36. —— . 2007. ‘Bringing the Sultan Back In: Elders as Peacemakers in Ethiopia’s Somali Region.’ In State Recognition and Democratisation in Sub-Saharan Africa. A New Dawn for Traditional Authorities?, edited by Lars Buur and Helene Maria Kyed, 31–51. New York: Palgrave. Hagmann, Tobias, and Mohamud H. Khalif. 2005. ‘La Région Somali d’Éthiopie: Entre Intégration, Indépendance et Irrédentisme.’ Politique Africaine 99: 43–62. Hoehne, Markus V. 2006. Traditional Authorities in Northern Somalia: Transformation of Positions and Powers. Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology Working Paper No. 82. Halle/Saale: Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology. Human Rights Watch (HRW) 2008. Collective Punishment: War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity in the Ogaden area of Ethiopia’s Somali Regional State. New York: Human Rights Watch. Integrated Regional Information Network of the United Nations (IRIN). 2005. ‘Ethiopia: Opposition Parties to Boycott Somali Region Polls.’ August 16, 2005, http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportID=55866 (accessed: March 10, 2011). Lavie, Smadar. 1990. Th e Poetics of Military Occupation: Mzeina Allegories of Bedouin Identity under Israeli and Egyptian Rule. Berkeley: University of California Press. Lewis, Ioan M. 1999 [1961]. A Pastoral Democracy: A Study of Pastoralism and Politics among the Northern Somali of the Horn of Africa. 3rd ed. Hamburg: LIT. Lister, Sarah. 2004. Th e Processes and Dynamics of Pastoralist Representation in Ethiopia. IDS Working Paper No. 220. Sussex: Institute of Development Studies. Menkhaus, Ken. 2000. ‘Traditional Confl ict Management in Contemporary Somalia.’ In Traditional Cures for Modern Confl icts: African Confl ict ‘Medicine’, edited I. William Zartman, 183–99. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner. —— . 2003. ‘Bantu Ethnic Identity in Somalia.’ In Les Annales d’Éthiopie, edited by Centre Français d’Études Éthiopiennes, 323–39. Addis Ababa: Editions Table Ronde. National Election Board of Ethiopia (NEBE). 2004. ‘Election Day Countdown’, http:// www.electionsethiopia.org/Election%20Day%20Countdown.html (accessed: July 7, 2005). Ogaden Human Rights Committee (OHRC). 2005. Ogaden: Traditional Leaders’ Peace Initiative and the Upcoming Elections. Porrentruy: OHCR. Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF). undated. ‘Political Programme of the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF)’, http://www.onlf.org/viewpage .php?page_id=24 (accessed: December 19, 2010). United Nations. 2005. ‘Letter Dated 5 October 2005 from the Chairman of the Security Council Committee Established Pursuant to Resolution 751 (1992) Concerning Somalia Addressed to the President of the Security Council.’ S/2005/625. New York: United Nations Security Council. CHAPTER 3

FAMILY CONNECTIONS: INHERITED STATUS AND PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS IN DAWRO, SOUTHERN ETHIOPIA

Data Dea Barata

Introduction

Th e Ethiopian parliamentary elections of 2005 began with high hopes and unprecedented popular participation but ended up with as yet unresolved controversies that engaged (and in many ways enraged) local, national and global leaders and institutions. Th is chapter looks beneath and beyond the dust of post-election crisis and associated controversies, with a view to bring to light signifi cant patterns in the interaction between traditional power structures (traditional authority) and modern state practice of legitimating power through multi-party elections. More specifi cally, the chapter examines how the 2005 Ethiopian parliamentary elections were experienced and contested in a local context of family-based status diff erentiation (inherited status) in Dawro, Southern Ethiopia. As part of scholarly endeavours to understand political transitions in Ethiopia through the prism of cultural institutions, local actors and meanings (see introduction to the volume), the ethnographic analysis that follows especially focuses on a Dawro institution named yara, which, I contend, constitutes the most important basis of inherited status in Dawro.1 Th e chapter aims to answer two specifi c questions: How did yara-based ‘traditional authority’ aff ect political contestations in Dawro during the 2005 elections? What are the consequences of mobilising family connections (via yara and clans) during parliamentary elections to Dawro cultural conceptions of authority and to the democratisation process in general? In section two below I will begin by descriptively defi ning what constitutes ‘traditional authority’ in Dawro. Th is section will also provide

1 See the next section for a defi nition and elaboration of yara. 90 data dea barata an outline of Dawro socio-cultural structures on which traditional authority rests and within which it is contested and maintained. Since this paper is basically about the articulation between traditional authority and modern state practice, in section three I shall provide a description of how the Ethiopian state is organised on the ground in Dawro. In section four I will present my ethnography of the 2005 elections in Dawro. Th is will be followed by two sections that will respectively focus on explaining the election outcome and providing some conceptual refl ection with a special focus on issues of governance and legitimacy. Finally, based on the evidence provided and analysis of it, some conclusions will be drawn as regards the articulation between traditional authority and contesting state power through multi-party elections.

Th e structure of traditional authority in Dawro

Following the general outline provided in the introduction to this volume, as well as drawing on relevant literature on the subject (Hoehne 2007; Lehman 2007; Logan 2009), I conceptualise traditional authority in the Dawro context in terms of how it relates to the state and other ‘modern institutions’ such as NGOs and non-indigenous religious institutions.2 In cultural terms, traditional authority is traditional inso- far as fi rstly, it is underpinned by cultural conventions and values of the local community, and secondly, its offi ciating leaders are perceived by the local community as their leaders, who are not answerable (norma- tively or administratively) to anyone other than their cultural constituency, that is, members of the local community. Based on this conceptualisation, I consider the leaders of the following four Dawro institutions to be Dawro traditional leaders. Th ese institutions are yara (family-based status groups or “castes”), qomo (clans), idir (self-help voluntary associations), and sharetcho (spirit mediums or shamans). Th ough all of these institutions were mobilised during the 2005 elections, my ethnographic account will focus primarily on the institution of yara, mainly because yara remains the most powerful basis of inherited status in Dawro. Th is means that the aspects of traditional authority I focus on are those that are signifi cantly infl uenced by inherited

2 Th is chapter is based on the information I collected during my fi eldwork in Ethiopia in January, February, June and August 2005 and also draws on my previous research in the area. the family connection 91 status.3 Since yara appears to be a cultural institution incompatible with the ideals of democracy, the chapter will try to explain why and how yara continues to be relevant to the contemporary political process in Dawro and in much of Ethiopia in its various guises (cf. Freeman and Pankhurst 2001). Yara is in practice intertwined with many other aspects of traditional authority in Dawri. Th erefore, I shall make some remarks about how the other three traditional institutions just noted featured during the 2005 elections. Dawro is an agricultural society located in the mountainous areas west of the Omo River, about 500 km to the south of Addis Ababa. According to the 2007 Population and Housing Census, the Dawro (Dawuro) comprised 537,954 persons (CSA 2010). Like their Omotic- speaking neighbours such as the Wolaita and the Kaff a (Bender 2000), the kingdom of Dawro was a centralised polity governed through a fairly complex bureaucracy headed by their Katia/Kawo (king) (Data Dea 2003). Th e incorporation of the Dawro into the Ethiopian empire in the late 19th century heralded a new beginning for a long historical process of interaction between diff erent traditions of governance. Subsequently, the Dawro – along with the rest of Ethiopia’s political peripheries – endured a series of heavy-handed governance practices and concomitant impositions of top-down ideologies. None of the three major political regimes that succeeded the Dawro kingship approved of the Dawro yara practice, but neither of them has succeeded in getting rid of yara. But the nature and salience of yara has undergone important changes. Th us, throughout the subsequent political eras, i.e. from the time of incorporation to the present, there has been a recurrent tension between the Dawro practice of yara and the modern state’s ways of (re-)organising socio-political life. One unanswered question, which I discussed at greater length elsewhere (Data Dea 2003), is how this traditional yara hierarchy is reproduced amidst apparently fundamental political transformations from the modernis- ing projects of Haile Selassie to cultural revolution under Lt Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam and Meles Zenawi’s revolutionary democracy. It should suffi ce here to briefl y describe the Dawro yara hierarchy and analyse how its practices have aff ected and have been aff ected by the process of parliamentary elections.

3 Just like the relevance of ethnicity in the Ethiopian national context, or race in the United States, for example, there is no consensus about the importance of yara, especially among those who are not negatively aff ected by the subtle – and sometimes not so subtle – consequences of one’s yara background. 92 data dea barata

Yara may be translated into English as ‘family-based status group’ or, more debatably, ‘caste’ (Data Dea 2003; Haaland, Haaland and Data Dea 2004). On the basis of yara, we would identify highly diff erentiated Dawro cultural categories (in descending order of status): Malla (rulers, farmers, citizens), Wogatche (smiths), Degella (tanners), Manna (potters) and Manja (people who used to subsist on forest resources). Traditionally, each status group is associated with corresponding political, economic and social rights and duties. Th e legacy of this traditional structure is negatively aff ecting the lives of people, especially those at the bottom of the local ranking. For instance, in Dawro, while the descendants of the Malla still enjoy high social status, the Manna and the Manja are despised (Behailu Abebe and Data Dea 2001). Relevant here among important fi ndings of my extensive fi eld research in Dawro are: fi rstly, in contemporary Dawro yara reference is still actively used to categorise Dawro persons into ranked status groups and secondly, the functioning of yara is closely related to the functioning of qomo (clans), that is, the yara hierarchy is embedded in clans. However, yara and clans do not entirely overlap, because members of the same clan may belong to diff erent yara that are ranked higher or lower. Th erefore, to understand how yara works today we need to look at the related cultural category of qomo (clans). Th ere are more than 150 named clans in Dawro. Th ough a Dawro person’s traditional family standing is largely co-determined by his/her family’s yara and clan membership, what a person actually makes of this advantage depends on his/her ability to actively maintain and enhance inherited status through economic and political achievements.4 In Dawro, and among the neighbouring Omotic speakers, clanship currently informs political action in a number of subtle ways (Data Dea 2005). For instance, the relative number of one’s clan members in a village and their relative economic and political standing infl uences who becomes a respected baira (village elder). Th e institution of baira is currently acknowledged by the state as ‘traditional authority’, and the local state courts commonly refer a number of confl icts to the baira for resolution or mediation. Th is gives baira leaders both symbolic and real power, and a baira therefore has a tremendous infl uence on opinions and decisions in the village. Th ough baira status is at least partly an achieved status,

4 Th is discussion is focused on Dawro men mainly because traditional leadership is especially dominated by men, not just in Dawro but also more widely (Brettel and Sargent 2005). the family connection 93 in practice it is mostly held by senior men from the prestigious yara – namely Malla – and men from dominant clans in each village. Th us yara and clans form key elements of the traditional power structure in Dawro. Both yara and clans are deeply entrenched in Dawro history. In the Dawro kingdom, eligibility for the kingship was predicated on both clan and yara identity. Accordingly, under the last Dawro dynasty the king could come only from the Kawka clan of the Malla yara. Th is was a basic precondition to become a legitimate king. While the king’s position was generally inherited, the rest of the positions in the kingdom involved competition between rivals from diff erent clans or lineages of the Malla status group. Th us, competition for important political offi ces between rivals from diff erent clans (and at times between diff erent lineages of the same clan) is not entirely new in Dawro. Nor is it new to draw support from fellow clan members and affi nes to win a political contest. Th is tradition was drawn on very eff ectively in the context of the 2005 election. Th ere were cases where members of the same clan (or indeed a father and his son) held key positions in the traditional authority and state/party structures respectively, thus complicating any easy distinction between the boundaries of traditional authority and modern state.

Th e state in Dawro

Since 2000 the Dawro have been administered under their own political-administrative unit referred to as Dawro zone, which is part of the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Region (SNNPR).5 Dawro zone is subdivided into fi ve woredas (districts). Each district is subdivided into administrative units called kebele. Th ere are a total of 156 (154 rural and two ‘urban-in-the-making’) kebele in Dawro. It is the kebele that oversees the everyday administration of rural Ethiopia. And, for most ordinary people, the kebele represents the concrete man- ifestation of the state on the ground. Th e idea of kebele (previously known as a peasant association) was fi rst introduced into the Ethiopian administrative system by the socialist Derg regime in the late 1970s. Th e current government has tailored the peasant association to a more complex level of administration and political control and renamed it kebele administration, hereaft er kebele.

5 Th e SNNPR with a total population of 14,929,548 is the third largest of Ethiopia’s nine regional states (aft er Oromiya and Amhara) (CSA 2010). 94 data dea barata

Like the federal and regional governments, the kebele has legislative, executive and judicial bodies. Th e legislative wing of the kebele (called kebele council or congress) is composed of 120 elected members, led by a house speaker and deputy speaker. Th is body has only nominal power. As a dramatic parallel to the federal and regional governments, the most powerful part of the kebele structure is the kebele executive. It is composed of seven members: chairman (the only paid job among kebele positions thus far), vice-chairman, health sector coordinator, agriculture sector coordinator, education sector coordinator, justice and security coordinator, and hizb aderjajet (mass mobilisation/organisation coordinator). Th ere are two other structures in the kebele which seem to have been modelled on the Derg’s socialist Youth Association and Women’s Association, each of which has an elected 10-member leadership. Th ese were still very weak at the kebele level during the time of my fi eldwork in 2005. Th e judicial wing of the kebele is called mahberawi fi rd bet (literally ‘social court’). Th e kebele social court is composed of three members (and two ‘substitutes’). It plays an important role in adjudicating cases between ordinary members of the kebele. Th e predominant understanding among the ordinary people is that the kebele court is answerable to the kebele executive and in practice the kebele executive’s pattern of behaviour is not contrary to this popular (mis)understanding. Th e kebele executive has a 15 men strong security guard under its command. Th e kebele executive can imprison people without any consultation with the kebele court. In social occasions such as a funeral or on market day, I observed that the kebele chairman was usually accompanied by one or more of the kebele security guards. Another of the kebele structures directly answerable to the kebele executive is Ni-us (sub)kebele. In Gozo Bamushi kebele for example, one of my study sites, there are six sub-Kebeles. Th e 550 households in this kebele are unevenly distributed into six sub-kebeles, with the largest (Wachi) composed of 154 households and the smallest (Komba) composed of only 57 households. Th e sub-kebele is further subdivided into what are called mengistawi budin (literally ‘governmental group’). Each mengistawi budin is supposed to be constituted of 15–30 households. Each of these has a leader in charge of mobilising the members for specifi c tasks they might be called to perform. Th e leader of the mengistawi budin also has the duty to keep his kebele superiors informed about what goes on in the village. Th e duty to keep one’s superior in the party/state structure informed reaches all the way up to the Prime Minister’s offi ce. the family connection 95

Th e lowest unit of the state on the ground – which did not yet become fully operational – is what is called the ‘group of ten’. When it becomes operational, every ten households are to be formed into a politico- administrative unit. Th ey will have a group leader who will report to the next level of the state structure.6 With such a complex structure in place, one gets the impression that the state, via the kebele, is in fi rm command of what goes on in every village. Th ough this structure did not win the Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) as many votes as it had expected during the 2005 elections, this structure did help the EPRDF to control the crisis in the aft ermath of the election.7 One of the leading SEPDM/EPRDF cadres in Dawro claims that his party/government has created a very effi cient state structure to mobilise people for development activities. Certainly the building of these institutions is a signifi cant achievement in terms of enhancing administrative capacity, delivering services and building infrastructure to reach rural citizens. However, it is worrying when the same party offi - cial I interviewed argued that the EPRDF is justifi ed in using this (state) structure of its own invention for its own benefi t; in other words, these institutions also constitute structures of control and ways of mobilising support for the incumbent party. Similar patterns are observed elsewhere in the country (see European Union report 2006, 16).

Social organisation of elections in Dawro

Th e National Election Board of Ethiopia (NEBE) is mandated by law to organise both national and local elections. Th e NEBE is the institution whose decision validated the legitimacy of the current government. In all previous elections, and especially in the highly contested 2005 election, the NEBE itself remained the most controversial state institution. Legally and from the perspective of the ruling party, the NEBE is an independent structure that oversees the election administration in a neutral fashion. From the perspective of the opposition parties, however, the NEBE, whose members are appointed by the ruling party alone, is an outrageously partisan institution. Organisationally, the

6 On similar structures set up in Tigray and Oromiya states, see Segers et al. (2009) and Human Rights Watch (2005). 7 Th e kebele structure I described was basically what was in place 2005. In a recent book Desalegn Rahmato (2007, 249–52) reports of plans to reform the kebele structure in a way that will further deepen the incumbent’s party’s control of the society. 96 data dea barata

NEBE has full time employees at national, zonal and woreda levels. Th e kebele level (fi eld offi ce) is run by volunteers. A common and apparently justifi able complaint of the opposition parties that I heard is that since the government in offi ce single-handedly appoints and assigns the NEBE personnel from national to kebele offi ce, in practice this means that the ruling party handpicks its members or supporters as electoral personnel. Most Dawro farmers I interviewed perceived the personnel of the kebele-level NEBE offi ce as part of the government. Th e farmers could not see any diff erence, because these individuals who oversaw the election process at kebele level were chosen by the kebele executive and worked closely together. At times the electoral personnel were actually close associates (members of the same clan, affi nes or friends) of kebele administration leaders or other locally known members of the ruling party. Th e issue was not simply that the personnel of the electoral offi ce were appointed by the ruling party but also that they were highly dependent on it for logistic support, since the electoral offi ce oper ated with serious resource limitations. As the head of the zonal electoral offi ce complained, the Dawro zonal electoral offi ce was under- staff ed and underfunded. For instance, it did not even have any vehicles of its own. Th is is a serious constraint given the diffi cult terrain of Dawro zone. Th ough by law the zonal electoral offi ce is directly accountable only to the National Election Board, it was not diffi cult to see that the zonal electoral offi ce’s dependence on the goodwill of the zonal executive for logistical support infl uenced its functioning in signifi cant ways. For instance, the zonal chief of the electoral board disclosed that if he received a report about some problem somewhere, he had to ask the woreda or zonal administration – both staff ed exclusively with members of the ruling party – to borrow a vehicle from them. And if they felt that the investigation might be in favour of the opposition, the availability of a vehicle for the electoral offi ce would be de layed under some pretext. Th us, he might arrive aft er all the evidence had been cleared away. He also complained that members of the kebele level offi ce of the electoral board would heed instructions from the executives of kebele administration more than those from the electoral board hierarchy.8 However, the head of the zonal electoral

8 Th ere is a structural reason for this. Although members of the kebele-level NEBE offi ce are unpaid ‘volunteers’ recruited by the kebele administration, they do expect the family connection 97 offi ce argued strongly that the Dawro zone electoral offi ce always performed its job according to the law. To its credit, the Dawro opposition leaders acknowledged that there were cases where the zonal electoral offi ce intervened eff ectively following appeals by the opposition parties to reverse illegal acts by the ruling party that breached election laws and procedures. However, the overall attitude of members of the opposition towards the zonal, woreda and kebele electoral offi ces was that these were highly partial towards the ruling EPRDF, if only because they were appointed by it in the fi rst place. Th ree major parties presented candidates in Dawro zone for three seats in the national House of Peoples’ Representatives (HPR) and nine seats in the regional parliament. Th ese parties were the incumbent SEPDM/EPRDF (Southern Ethiopian Peoples’ Democratic Movement/ Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front), the CUD (Coa- lition for Unity and Democracy), and the UEDF (United Ethiopian Democratic Forces).9 Th e following table presents the election results of the candidates for the national parliament and the contested results. According to the results posted by the NEBE, the incumbent EPRDF won all three seats in the national House of Peoples’ Representatives and eight out of nine seats in the regional parliament. Altogether there were 38 candidates (10 for the national parliament and 28 for the regional parliament) from the four parties. Of these the EPRDF presented 12 candidates, of whom 11 ‘won’ parliamentary seats. Th e CUD won only one seat for the regional parliament. Th is result was fi ercely contested by the opposition parties, who accused the EPRDF of steal- ing votes in all three Dawro constituencies. Th e accusations are not too diff erent from those reported elsewhere in the country, such as stuffi ng some boxes with pre-marked ballots or chasing away non- pro-EPRDF observers during polling or vote counting in order to infl uence the results. Th e perception of the majority of ordinary people I interviewed overwhelmingly supported the opposition’s claim. Th e bottom line was that this was a very closely contested race. For instance, in Loma Bossa constituency the diff erence between the declared

some future rewards from the kebele executive. Th us, it is rational for these unemployed volunteers to maintain good relations with the kebele administration and through it with the state. 9 A lesser-known party called the SEPDFU (Southern Ethiopian People’s Democratic Forces’ Unity) only fi elded candidates for the national and regional parliaments in the Essara Tocha constituency. 98 data dea barata

Table 3.1 Candidates for the House of Peoples’ Representatives in three constituencies of Dawro zone Constitu- Candidate Education Party Votes Percent- Voter ency level affi liation age turnout 1. Esera Workinesh 12 + 2 EPRDF 18,202 58.27 75% Tocha WeJu (F) Degu Kumalo 12 + 2.5 CUD 10,026 32.10 Taye W/ 12 UEDF 1,584 5.07 Mariyam Abebe Areru 12 + 3 SEDFU 1,425 4.56 61% 2. Loma Bekele Bashu 12 + 1 EPRDF 11,112 48.65 Bosa Danial Danato 12 CUD 11,037 48.32 Filpos Cherko 12 + 1 UEDF 694 3.04 3.Mareka Danial 12 EPRDF 14,669 53.29 83% Gena Dessalegn Abera W/Yesus 12 + 1 CUD 10,658 38.72 Tadesse Kulu 11 UEDF 2,198 7.99 Source: National Election Board of Ethiopia (2005)

Table 3.2 Results of Forms 8 and 7 for Lomma Bossa constituency, Dawro zone, SNNPR Constituency Candidate Party Results Results Diff erence affi liation Form 8 Form 7 Loma Bosa Bekele Bashu EPRDF 11,112 11,280 -168 Kute Loma Bosa Danial Danato CUD 11,037 11,335 -298 Darota Loma Bosa Filpos Cherko UEDF 694 688 6 Langano Source: National Election Board of Ethiopia (2005) winner (EPRDF) and the second-placed candidate (CUD) was only 0.32 percent or 75 votes. Note the diff erence between the data in Forms 8 and 7 in Table 3.2. Table 3.2 shows that, according to the absolute number of votes reported in Form 7, the CUD won the majority of votes in Lomma Bossa constituency. However, there is a craft y rule in place that the family connection 99 allows electoral offi cials to disqualify some votes and decide a winner as per the votes they declare valid on Form 8. In the case of Loma Bossa, the electoral offi cials disqualifi ed more CUD votes (298) than EPRDF (168) and therefore the EPRDF candidate eventually won this constituency. Th ough these results as reported by the NEBE were a disappointment for the opposition these results were highly signif- icant for a broader understanding of the political process. First of all, it was signifi cant to witness that in a relatively remote constituency in Dawro where voter turn-out was only 61 percent (see table 1), and in a political context whereby the ruling EPRDF maintained absolute control of the state structure, the CUD came very close to actually winning this constituency against all odds. So how signifi cant was the role of traditional authority in this political contestation? in Dawro?

Rediscovering social and cultural capital

One way to approach this question is to look at the social background of the candidates. All of the 38 candidates (10 for national and 28 for regional parliament) fi elded by the four parties came from the ‘high yara’, the Malla cultural category. Th at most of the candidates should be from the Malla category may not come as much of a surprise, since the Malla make up over 90 percent of the total population of Dawro. But to have no non-Malla candidate at all appears to demonstrate the structural continuity of the traditional status hierarchy. If we look further into the internal genealogical complexity within Malla, we fi nd a signifi cant portion of the Malla were ‘non-pure Malla’, i.e. they have some history of internal slavery within the Dawro. Only six out of 38 candidates were non-pure Malla in that sense. In public discourse, references to a person’s yara background are generally disapproved of (in ways akin to political correctness), although the subtle, as well as not so subtle, practical relevance of yara is very much alive in practice. During the 2005 elections it was the incumbent EPRDF that fi rst sought to exploit the social and cultural capital of yara and all related Dawro insti tutions by deciding (informally) to ally itself with locally prestigious and dominant families. In an interview I did in Awassa, the SNNPR state capital, a former high-ranking SEPDM/ 100 data dea barata

EPRDF offi cial, who still has insider information about how the EPRDF operates, stated: During this [2005] election the EPRDF was so threatened by the strength of the opposition. So the EPRDF decided unoffi cially [his words] to fi nd candidates whose families have high social standing in their respective areas. Th is was clearly a move away from the criteria we used to use to fi ll key posts in the early EPRDF days [early 1990s]. Back then we simply looked at how smart and committed a person was; we did not really care about the person’s family background.10 However, a lower-level party offi cial I interviewed in Dawro agreed only partially and indirectly that the EPRDF took the family status into consideration when it recruited candidates. According to this offi cial, the criteria the EPRDF used to nominate its candidates included loyalty to the party, educational credentials, competence and skills, and a potential candidate’s popularity (or standing) in the society. Represent- atives of the two main opposition parties in Dawro responded to this question with less emphasis on party loyalty, which was an important criterion, though expressed in diff erent terms. A comparison of the credentials of all the candidates from the three parties that competed in Dawro indicates that, other than education credentials, all the other criteria used by the parties were aff ected by a Dawro candidate’s yara and clan status. In the course of this election, it was not just yara and clans that were dragged into politics but also other village institutions such as the idir (village housing and funeral associations), the churches, and even infl uential spirit mediums.11 However, here I shall only refer to a few instances that illustrate various ways in which yara and clan were made relevant. Th e cases also highlight that it was not only the EPRDF or the opposition parties that took advantage of the traditional institutions, but also some enterprising individuals who made good use of their favourable situations within the cultural power structure. Some of these individuals bravely went a signifi cant step further from what Scott calls ‘hidden transcripts’ or a ‘weapons of the weak’ strategy (Scott

10 Interview, June 2005, Awassa. 11 In highland Dawro, especially in Essra Tocha constituency where the spirit mediums (sharetcho) are still powerful, the EPRDF campaigners paid special attention to have the sharetcho on their side. An EPRDF cadre I talked to acknowledged that per- suading the sharetcho was a very important factor in the EPRDF’s victory, especially in the Essara Tocha constituency. the family connection 101

1985, 1990) in practising peasant resistance against the state’s abuse of power. A case in point is that of B.C., a 55-year-old man from the Malla yara and Gairero clan. Th is clan is both prestigious and popular in B.C.’s locality. B.C. was a Gagarasha – the leader of the main burial association of his village, a very powerful position in village politics. Although clan/yara background is generally an important factor infl u- encing the choice of idir leaders, it is not the only, or in some cases not even the most important, criterion. From what I gathered, B.C.’s clan background was indeed one important factor that helped him to become an idir leader. B.C. was one of those members of Dawro society who were highly disappointed with the ruling SEPDM/EPRDF. Specifi c SEPDM practices that negatively aff ected BC’s life were fi rst and foremost that the land tax he had to pay was too high, since the kebele made him pay separate land tax for his two houses (for his two wives) on one unit of land. Further more, B.C. was angered by a recent decision by the kebele agricul tural offi cer (known as the development agent) to mark off a portion of B.C.’s land near a kebele forest as yeden meret or forest land. B.C. thought that the kebele agricultural offi cer’s decision was unfair, but he could do nothing about it until the election made the state offi - cial look vulnerable. During the build-up to the 2005 elections, B.C. decided to go public with his criticism of the government and fi nally became one of the most outspoken Dawro farmer members of the CUD party. B.C. campaigned vigorously on behalf of the CUD in his village, using his leverage as leader of the village idir. He fi ne-tuned his criticism of the incumbent party so that it also refl ected the discontents shared by other people in his village. Many informants from this village believe that most of the votes in this village went to the CUD.12 In the immediate post-election period, B.C. came out as the winner in both symbolic and material terms as the local wing of the EPRDF in Dawro started by responding positively to most of the local criticism. Th ey gave B.C. back his land that had been declared forest land, and the kebele executive and party offi cials promised him that he would not be asked to pay land tax for the two houses separately. Th e fact that B.C. could openly criticise the government in offi ce and win back the land

12 However, I could not verify this, as the Election Board refused to allow me to look at the offi cial fi gures. 102 data dea barata he had lost augmented his status in important ways. People whose opinions mattered to him admired both the fact that he fought against the government for his rights and that he had won the battle. B.C.’s experience and its consequences to his life were at the rosier end of the election-related experiences in Dawro. Some experiences were the opposite of B.C.’s. For example, W.S. was also the leader of the main idir of his village. Unlike B.C., W.S. was not from the prestigious local Malla status groups but from the low-status group of smiths, though he himself does not do any smithy work. W.S. had managed to become a very popular leader of his neighbourhood idir a few years before the 2005 elections. He confi rmed that he was personally approached by the members of the ruling party asking him to mobilise members of his idir in support of the ruling party during the 2005 elections. W.S. agreed to do so, but his experience was far diff erent from that of B.C. above. In his own words: I appealed to the members of my idrea [village burial association] to support Hadego [EPRDF] which freed us from the brutal Mengistu administration and which worked so hard to realize democracy in this country. But people were so angry at me. In some instances some members threatened to physically chase me away when I mentioned the idea of supporting Hadego. Some idir members started talking about deposing me from the idir leadership. I then slowly retreated from preaching for Hadego. Th ey [idir members] were not listening to me anyway.13 In the face of popular discontent with the ruling EPRDF, W.S. came out as a highly discredited idir leader at the end of this election period. One further unfortunate negative social consequence was that people then started referring (negatively) to his blacksmith yara background, thereby stigmatising him further. An altogether diff erent story is that of T.A., which brings to light yet another way of resonance between traditional status and modern elections. T.A. was from the low-status group of Manna (potters), even more despised than W.S.’s smiths. According to the Dawro cultural division of labour, Mana women are potters whereas men play traditional musical instruments on various occasions. In the 2005 elections T.A. played his traditional role by blowing his lokua to call on people during voter registration, voter education and fi nally on the polling

13 Interview, August 2005. In other villages there are actually cases where idir leaders were deposed on such grounds. the family connection 103 day. His only ‘modern role’ in this election was to vote as a citizen, which was at least symbolically important. As T.A. recounts: I voted for SEPDM/EPRDF because I had heard the [EPRDF] cadres saying that the CUD wants to bring back the old time of Amhara/neft egna domination, and that they will make the Dawro people landless tenants again. Th erefore, even if I do not like this government, it is better than the Amhara government of the old days (…) But this government gave us empty democracy. Th ey gave us nothing, really nothing. I am still blowing my lokua, my wife is still burning her pots. During the elections you choose among those who were already chosen [the Malla]. Only the sons of those who ruled in the old days got elected now; no one will even consider making me a candidate, let alone voting for me.14 In the last sentence T.A. is referring to the fact that in his constituency two out of the three elected members of parliament were from the Dawro royal clan of Kawka. Th ough this is striking as a sociological fact and a glaring example of continuity, it is also necessary to note that the two candidates from the Kawka clan presented by the ruling party had the highest educational qualifi cations (a BA from the Civil Service College and an MSc from the best agricultural university in the country) of all the candidates in Dawro, including those fi elded by the opposition. One of them was the incumbent chief administrator of the Dawro zone at the time of these elections. So he meets a cultural criterion of coming from the royal Kawka clan as well the modern criterion of being well educated with many years of professional experience. So what is the problem with the EPRDF’s victory? Or what are the systemic cultural consequences of these elections?

Contested governance and legitimacy

Aft er Emperor Haile Selassie introduced a customised version of modern elections to Ethiopia as part of his 1955 constitutional reform, elections in imperial Ethiopia symbolised the opening of political space whereby individual candidates competed for seats in the Chamber of Deputies (lower house) (Markakis 1974; Aberra Jembere 1998). No political parties were legally allowed to operate; the emperor kept his prerogative to appoint members of the senate (upper house). Th us, it was a controlled competition that did not threaten the emperor’s power

14 Interview, August 2005. 104 data dea barata in any way. Th e Derg also organised ‘communist elections’ in which only members of the Workers’ Party of Ethiopia (WPE) run and won (Clapham 1988). Since the fi rst EPRDF era general elections in 1995, the current regime has so far organised four rounds of general elections and has won all of them. Focusing on the fi nal outcomes of elections held in Ethiopia thus far, we note a recurrent pattern that no incumbent regime has lost power through election. However, looking beyond this aggregate pattern might reveal signifi cant new patterns and dynamics, especially as regards how all of this plays out on the ground. In connection to this, a short conceptual refl ection is in order, focusing on the reconstitution of governance structures and traditions of legitimating power. Many observers of contemporary African politics have employed the concept of neo-patrimonialism in reference to peculiar political practices of combining old and new methods of maintaining or legitimating power (Bratton and van de Walle 1994; Médard 1996; Abbink 2000; 2006; Hansen 2003; Hagmann 2005; Th erkildsen 2005; Erdman and Engel 2007). Th e perspective of neo-patrimonialism is based on a highly selective reading of Weber’s explication of patrimonial authority. In Weber’s (1968) own conceptual exposition, patrimonialism is the form of authority legitimised on the basis of tradition and respect for what actually, allegedly, or presumably has always existed. Patrimonialism is one of Weber’s three ideal types of legitimate domination (the other two being charismatic and legal-rational). Reworking this basic Weberian terminology, the literature on neo-patrimonialism highlights the co-existence of legal-rational and patrimonial rules to legitimacy. Under a working neo-patrimonial system, ‘political legitimacy derives from a creatively imprecise interaction between “ancestral norms” and the logic of the modern state’ (Chabal and Daloz 1999, 9 emphasis added). Most analysts seem to agree that the system dubbed neo-patrimonial is essentially a hybrid political phenomenon in which traditional norms and bureaucratic rules interpenetrate each other. It is this hybridity and interpenetration between tradition and modernity that I am especially interested in highlighting with reference to neo-patrimonialism. Th e ethnography I have presented certainly manifests some aspects of neo-patrimonialism in this sense. However, I would like to focus on how the legal and moral question of legitimacy relates to the practical question of governance. Organising multi-party elections entails both. So how did the election controversy aff ect the winning EPRDF’s the family connection 105 legitimacy (or lack thereof) and the state’s ability or failure to govern? Th e intense involvement of traditional institutions in the 2005 elections in Dawro added interesting variables to the equation. From the perspective of those who ‘lost’, the EPRDF victory was illegal or illegitimate because it failed to follow the rules of modern election (legal- rational rules). Th e EPRDF also failed the traditional criterion by virtue of legislating and organising electoral politics and thus rejecting inheritance of political offi ce as well as the relevance of inherited family status to political offi ce. Like most other places in Ethiopia, post-election Dawro came close to being ungovernable. Only it was the threat (and occasionally) actual use of the police and special army units that kept the government in power. An overwhelming majority of a cross- section of ordinary Dawro that I interviewed believed that the regime emerged from the electoral controversy with less legitimacy than it had enjoyed before these elections. However, it is also important to look at the nuances of exactly how the Dawro politicians reacted to this post-election legitimacy and governance crisis. It seemed they took a two-pronged approach to it. First, the ruling party fully mobilised state institutions (the police force and army units, courts, electoral board, etc.) in its support. Second, the ruling party agents in Dawro, in their capacity as those in charge of local governance, informally negotiated with traditional leaders and local institutions to ‘calm down’ the post-election agitation. Th is entailed in some cases rewarding some vocal traditional leaders with plots of kebele-owned land, reversing some earlier unpopular offi cial decisions (see the case of B.C.), promising key youth activists job prospects in local the government, and so on. In addition, clan and affi nal networks (the family connection) that were used during the election campaign were also re-used to cope with the post-election crisis. Th ese strategies apparently worked in Dawro, in the sense that the situation was brought under control relatively quickly. All of these could be analysed as instances of neo-patrimonialism at work. A long-term observer of Ethiopia, Abbink (2000), suggested that neo-patrimonial traits on a seemingly ethnic basis are still present in the Ethiopian political system. Bratton and van de Waal (1994) asserted that, while political transitions in Eastern Europe or Latin America successfully moved away from authoritarian regimes, in Africa authoritarian regimes remained distinctively neo-patrimonial, thus impeding the transition to democratic governance. In the last few paragraphs, I have concurred with the view that the perspective 106 data dea barata of neo-patrimonialism could be used to highlight the challenges facing political transition in Ethiopia. However, I have not found any ground to suggest that there is something uniquely African about neo- patrimonial regimes. Variants of neo-patrimonial practices have been observed throughout the world (Eisenstadt 1973; Jowitt 1983; Durazo Herrmann 2010). Obviously there is an African context that permeates the emergence of regimes labelled as neo-patrimonial, just as there is a global (political, economic and academic) context that permeates the pigeonholing of African regimes as neo-patrimonial.

Conclusion

Th e preceding account examined how the Dawro cultural institution of yara and related institutions such as clans and village voluntary association of idir were made relevant in the context of the contested 2005 parliamentary elections. Th e material I have presented suggests that during these elections in Dawro there was a strong yet opportunistic synchronisation between the ‘traditional’ and ‘modern’ structures of power. It is implied that this election drew tradition and modernity closer to each other, rather than being an instance of a clear break with tradition. On the one hand, persons who commanded high cultural capital on the basis of local tradition (e.g. yara, or clan background) successfully contested political offi ce through modern elections. On the other hand, persons who stood at the lower end of traditional hierarchy played roles that simply reconfi rmed their disadvantaged position. Th us, the social consequences of this systemic interaction between Dawro cultural power structure and the modern state structure have dramatically diff erent impacts on the lives of people at the top and the bottom of the traditional hierarchy. For people at the top of the traditional hierarchy, their yara background was useful in more than one way – whether this was publicly acknowledged or not – in propelling them into materially and symbolically important political positions. In a tactical move to ensure victory in this closely contested election, the ruling party took the initiative of appropriating traditional structures during this election. Th e ruling party made the family connection relevant fi rstly by nominating as its candidates people who appeared to command signifi cant social and cultural capital due to their family yara and/or clan background. Secondly, the ruling party then used the the family connection 107 family connection of its candidates to mobilise support during the election campaign. Finally, the family connection was also useful for managing the post-election crisis. Th e opposition parties adopted a broadly similar strategy in order to prevent the ruling party from gaining a signifi cant advantage. In practice, this meant that in those places where the ruling party put forward a candidate from a locally prestigious yara/clan background, the opposition tried to ensure that it matched the ruling party’s candidate, either by fi nding a challenger from the same yara/clan, or by fi nding a person of at least equivalent cultural and social standing. Th is at times led to intra-clan confl icts. One greater consequence of appropriating traditional power structures in the context of this election was that culture became ‘politics-ridden’ without any corresponding politicisation of cultural inequalities such as those embodied in yara. Th e conclusion is not that yara or clans are especially resistant to democratisation, but rather that an elective affi n- ity of a kind was established between a particularly undemocratic aspect of traditional authority and a particularly traditional aspect of the modern Ethiopian state. Th is has serious negative implications for the chances of laying the foundations for democracy in society itself, as well as in state institutions.

Bibliography

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CHAPTER 4

A REVIVAL OF TRADITION? THE POWER OF CLANS AND SOCIAL STRATA IN THE WOLAYTA ELECTIONS

Lovise Aalen

Introduction

What do the traditional hierarchies of clans and social strata in Wolayta have to do with the political games of the 2005 elections? Do people see any links between the modern elections and traditional social and political categorisations? Aft er posing this question to informants in Wolayta aft er the elections, a relatively clear picture emerged: the political parties, and the ruling Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) in particular, are understood to be using the traditional hierarchy directly or indirectly to boost their power and legitimacy, and dominant clans are perceived as using their members in political positions to gain benefi ts. Th is chapter attempts to describe the notion of Wolayta traditional power and authority in the context of contemporary politics. Th rough an analysis of the history of social and political diversifi cation among the Wolayta, it explores how modern elections are interpreted and understood in relation to traditional expressions of power in Wolayta. How does thinking according to clan and social strata infl uence the selection of political parties and candidates? A central argument of this chapter is that the EPRDF’s takeover and introduction of ethnic federalism and self-determination for national groups in 1991 have revitalised the ideas of traditional hierarchies and social stratifi cation. Although the EPRDF used the rhetoric of revolutionary democracy and access to political offi ces for all, its emphasis on ethnicity has spurred the revival of Wolayta traditions, including those which promote diversifi cation of political power on the basis of membership of clans and social strata. Concomitantly, the offi cial national policy of ethnicity under the EPRDF takes for granted that ethnic groups are uniform and speak with one voice, and intra-ethnic contestations and issues of representation for diff erent sub-groups within the 112 lovise aalen ethnic entities are ignored, both constitutionally and politically. Consequently, historically despised minorities within the ethno-linguistic unit of Wolayta do not have rights to special representation under the ethnic federal system. Th e political focus on Wolayta identity and the resultant revival of clan-based political affi liations in Wolayta during the EPRDF is a contested process, in which the groups who are considered to belong to lower strata have tried to resist what they see as the continued dominance of the historically privileged clans. Th us, this chapter also aims to explain how the political games in the post-1991 period, including the recent elections, can be seen as refl ections of this contested process. Th e chapter starts off with an introduction to the history behind social and political stratifi cation in Wolayta, explaining the origin of clan politics as it appears today. Th e second part explores how the heritage of social and political stratifi cation was challenged by the egalitarian ideas of Socialist ideology during the Derg regime (1974–91) and the emergence of Protestantism in Wolayta, but was still maintained and upheld. Th e third and fourth sections provide analysis of how the introduction of ethnic federalism during the EPRDF has revitalised discriminatory practices and divisive politics, both in Ethiopia as a whole and in Wolayta. All this background information is necessary for an understanding of contemporary Wolayta politics, which is analysed in the fi nal two parts of this chapter. Here, party politics and the 2005 elections are addressed through analyses of popular perceptions of political competition and control, and the status of diff erent clans and social strata in Wolayta society.

Wolayta hierarchy: divine kingship, royal lineages, free peasantry, slaves and impure artisans

Th e use of clans as ‘social capital’ in contemporary politics can be viewed as an echo of the traditional Wolayta cosmology, in which clans and social strata are seen as part of the ‘natural’ order of society. Th is cosmology is rooted in the historical experiences of the Wolayta people and the positions of clans and social strata in the past political and social systems. Before incorporation into the Ethiopian state in 1894, the Wolayta people were organised in a highly centralised kingdom. During the Wolayta Malla kingdom (13th-16th century), society was divided into three strata/groups, according to strictly hierarchical principles. Th e clans (qomo) were at the top of the hierarchy, including a revival of tradition? 113 around 130 clans composed of both the ruling groups (‘the king’s children’ – kawona) and farmers (goqa). Below the qomo were the slaves (ayle) and then the occupational groups (hillancha) of artisans and craft smen. Th e Wolayta Malla was replaced in the 17th century by the Tigre dynasty, whose members, according to myth, originated from Tembien in Tigray region and were drawn southwards to Wolayta by trade relations. Th e Wolayta Malla and Tigre dynasties gave their names to the two highest ranked clans in Wolayta, while other clans claiming descent from the north have also traditionally been viewed as prestigious.1 Th e slaves and their descendants, the ayle, were clearly distinguished and kept apart from the members of the clans, but were still in a higher position than the occupational groups, the hillancha, in the hierarchy of the Wolayta society. Aft er the occupation of Wolayta in 1894, there were however some examples of former slaves who obtained a prominent position in the administration, such as the administrative leader fi tawrari Bakalu.2 Although he had a senior position in the Wolayta administration, his status was controversial, and insults against him were commonplace. Even aft er slavery was prohibited and eradicated, the descendants of slaves were distinguished from the other groups and were socially stigmatised.3 Th e occupational groups, which today are given the more politically correct name hillancha meaning ‘skilled workmen’, are equivalent to those described as fuga, occupational minorities, artisans, outcasts or castes in studies of minorities in other ethnic groups in Ethiopia (Freeman and Pankhurst 2003). Th roughout the history of Wolayta, they were the lowest and most despised groups, and included the

1 Chiatti (1984) claims that the Wolayta aristocracy was divided into two: the red (arsa) and the black (garetta). Th e red were those clans who descended from the north of Ethiopia, and were considered as more civilised and more able to rule than the black. Th e names of the clans are normally traced from the social group or clan they belonged to before they migrated to their area, place or ethnic group of origin or the specialisa- tion of the fi rst immigrants of the group they belong to. But today, common descent is assumed and not traceable (Haileyesus Seba 1996). 2 Fitawrari means literally ‘front leader’, and was a title given to administrators under imperial rule. 3 Although the state prohibited slavery under Haile Selassie, it was reported by missionaries in Wolayta up until 1931 (Balisky 1997). Th e Italian occupation brought an end to it by abolishing the neft egna system, introducing wage labour and controlling the shipments of slaves on the Red Sea. But aft er the Italians left , the peasants were again in the gabbar/neft egna relationship and domestic slavery, or serfdom, was still in operation. 114 lovise aalen chinasha (potters), the degela (tanners) and the wogache (smiths). Th e potters were the lowest ranked hillancha, but were also esteemed for their social skills.4 Before the Derg, occupational groups were not allowed to own cattle or land, and were only allowed to settle on the outskirts of villages. Belonging to a clan gave a person ‘citizenship’ in society, with all the rights and duties this entailed, while those belonging to the ayle and the hillanca were excluded from the citizenry and were treated as subjects (i.e. not seen as free human beings). Before Emperor Menelik’s conquest of Wolayta, the clans were the base for political units in which the clan elected their leaders at lineage level (dubusha) and at county level (dabua chima) (Chiatti 1984). Clan leaders handled land transac- tions, marriages and divorces, settled disputes, and had the authority to expel disobedient members from the clan. With Menelik’s occupation of Wolayta and the imposition of Amhara political leadership, the Wolayta kingdom lost its religious and political signifi cance. But the clan system and its social stratifi cation remained important for the organisation of Wolayta society. During the Imperial regime, access to power was also determined by individuals’ personal qualities, their wealth and political skills. Th e Hizia clan for example, originally from the lower part of the clan hierarchy, emerged as a powerful force in the 20th century due to its numerical domination in Wolayta and its members’ ability to obtain wealth and play other clans off against each other. From the 1930s to the 1950s, there was fi erce competition for power between the Tigre and Hizia clans (Chiatti 1984), and this competition is still refl ected in politics in Wolayta today.

Clanship today: in between norms, rhetoric, cosmology and practice

By the end of the Imperial regime, the Wolayta people’s traditional attitudes towards the clans, ayle and hillancha were counterbalanced by

4 At funerals and weddings, the potter men played music instruments and the women would sing and dance. Th ey were also known to be circumcisers, birth helpers and medical experts, and blow a horn in the villages to announce someone’s death. Due to their important social functions, Balisky (1997) and Chiatti (1984) rank the chinasha higher than the other occupational groups and the former slaves. Th e potters themselves also claim to have a higher position than the other hillancha, due to the fact they acted as executors and announcers of new laws for the king during the Wolayta kingdom (Interview with a male member of the chinasha, Soddo Zuria woreda, February 2006). a revival of tradition? 115 the impetus of modern ideas of egalitarianism.5 With the Marxist ideology of the Derg regime, the state promoted clear-cut norms above traditional hierarchies of clans and social strata. In accordance with the socialist theory of the time, the Derg classifi ed the higher clans as ‘reac- tionary’, while the ayle and hillancha were seen as the ‘oppressed’. Land reform eradicated the lower strata’s greatest material barrier to accept- ance as members of society – exclusion from land ownership. However, there was still not full equality between clans and social classes in regard to land ownership. Some clans gained more land due to their large populations and their dominant position in the Peasant Associations, or kebeles, which were responsible for the distribution of plots. Th is made the powerful and numerically dominant clans more advantaged than the others, and therefore historically privileged clans managed to a large extent to maintain their status.6 Protestantism came to Wolayta with the American-based Sudan Interior Mission (SIM) in 1929, which spread aft er the Italian occupation and became the predominant faith among the Wolayta during the 1970s and 1980s. Th e Protestants preached disregard for the hierarchical clan system, and despised groups were included in the church and allowed to join the members of higher clans in the same mahiber or prayer group (Balisky 1997); they were also involved in wider social aff airs through Protestant idir (Deressa Debu 1999). But the egalitarian message of the churches did not manage to break the taboo of marriages between higher and lower strata, even among Protestants, and in today’s running of church aff airs, clan membership still matters. As a Protestant church leader explained, people would not consider education and personal skills as the fi rst criteria in the election of elders in the church, but would instead fi nd out which clans the nominees belonged to before voting.7 Although the socialist ideology of the Derg and the spread of Protestantism made anti-hierarchical norms and rhetoric familiar to

5 Another factor that has indirectly contributed to a weakening of the clan system is the increasing scarcity of land in Wolayta. Traditionally, clan and kinship ties were strengthened by the handing-down of land to patrilineal descendants. But due to land scarcity, peasants do not have enough land to redistribute to their sons, and may prefer to do sharecropping (kotta) with non-kin. Th rough the kotta arrangement, the peasants become freer to suspend the sharing if it turns out to be disadvantageous, and have no obligations to take care of the sharecropper beyond what is strictly defi ned by the economical arrangement (Berhanu Bibiso 1995; Haileyesus Seba 1996). 6 Interview with elders, Soddo Zuria woreda, February 2006. 7 Interview with Protestant pastor, Soddo town, October 2005. 116 lovise aalen people, it appears that clans and social stratifi cation still have a fundamental impact on the way people interact in Wolayta society. Since the fall of the Derg in 1991, clans in Wolayta are once more described as their most important identity marker/means of identifi cation: ‘One can be recognised by a Wolayta as a Wolayta only through one’s clan’ (Haileyesus Seba 1996, 17). Violating the clan order is likely to lead to social sanctions and even personal misfortune: ‘If I abandon the clan principle or if I change the way my forefathers did it, that is something shameful and I will be ostracised,’ explained one elder in Soddo town.8 In everyday life, thinking along traditional lines of stratifi cation comes to the fore in the interaction of people from the higher and lower parts of the hierarchy. Informants in rural areas around Soddo, the zonal capital of Wolayta, explained that, as a sign of respect, they will always rise if a person from a higher clan arrives, and the people from higher clans will be served fi rst when a meal is shared between members of diff erent clans.9 In many rural areas of Wolayta, and particularly in Dalbo, the old seat of the Wolayta king, people claimed that they still accord especially high value to the Tigre clan. Several informants, including the younger generations, told me that if they meet a man from the Tigre clan on their way, they would greet him as goddo (king’s son) or getoch (our lord), or for a Tigre woman kawona bie (king’s daughter). Th e traditional ways of showing respect to the higher clans may be more widespread in rural than in urban areas, because urban people’s education and individual wealth may have undermined some of the old stratifi cations. However, one factor seems to be relevant in both rural and urban areas: the restrictions imposed by the clan system on the choice of spouse. A large majority of the informants during fi eldwork in 2005 and 2006 – independent of their age, gender, education level, religious orientation and social status – stated that the most important function of the clans today was the restrictions they imposed on marriages. Apart from the prohibition of marrying within the same clan,

8 Interviewed in October 2005. According to traditional Wolayta beliefs, the expla- nation and justifi cation of social stratifi cation is linked to a higher moral law and the spirit of prohibition, called gome. Gome clearly spells out what is right and wrong in Wolayta society, and also passes judgement and punishment on those who fail to con- form to social norms – including challenging the hierarchy. If a person is hit by gome, he has violated the proper values, and will therefore be affl icted by a ‘deserved’ suff ering, a supernatural penalty for breaking religious and social rules (Deressa Debu 1999). 9 Interviews in October 2005 and February 2006. a revival of tradition? 117 the rank of the clans is also seen as important when choosing a spouse. A person from what is perceived as a higher clan would not marry a person from a clan at the bottom of the hierarchy. Marriages between members of the higher status clans and members of the hillancha or ayle groups are likely to lead to social isolation and exclusion from the community. An elder in Wolayta Soddo told me about his personal experience in this regard: I belong to one of the higher clans, while my wife is a kawona, a relative of the last Wolayta king, Tona. Still, I gave my daughter to an ayle. I want to interlink with them since I believe in human equality. For my daughter’s wedding ceremony, I distributed many invitation cards, but people refused to come, even my relatives.10 In my conversations with informants about the topic, people initially stated that they were, for instance, clearly against the stigmatisation and exclusion of the hillancha. Yet when it came to making concrete choices in their everyday life, they revealed that the traditional cosmology of hierarchies came to the fore. So it is apparent that the anti-hierarchical imperatives of religion and ideology do not have a practical impact on some of the most fundamental aspects of social life.

A revival of discriminatory practices under ethnic federalism?

Several studies of traditionally marginalised groups in Ethiopia in the post-1991 period indicate that the status of minorities within larger ethnic groups has not been substantially improved under the reign of the EPRDF compared to their situation during the Derg, despite the current government’s rhetoric of human rights and democracy (Freeman and Pankhurst 2003). Research on the Weyto, a minority group who traditionally used to live and work as hunters around Bahir Dar and Lake Tana in Amhara Region, indicates that the social and political position of this particular marginalised group – and possibly others – has not progressed signifi cantly since 1991 (Zerihun Abebe Woldeselassie 2001). Aft er the EPRDF came to power, the Weyto established their own political organisation and were recognised as a separate group in the 1994 national population census. Although the new constitution gives every ethnic group the right to ‘self-determination’

10 Interview with elder, Soddo, February 2006. 118 lovise aalen

(FDRE 1995, Art. 39), they were not granted any representation in local, regional or national administrative structures. Th e study documents that many of the previous discriminatory practices that were repressed for ideological reasons during the Derg have re-emerged with the EPRDF’s policy of ethnic federalism. Academic work on the Dawro, a neighbouring group of the Wolayta in South Ethiopia, also indicates that the EPRDF’s identity politics is reproducing rather than challenging traditional inequalities and hierarchies (Data Dea 2003a and in this volume). Like the Wolayta, Dawro society has historically been organised along hierarchies of clans and social strata, with the manja, the artisan group, at the bottom of the hierarchy. Th e study documents that the EPRDF regime relies on the old hierarchies to gain legitimacy among the Dawro and that it is diffi cult for the descendants of the manja to challenge this hierarchy and gain political power. Th ere are, however, examples of marginalised groups that have managed to improve their position within their ethnic community and have obtained separate entities for political and administrative representation. In Sidama, another neighbouring group of the Wolayta, the traditionally despised artisans, the hadicho, have been recognised as a separate group from the larger Sidama group and given their own woreda administration in 1992 (Dara woreda in Sidama zone). Supported by the EPRDF, they established their own political party, the Sidama-Hadicho People’s Democratic Organisation, ahead of the 2000 general elections, and were represented in the zonal council and in the regional and national parliaments. Unlike most other occupational minorities in Ethiopia who live scattered within one or several ethnic communities, hadicho settlements are relatively concentrated and have an active elite that defends their rights. It has therefore been somewhat easier for them to mobilise the community in the struggle to change the group’s social status and political position (Solberg 2002). Th e hadicho case demonstrates that minorities should not be viewed uniformly as victims of the new political order. It shows that in instances where marginalised groups have managed to organise and where their interests converge with those of the EPRDF, they can actually improve their position in society. Due to the ruling party’s pragmatic approach to local realities and their basic interest in promoting organisations and movements that enhance the party’s power and position in communities, they may allow marginalised groups to advance, as they did in Sidama. Th e situation in Kaff a/Sheka zone in the south-west of the a revival of tradition? 119

Southern region, however, is an example of the opposite. Th e local hunter group, the manja, has been campaigning for proportional representation in the local administration since the mid-1990s, but to no avail (Vaughan 2003). Unlike the hadicho, the manja live dispersed among several ethnic communities in the zone and have not been able to gain recognition from the ruling party or the local government as a special group. Th e confl ict between the manja and the Kafecho majority on the issue of representation and control of local administration led to several outbreaks of violence in the zone in 2002. With the exception of the hadicho, the cases referred to above illustrate that the combination of the EPRDF’s promotion of ethnicity as the major organising principle and its pragmatic power politics towards local communities is likely to reproduce, rather than challenge, traditional hierarchies. Since descendants of historically privileged clans and other dominant social groups have retained high social esteem within ethnic groups, the ruling party is most likely to choose them – and not the traditionally despised groups – as allies in the creation of party-loyal local elites. As Sarah Vaughan (2003, 277–8) writes in her evaluation of the situation in Kaff a/Shakecho zone, this approach may revitalise prejudicial practices: EPRDF administrators advocate a much more cautious approach to changing social norms than did their predecessors. Th is approach, in combination with the devolved ethnic administration established under federalism, results in a situation where local administrators, civil servants, judges, and police offi cers originate locally, share local prejudices and experience little sanction from either government or ruling party organs of views whose extreme intolerance may confl ict with the constitutional protection of the constituents they are elected or recruited to serve.

Wolayta under ethnic federalism: revived hierarchy and contests of identity and administration

Similar to developments among the Weyto and in Dawro, Sidama and Kaff a, it has been claimed that “a general cultural revival” has also taken place in Wolayta. It appears to have emerged in the fi nal years of the Derg and was spurred on by the advent of the present government (Haileyesus Seba 1996). Th is revival is manifest in people’s emphasis on their clan affi liation. It appears that clans have regained 120 lovise aalen their legitimacy as a basis for power, belongingness and representation. One way of explaining this revival is that the state lost legitimacy and the world became more chaotic in the fi nal years of the Derg. Th e Marxist ideology was no longer the guiding star, and people may have felt a crisis of identity. In this situation, they turned to past Wolayta traditions and culture, and found some security in the social organisation of the traditional hierarchies. In his study of Boloso woreda in Wolayta during the fi nal years of the Derg regime, Dessalegn Rahmato (1991, 169) claims that in a time of crisis ‘tradition’ was ‘a medium of peasant struggles for security and autonomy’. During a crisis, ‘associa- tive forms of social life come to the fore and individualistic values (…) recede to the background’ (169).11 Another way of explaining the revival of traditions is that with the emergence of the EPRDF’s ethnically based federal system, people have been compelled to ask who they are and where they come from. Th is process may not only lead to clearer inter-ethnic boundaries among ethnic communities, but may also make people turn inwards towards their own community, enhancing intra-ethnic social and cultural boundaries, which in Wolayta means clans and social strata. One expression of a revival of clans as units of representation and power is the re-emergence or creation of clan-based idir (däbo idir). In Wolayta, the idir (originally an informal burial association) has most commonly been organised around church membership, neighbourhood or gender. Th e clan idir, however, is specifi cally based on clans, and is aimed at strengthening kin relations that have been weakened.12 It may not include all clan members in an area, but only members in the vicinity or from one lineage. According to informants in Soddo Zuria and Damot Gale woreda, the clan idir existed informally during the Haile Selassie era but was destroyed during the Derg. It re-emerged again with the EPRDF.13 Th e clan idir is not present in all communities

11 Although Dessalegn Rahmato’s study does not deal with the re-emergence of clans as the basis for organisations, he stresses the importance of collective, rather than individual, forms of association, and the search for tradition instead of modernity in times of crisis. So his assumption may also be relevant when explaining the revitalisation of old clan solidarity. 12 Th e clan idir has essentially the same functions as other idir: collecting money for weddings and funerals, providing support for medical treatment etc., credit services and organising collective house construction. 13 Interview with elders in diff erent locations in Soddo Zuria and Damot Gale woreda, October 2005 and February 2006. Chiatti (1984) also confi rms the existence of a revival of tradition? 121 in Wolayta. It appears to be most common in rural areas, but informants told me that there were also clan-based idir in the urban areas of Wolayta and in Addis Ababa, particularly among the prestigious clans of Wolayta Malla and Tigre. Th e Protestant churches preach against clan idirs and see them as divisive and devilish. So, for Protestants, the church idir tends to be more important than the clan idir. Th e EPRDF does not offi cially encourage or discourage the establishment of clan idir, but appears silently to accept it. Members of the educated elite in Soddo say that, on the one hand, clan idir are not good, because they exclude the ayle and the hillancha. So, they say that the revival of clan idir may increase divisions among the Wolayta people. Th ey argue that in order to overcome traditional social stratifi cation and the stigmatisation of the former slaves and occupational groups, organisation along clan lines should be avoided. But on the other hand, they say that the clan idirs are positive, because they aim to maintain the traditions and identity of Wolayta. In this sense, the re-emergence of däbo idir may be justifi ed in a political order of ethnic federalism, because it enhances the specifi c traditions of the Wolayta. Although the educated elite is ambivalent towards the clan idir, they appear to be the main actors behind the revitalisation of old hierarchies. In Soddo town, for example, a number of respected elders including teachers, pharmacists and merchants have been trying to organise clan-based organisations and have been instrumental in putting Wolayta traditions, language and culture on the agenda in the zone and the region. Th e re-enforcement of old hierarchies in Wolayta is, however, a disputed process. Like the Weyto, manja and hadicho, the hillancha and ayle are not passive victims of the exclusive clan mentality, but try to defend their right to take part in societal aff airs and defi ne the traditions and cultures of Wolayta in their own way. In some areas, the occupational minorities and the descendants of the slaves have established their own idir. Th e ayle appear to have a strong, but informal and largely hidden, form of organisation. Th e name of their idir – ye andennet idir (unity idir) – indicates that the ayle want to fi ght for the unity of the Wolayta people, and not for the division along clans and social strata.14 clan idir in the pre-Derg era, while Haileyesus Seba (1996) argues that it is a recent phenomenon, established at the end of the Derg regime. 14 Interviews with teacher, Soddo Zuria woreda, February 2006. 122 lovise aalen

Although the traditionally despised groups in Wolayta may still be considered to be excluded from the major political processes during the EPRDF regime, members of the ayle and hillancha groups hold political positions, particularly at lower administrative level. But many people are not willing to recognise them as fully legitimate leaders: At this time, there are leaders from lower strata. People will give them respect because of their position, but still not for their social status. People will talk about their status behind their back and will create rumours and conspire against them because of their assumed inferiority.15 It seems diffi cult for members of the higher clans to accept that descendants of ‘the impure’ should decide on their aff airs. A song that is still quoted, although it is now considered derogatory and not sung in public, refers to Bakalu, the slave who was appointed as a fi tawrari in the last days of the Wolayta kingdom: Bakalu ayle gedene (Bakalu is a slave) Bakuloy hare gedene (A mule is a donkey) Battery kobo gedene (Th e torch is empty [non-functional]). Th ese lyrics can be interpreted along the following lines: just as a mule will always be like a donkey, Bakalu will always be a slave and, like a torch without light, the ayle leader has no knowledge and cannot guide the people. Major political events in Wolayta aft er 1991 can be understood as expressions of the tension created by the contested hierarchies in Wolayta. One of these events is the so-called Wogagoda crisis, which unleashed confl icts not only related to language, but also to identity and administration. Since the time of the Derg, Wolayta has been a part of the larger North Omo administrative area, which also included the Dawro, Gamo and Gofa ethnic groups. Community leaders in Wolayta, however, have always claimed that the Wolayta is a distinct group from the other groups within North Omo, with a separate language and culture. Since the 1995 Ethiopian constitution gives national groups the right to self-determination, they have claimed that the constitution gives the Wolayta the right to a separate administrative zone from the larger North Omo. However, the regional government argued that the Wolayta language and culture are not easily distinguishable from those

15 Interview with elder, Soddo Zuria woreda, February 2006. a revival of tradition? 123 of the other groups, and therefore, the Wolayta should not benefi t from any right to self-determination. In 1998, the regional government tried to replace the various indigenous tongues in the zone with an artifi cially constructed composite language common to all the North Omo groups. Th e language was called ‘Wogagoda’, a short name for the Wolayta, Gamo, Gofa and Dawro ethnic groups. Th e regional government attempted to introduce Wogagoda as a standardised language for education and administration in the zone. Th is infuriated people, particularly in Wolayta, and led to violent resistance from students, teachers and civil servants. Many people were intimidated, imprisoned or killed by local police and federal security forces in November 1999. Th e regional government fi nally gave in to the protesters’ demands and withdrew the new language from administration and education; but the language issue had triggered the fi ght and strengthened support for an independent Wolayta zone. Th e Wolayta ended up achieving zone status in November 2000.16 Th e Wogagoda crisis may appear to be a confl ict pitting a unifi ed Wolayta against the EPRDF controlled regional and zonal governments. Yet a deeper analysis of the confl ict reveals that the Wolayta people were not as uniformly opposed to the new language as it initially appeared, and that the positions for or against it partly refl ect old hierarchies. When discussing the issues of traditional hierarchies and current politics, many informants have claimed that the lower strata (the traditionally despised groups) favoured Wogagoda, while the educated elites from the higher clans directed the struggle against it. Elders who led the struggle against the language and for the separate administration even claimed that the despised groups were the engineers behind Wogagoda: Th e Wogagoda was designed and organised by the lower strata, the former degela, chinasha, wogache and ayle. Th e reason for this is that they wanted to break the history of Wolayta and its hierarchy. Th ey have informal organisations underground, trying to dominate the higher strata.17 Despite these claims, this study has not been able to document any concrete role played by persons from these groups in the introduction of Wogagoda. Still, the introduction of Wogagoda may have appeared

16 See also Data Dea (2003b) and Vaughan (2003). 17 Interview with zonal offi cial, Soddo town, February 2006. 124 lovise aalen as an opportunity for redefi ning the Wolayta identity as a part of a larger North Omo, without the division between the clans, ayle and hillancha categories: ‘If Wolayta exists, my being a slave will last for- ever,’ was what the descendants of the slaves were quoted as saying.18 A further indication of the fundamental impact the Wogagoda issue had on the contested defi nition of Wolayta identity was that the clan idir grew stronger aft er the crisis, as a way of securing the interests of the clan members and protecting the ‘proper Wolayta culture’ from external and internal attacks.19

Popular perceptions about the 2005 polls: the EPRDF’s victory is a result of its control of kebele and clans

Th e EPRDF was declared the winner of the May 2005 elections in Wolayta zone, but the opposition party the Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD) won two constituencies in Damot Gale woreda.20 A third opposition party, the United Ethiopian Democratic Forces (UEDF), popularly known as Hibret or ‘union’ in Amharic, had candidates in every constituency but did not win any seats. A majority of the people I talked to in the urban centres of Soddo and Boditi claimed that the EPRDF’s victory was not a result of genuine support for the party, but rather an outcome of the party’s control apparatus in the zone and its manipulation of the election results. However, voters in rural areas were more cautious in their evaluation of the elections. Some of the rural voters I talked to saw the EPRDF’s victory as a result of the party’s ability to campaign and provide services to the people.21 A common denominator in all the popular

18 Th e information about the relationship between Wogagoda and the traditionally despised groups was obtained though conversations with mostly non-ayle and non- hillancha. It was diffi cult to get any confi rmation from the traditionally despised groups themselves, partly because descendants of slaves cannot be approached as members of the ayle group due to the social stigma it implies, and partly as a result of the ‘political incorrectness’ of favouring Wogagoda. 19 Interview with elders who led the campaign against the Wogagoda language in Soddo town, February 2006. 20 Th e fi eldwork for this article was done in two woreda, Damot Gale and Soddo Zuria. In the two constituencies in Damot Gale, the CUD won with 44.5 and 37.4 percent. In the two constituencies of Soddo Zuria, EPRDF won with 60.5 and 56.9 percent. 21 None of these statements can be verifi ed by technical evidence or other proof, since the author was not present during the elections in Wolayta and no other observer a revival of tradition? 125 statements about the elections was the claim that the EPRDF, through its command of the kebele system and its sub-structures, was able to reach the voters in a way that neither of the other two parties could. A rural voter in Soddo Zuria explains it like this: I attended meetings at the kebele organised by the EPRDF. Th e opposition parties did not assemble us; we don’t know anything about them. We were simply ordered by the kebele.22 A chairman of a sub-kebele in Soddo Zuria woreda from the chinasha group gave a vivid description of his unequivocal relationship with the EPRDF. In line with offi cial EPRDF rhetoric, he said that the EPRDF got the most support because of the freedom, democracy and equality of religion the party gave to the people. Later in the conversation, when describing his role as a sub-kebele chairman in the election campaign, the same man argued that people voted for the EPRDF because of fear: Th e party cadres told us to watch the opposition meetings during the campaign and report the names of the participants of the meetings to them. So I went there to see and report. We fear the EPRDF, and that’s why we vote for them.23 As a result of the general lack of separation between the state and the party apparatus, it appeared that the EPRDF was able to exploit the services provided by the government for its own benefi t. One such service was the multi-donor-funded productive safety net programme,24 which was organised and distributed by the kebele and sub-kebele structures. Some of the informants were vocal in their support for the EPRDF and linked their victory to the party’s ability to provide help to the needy: Th e majority of the voters gave their votes to the EPRDF because of its help to the poor. Th ere has been a severe famine here, and the EPRDF gave relief aid and even helped reconstruct houses for widows. People are

teams or election offi cials have published specifi c information about the elections in Wolayta. Th ese statements should therefore be seen as popular perceptions about the polls and not as descriptions of actual fact. 22 Interview with women, Soddo Zuria woreda, October 2005. 23 Interview with sub-kebele chairman, Soddo Zuria woreda, February 2006. 24 Th e Productive Safety Net Programme is one of the most extensive aid programmes in Ethiopia and has been funded by various UN agencies, the World Bank, USAID, CIDA and others. Community work programmes such as road-building are initiated countrywide, whereby the rural poor are paid for work in food or cash to help protect and insulate them from the eff ects of drought and poor harvests (IRIN 2004). 126 lovise aalen

not happy with the heavy taxation of the EPRDF government, but people support them because the party gives relief aid.25 In other instances, the promises of aid by the EPRDF went unfulfi lled. Th is may have been one of the reasons for voters turning their back on the party in Damot Gale woreda. A peasant in this woreda recounted his experience of unfulfi lled promises during the election campaign: On the Friday before polling day, the EPRDF called the peasants in this area and told them that there would be distribution of wheat in Soddo. We were told to bring containers for the wheat. I went myself, but there was no wheat. When people reached Soddo, they asked where the wheat was, but the EPRDF cadres told us that we would be given it aft er the party rally was over. We then asked: ‘Where is our wheat?’ and they replied, ‘Th ere is no wheat today, we don’t have it. We will give you it aft er the elections!’ Aft er that people said, ‘You are cheating us, and in the future you will cheat us. For that reason we will vote for the CUD.’ So in this kebele, the CUD won, and that was confi rmed in the offi cial results.26 Both the CUD and the UEDF claim that the majority of their observers were kicked out of polling stations on election day so that the ruling party people were left alone to count and sign the results, and in some instances take the ballot boxes and leave.27 Th e CUD claims that most of its observers were jailed by the police and that this gave the ruling party a chance to loot the ballot boxes and stuff them with their own ballot papers.28 Despite accusations of fraud, the CUD managed to win in Boditi town and in the rural parts of Damot Gale woreda. CUD offi - cials explain this exception by the fact that the higher offi cials in the woreda were working with them and allowed the election offi cials from the NEBE to work according to electoral law.29 In the Wolayta elections,

25 Interview with peasant, Soddo Zuria woreda, October 2006. 26 Interview with peasant, Damot Gale woreda, February 2006. 27 According to the electoral law, all parties in the elections have the right to appoint observers who should oversee the voting and ballot counts in every polling station where they have candidates. 28 However, these opposition complaints were not taken seriously by the National Election Board of Ethiopia (NEBE). Of the 299 contested constituencies at national level aft er the elections, thirty-two of them were in Wolayta zone. Aft er the complaint investigation teams assigned by NEBE had carried out a preliminary evaluation, they prioritised investigations in the two constituencies in Soddo town. Th e fi nal conclusion of the investigation teams, however, recommended no re-elections in Wolayta. Interviews with offi cials from one of the CUD parties, the All Ethiopian Unity Party (AEUP), Soddo town, October 2006. 29 Interview with AEUP offi cial, Soddo, October 2005. a revival of tradition? 127 it was apparent that the CUD was seen as the main challenger to the ruling party and the UEDF as a relatively weaker opposition party without a strong capacity to convince voters. But why did the CUD and not the UEDF turn out to be an alternative for EPRDF? People are aware of the fact that Southern Ethiopian Peoples’ Democratic Coalition’s (SEPDC) founder, Professor Beyene Petros, is from Hadiya, the neighbouring zone to Wolayta and that relations have historically been tense between Hadiya and Wolayta. Th e EPRDF appears to have exploited this fact in the campaign, and it was reported that the ruling party spread a rumour that Professor Beyene would redraw the borders of Wolayta land in favour of his Hadiya people.30 Moreover, the CUD was apparently much more eff ective at campaigning than the UEDF and managed to spread their programme by employing students to distribute pamphlets door to door, in urban as well as rural areas. Both opposition parties were accused by the ruling party of being the new neft egna, who want to ‘re-impose the old feudal rule’. Th e EPRDF told people not to elect the opposition, because they would take the land and give it back to the previous landlords. Th is was a powerful message among the Wolayta, whose memories of the suff ering brought by the Menelik conquest and Imperial/Amhara rule are still raw: Th is area used to be governed by the Amhara, so people listened to the warnings of the ruling party. Th e idea that the CUD was bringing back neft egna is believed here, so the campaign of the EPRDF was successful.31

Traditional hierarchies and the 2005 elections

Th e ruling party’s control of the kebele, its alleged use of relief aid and its harsh campaigns against the opposition give us part of the explana- tion for the incumbent’s victory in the 2005 elections in Wolayta. But what do the traditional hierarchies of Wolayta have to do with the political games of the 2005 elections? Do people see any links between the modern elections and the traditional categorisation according to clan and social strata? It seems clear that all the political parties, and

30 Interview with zonal offi cial, Soddo town, February 2006. 31 Interview with peasant, Soddo Zuria woreda, October 2005. 128 lovise aalen the ERPDF in particular, are understood to be using the traditional hierarchy directly or indirectly to boost their power and legitimacy, and dominant clans are perceived as using their members in political positions to gain benefi ts. Th is practice relies on the well-established tradition in society: One occasion where clans traditionally have mattered is in the appointment of chiefs and local leaders. Families of the same clan cooperate to get the help and popular support and prestige that a man needs for political achievement. If people from the same clan compete for the same offi ce, the issue is settled by the däbo idir, the assembly of the clan. (Chiatti 1984, 160) Th e quote from Chiatti above refers to the political situation in Wolayta before the Derg came to power in 1974. At that time, the powerful, infl uential intervention by a higher man in the clan was sought with the promise of reward and support in the future. Th is attitude appears to be emulated in contemporary Wolayta. Th ere is still a widespread perception that powerful individuals facilitate access to resources and positions for members of their own clans. Continuing attitudes from the pre-Derg era, the Tigre and Hizia are perceived as the most powerful clans. A common claim is that the majority of the heads in the zone administration are Tigre or Hizia. Representatives of the UEDF and the CUD have continuously argued that the EPRDF exploits the clan system to its own advantage, quoting the example of the president of Southern region, Haile Mariam Dessalegn, who allegedly used his family and clan, the Hizia, to gain support in the election.32 Yet the UEDF has also been accused of using clans in their election campaigns. In Soddo Zuria woreda, voters told me that representatives of the UEDF’s member of parliament, Mulu Meja, came and called on all the members of his clan and went campaigning to the houses of his clan members.33 Offi cial EPRDF rhetoric has it that clans and the traditional social stratifi cation are not a good and appropriate basis for modern politics. EPRDF offi cials also argue that the Wolayta people have rejected the

32 Th e opposition claimed that before the 2005 election, the president appointed his nephew administrator of his home woreda, Boloso Sore, and as a consequence the whole woreda became staff ed with Haile Mariam’s relatives. Th e truth of this claim could not be verifi ed by the author. 33 Interviews in Soddo Zuria woreda, February 2006. a revival of tradition? 129 principle of clan-based politics and prefer to vote for candidates who stand for other areas of competence than clan power: Th ere are 115 clans in this area, but only two or three of them have dominated historically. So to base politics on clan lines is not good. Th e most prominent UEDF candidate here is from the dominant clan, the Tigre. But still he was not elected. So people do not want this. Th ey want to elect leaders on the basis of merit and education. If I want to benefi t my clan members, I cannot do so. It would be very unpopular with the people. Commitment to the right political attitude is what matters in the appointment of political leaders.34 In some instances, the EPRDF tried to disqualify CUD candidates on the premise that they came from higher clans: In our village, the EPRDF campaigned against the CUD by pointing to the fact that the CUD candidate is a kawona. Th ey spread rumours that the candidate would take the land and give it to her own clan. So the fact that she comes from a higher clan was used against her.35 Despite the EPRDF’s anti-clan rhetoric, many informants who supported the opposition stated that if they wanted to eradicate the EPRDF, they had to replace the people from the dominant clans. Th e CUD’s victory in Boditi town, for example, was described by some as a result of the mobilisation of competing clans against the dominant clan: Th e most powerful clan in this woreda [Damot Gale] is the Tigre; they are dominant and wealthy. Th e Tigre try to impose their will on other clans through the control of the EPRDF. Most of the opposition supporters are from the competing clan, the Wolayta Malla. Th eir intention is to weaken the Tigre. In collaboration with other clans, the EPRDF and the Tigre were voted out of offi ce.36 Protestant churches, as proponents of anti-hierarchical values, may be seen as a counterbalance to exclusively clan-based politics in the 2005 elections. But the churches themselves have also been accused by politicians of being recruiting grounds for political support. Since the structures of clans and churches are so strong in Wolayta, they are the sources of serious sanctions in society. Consequently, those who control these institutions also wield enormous power to defi ne social conduct and political representation in society. CUD offi cials in particular

34 Interview with chairman of Boditi municipality, October 2005. 35 Interview with teacher, Soddo Zuria woreda, February 2006. 36 Interview with CUD offi cial, Boditi town, October 2006. 130 lovise aalen argued that the political organisation of the EPRDF is based on both clan and religion. According to the CUD, an individual coming to power is likely to give positions to people not only from his own clan but also from the congregation he belongs to.37 Some churches are also perceived to be dominant among political leaders, such as Hawariat (Apostolic church), of which the then regional president, Haile Mariam Dessalegn, was a member. Otherwise, the Kale Hiwot church, which is the largest church in Wolayta in terms of members, is probably the most powerful. In the mutual accusations between the ruling party and the opposition during the election campaign about the exploitation of clan power, the main issue was the role of the higher and historically privileged clans. Th e role and exclusion of the despised groups of former slaves and occupational minorities were not on the agenda of any of the political parties. One reason for their silence may be that the two groups lack formal organisations to represent their interests. Another reason may be that these groups are still enveloped in such strong social stigma that it prevents them from revealing their status and standing up for the rights of their groups. In the aft ermath of the elections, however, a pamphlet was twice distributed secretly in Soddo (January 2006), claiming that the Hizia and Tigre clans dominated society and urging people to mobilise against them. It appeared that the objective of those who wrote the pamphlet was to call on the goqa majority (the peasants) to rise up against the kawona (Tigre) and Hizia minorities. Th ere was no signature or organisational stamp on the paper, but according to many informants it seemed to originate from the informal organisations of the ayle. In addition to attacking the Hizia and the kawona, it also accused the ruling party and the Amhara of monopolising political power in Wolayta. It asked for a revision of Wolayta history in order to expose the misdeeds of the Hizia and Tigre clans and presented a list of areas in society where the goqa are oppressed by this minority, for instance their exclusion from education and discrimination against them in the court system and in the assignment of political and administrative posts.38

37 Interview with AEUP offi cials, Soddo, October 2006. 38 Th e pamphlet also accused the Hizia and kawona of having a derogatory attitude towards the goqa majority and the two clans were quoted as saying: ‘Goqa and donkeys are similar. If they don’t get enough food to eat, they don’t care for anything. If they are satisfi ed with enough food, they don’t care about the future. Th ey live only to eat, not to think; they don’t have any intellectual capacity.’ a revival of tradition? 131

Photograph 1: Pamphlet ‘If we don’t mix, the ending will soon come’

Note: Unoffi cial Amharic translation.

As mentioned above, the educated elite in the towns of Wolayta was instrumental in reviving clan-based organisations. Aft er the elections, however, criticism of a revived traditional hierarchy in Wolayta was not only voiced by the despised groups, but also promoted by parts of the 132 lovise aalen educated elite in Soddo. In the election aft ermath, the EPRDF has been trying to reclaim the support and legitimacy it apparently lost in the elections by organising ‘democracy’ conferences for development agents, health workers and teachers. During a three-week conference for teachers in the zone in 2006, concepts of democracy and other issues were discussed, with televised introductions by EPRDF cabinet ministers. Th e issue of clan power in Wolayta was one of the most debated in Soddo town. It was claimed that clan mentality was much stronger now than during the Derg and that it acted to safeguard the ruling party’s power. Teachers at the conference argued that the principle of self-determination for nationalities had not only stimulated a stronger focus on ethnic identities, but had also revived the traditional hierarchies in Wolayta: ‘Th e EPRDF’s policy is to focus on nationality, which means that anyone has to know his ethnicity. In Wolayta, the logical step from this is to look at clans.’39 Recent reports from Wolayta indicate that the clan politics of the 2005 elections have been upheld also in the local woreda and kebele elections in 2008 and in the national elections in 2010. In both polls, the EPRDF won with a larger margin than in 2005 (Aalen and Tronvoll 2009; Tronvoll 2011). Th e major opposition parties – the CUD and the UEDF – failed to raise any challenge to the incumbent. Th ey were outmanoeuvred by the EPRDF’s off ensive campaigns on the ground, recruiting supporters and members through incentives or threatening reprisals if support was not obtained. Th e kebele and the clan seem once again to be effi cient tools for the EPRDF to reach out to the people on the ground.

Conclusion

A political party or government will always have to draw on a mixture of traditional and modern values in order to gain legitimacy. By drawing on such a mixture, it can maximise its ‘social capital’ within the population (Bourdieu 1986). Th e role of the traditional hierarchy in the Wolayta elections should be understood with this in mind. According to the predominant account of Wolayta history, members of the higher clans were those entitled to political leadership. Th e current promotion

39 Interview with teacher, Soddo town, February 2006. a revival of tradition? 133 of traditionally prestigious clans in leadership positions can therefore be seen as a response to Wolayta traditions of political legitimacy. With the utilisation of traditional categories of solidarity and exclusion in the elections, the politics of Wolayta also becomes ‘the politics of the belly’ (Bayart 1993) at a clan level, where the principle of reciprocity is what matters: candidates for political offi ce get support from their clan to be elected, while clan members expect jobs and resources as a payback for their support. However, the promotion of the historically more prestigious clans is also contested. Th e traditionally despised groups do not accept continued exclusion from the political processes and are fi ghting to gain infl uence and power. In line with new ideas of revolutionary democracy, which is also a modern source of legitimacy and power, the hillancha and ayle have attempted to mobilise the Wolayta people against domination by the Hizia and Tigre clans. Although the EPRDF has continued its alliance with the higher clans, it has also made concessions to the formerly despised groups. Th e ruling party’s combination of controlling both the ‘modern’ kebele and the ‘traditional’ clan system appears to be an effi cient way of handling the challenge from the despised groups as well as the one from the privileged clans. Th e party has given the ayle and the hillancha access to political power on kebele and other lower administrative levels, while the dominant clans still control the higher administrative posts. In this way, the EPRDF can claim to have opened itself up to equal political participation by all, in line with the modern rhetoric of democracy, while the continued dominance of the higher clans has made it possible for the party to avoid challenging the traditional hierarchy of Wolayta society. Th e introduction of ethnic federalism has revitalised the traditional social stratifi cation of Wolayta society, and people have sought renewed meaning, belongingness and solidarity in old social categories, which is expressed in the re-emergence of clan-based idir. In this sense, it can be argued that the EPRDF’s promotion of clan-based politics is an answer to movements within the population. People’s perceptions of the 2005 election, however, may be an indication that they no longer approve of these political strategies by the EPRDF. Although the EPRDF was declared the winner of the 2005 elections, it is apparent that the opposition parties, in particular the CUD, posed a serious challenge to the ruling party. Voters from both higher and lower segments of the traditional Wolayta hierarchy challenged the ruling party’s control through the kebele system, and questioned the fairness of the continued 134 lovise aalen dominance of specifi c clans in Wolayta politics. It appears that the EPRDF’s strategy of maintaining power was not as successful as the party had anticipated. According to popular perceptions of the elections, which essentially ascribe the EPRDF’s election victory to oppression and cheating, the EPRDF has not managed to maintain power through enhanced legitimacy. Instead, its maintenance is seen as a result of enhanced control of the population.

Bibliography

Following local usage, Ethiopian authors are referenced by their fi rst name. Aalen, Lovise, and Kjetil Tronvoll. 2009. ‘Th e 2008 Ethiopian Local Elections: Th e Return of Electoral Authoritarianism.’ African Aff airs 108 (430): 111–20. Balisky, Paul. 1997. ‘Wolaita Evangelists: A Study of Religious Innovation in Southern Ethiopia, 1937–1975.’ PhD thesis, University of Aberdeen. Bayart, Jean-François. 1993. Th e State in Africa: Th e Politics of the Belly. New York: Longman. Berhanu Bibisu. 1995. ‘Production Practices in Wolaita, Southwestern Ethiopia: Th e Case of Damot Woide.’ MA thesis, Addis Ababa University. Bourdieu, Pierre. 1986. ‘Th e Forms of Capital.’ In Handbook of Th eory and Research for the Sociology of Education, edited by John G. Richardson, 241–58. New York: Greenwood Press. Chiatti, Remo. 1984. ‘Th e Politics of Divine Kingship in Wolaitta (Ethiopia), 19th and 20th Centuries.’ PhD thesis, University of Pennsylvania. Data Dea. 2003a. ‘Th e Challenges of Integrative Power: Hierarchy and Political Change in Dawro, Southern Ethiopia.’ PhD thesis, University of Bergen. —— . 2003b. ‘Managing Diversity? A Note on the ‘Wogagoda’ Politics in the Omotic Speaking Southwest Ethiopia.’ Paper presented at the International Ethiopian Studies Conference, Hamburg, July 21–25. Deressa Debu. 1999. ‘A Religious History of Wolayta.’ MA thesis, Addis Ababa University. Dessalegn Rahmato. 1991. ‘Investing in Tradition: Peasants and Rural Institutions in Post-Revolution Ethiopia.’ Sociologia Ruralis 31 (2–3): 169–83. Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (FDRE). 1995. Constitution of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia Proclamation No. 1/1995. Addis Ababa: Federal Negarit Gazeta. Freeman, Dena, and Alula Pankhurst, eds. 2001. Living on the Edge: Marginalized Minorities of Craft Workers and Hunters. Addis Ababa: Addis Ababa University Press. Haileyesus Seba. 1996. ‘A Study of Social Change in Wolaita, Southern Ethiopia.’ MA thesis, Addis Ababa University. Integrated Regional Information Network of the United Nations (IRIN). 2004. ‘Ethiopia: Focus on New Safety-nets Scheme for Poor Farmers.’ June 30, 2004, http:// www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportID=50431 (accessed: March 9, 2011). Solberg, Kjell. 2002. ‘Political Apathy and Class/Caste Confl ict: Th e Elections in Sidama, Southern Region.’ In Ethiopia Since the Derg: A Decade of Democratic Pretension and Performance, edited by Siegfried Pausewang, Kjetil Tronvoll, and Lovise Aalen, 141–55. London: Zed Books. a revival of tradition? 135

Tronvoll, Kjetil. 2011. ‘Briefi ng: Th e Ethiopian 2010 Federal and Regional Elections: Re-establishing the One-party State.’ African Aff airs 110 (438): 121–36. Vaughan, Sarah. 2003. ‘Ethnicity and Power in Ethiopia.’ PhD thesis, University of Edinburgh. Zerihun Abebe Woldeselassie. 2001. ‘Minority Identity and Ethnic Politics in Ethiopia: Th e Case of the Weyto in Lake Tana Area: National Discourse and Local Reality.’ MA thesis, Department of Social Anthropology, University of Tromsø.

CHAPTER 5

CYNICISM AND HOPE: URBAN YOUTH AND RELATIONS OF POWER DURING THE 2005 ETHIOPIAN ELECTIONS

Daniel Mains

Th e political potential of youth has received a large amount of attention in recent academic work on Africa (Cruise O’Brien 1996; Richards 1996; Diouf 2003; Honwana and de Boeck 2005; Abbink and van Kessel 2005).1 Th is literature has focused on the potentially volatile nature of a population that has had very little opportunity to access higher education and desirable employment. Th e ability of disaff ected youth to act as a political force is apparent in Ethiopia as well.2 Among secondary educated urban youth, unemployment rates are above 50 percent and lengths of unemployment average three to four years (Serneels 2007). Urban youth make up a relatively small portion of the total population in Ethiopia, but their ample free time and concentration in particular urban spaces provides them with a potential for creating civil unrest. Young men were the physical force behind many of the protests and riots in Addis Ababa following the national elections in May 2005, and as a result thousands were imprisoned in detention camps. However, my aim in this paper is not to assess the role of youth in infl uencing the outcome of the 2005 election or the unrest that followed. Instead my interest is in the power relationships that surround urban youth in Ethiopia and how these relationships were intensifi ed and in some cases transformed during the 2005 election. At the core of this chapter is the argument that ‘youth’ has recently emerged as a distinct social category in urban Ethiopia. In popular discourse youth has come to represent a social problem and this has legitimated various government interventions into the lives of young people.

1 I would like to thank Kjetil Tronvoll and Tobias Hagmann for organising this important volume and off ering comments on draft s of this paper. I am also indebted to other readers for their extensive comments and insights, especially Donald L. Donham, Bruce Knauft , Jed Stevenson, and an anonymous reviewer. 2 In Ethiopia the subject is little researched. See for some useful studies on youth in Ethiopia Habtamu Wondimu (1996) and Poluha (2007). 138 daniel mains

At the same time that youth has become an object of government policy, a rupture has occurred in the patron/client relations that have traditionally bound young men to their elders. Th e 2005 election marked the fi rst time in Ethiopia when opposition parties have had candidates in the majority of races and had a legitimate chance of winning. In this context the need to control youth has intensifi ed, and measures were taken that were perceived as intending to suppress youth and reconstruct patron/client relationships. Th e specifi c interventions that I will discuss in this paper are police detentions and the incorporation of youth into associations aimed at job creation. As youth became subject to increasing fl ows of power, they discursively repositioned themselves through everyday discussions, jokes, and rumours. More specifi cally, youth relied on contrasting narratives of cynicism and enthusiasm in order to construct the election as either irrelevant, or as a potential solution, to the problems faced by young people. I will argue that these discourses combined with government interventions to reconstruct relations of power surrounding youth. Th e research for this chapter was conducted within the context of a much broader project on youth and unemployment that extended from October 2003 through to May 2005.3 Issues related to politics came up throughout my research, and during the fi nal month prior to the election I had numerous interviews and open-ended discussions with youth specifi cally concerning the election. Th ese youth were predominantly male and were either unemployed or working in the informal economy. Th e research was conducted in Jimma, a city of around 120,000 people. Jimma is one of the ten largest cities in Ethiopia and is the major cosmopolitan centre in the southwest part of the country. It is located in the Oromiya Regional State, but the urban population is formed from a number of diff erent ethnic groups including Oromo, Dawro, Amhara, Kafa, and Gurage. In terms of religion Jimma is split almost evenly between Muslims and Orthodox Christians, with a small minority of Protestants. A problem that faced me in writing this chapter is the relatively specifi c nature of my sample, particularly in terms of place and gender. I will not attempt to generalise my fi ndings to non-urban youth.

3 Th is research was funded by a Fulbright-Hayes Fellowship and grants from the Emory University Department of Anthropology, Institute for African Studies, and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Internationalization Fund. cynicism and hope 139

As I will detail below, the distinct social category of ‘youth’ that has recently emerged is based on particularly urban economic and social dynamics. I do believe that much of my discussion is relevant for urban youth throughout Ethiopia, but there are areas where distinctions must be made, particularly in relation to the contrast between Addis Ababa and secondary cities like Jimma. Th e issue of gender is also complicated. Certain parts of my analysis are clearly directed towards young men. For example, almost all youth who were detained by the police were male. However, while young women had less of a presence in the highly visible activities of riots and detentions, they were embedded in other relations of power in a similar fashion to young men. Th e majority of my informants were male and this is where much of my analytical attention will be focused, but I also seek to draw attention to relevant gender diff erences and similarities in the power relationships that surrounded the election.

Th e emergence of ‘youth’

Th e linguistic category of what in Amharic is referred to as wättat or youth is not new in Ethiopia, but the term has taken on a distinct meaning in the years following the fall of the Marxist Derg regime. Within news media, government discourse and discussions among adults, the social category of ‘youth’ usually refers to an urban male. Unemployment and involvement with various social problems (for example crime, substance abuse and casual sex) are other key markers of youth (Mains 2012). Today’s youth are older than they were in the past, generally ranging from eighteen to thirty, meaning that they have come of age within the post-1991 political environment. It is this population of educated (although not beyond the secondary level), unemployed, urban young men who are considered to be youth today.4 Th ey share similar experiences, goals and worldviews making them a relatively cohesive group. Discursive constructions of youth do not generally reference ethnicity. While ‘youth’ is urban and male, there is no sense that the social category implies that one belongs to a particular ethnicity as

4 Although discourse concerning the ‘problem of youth’ applies almost exclusively to young men, young women are still aff ected by many of the policies directed towards youth. 140 daniel mains well. Th at said, because youth are urban, the emergence of this category does have a relationship with normative Amhara values and practices surrounding the life-course. In cities social norms have been strongly shaped by Amhara practices and traditions (Shack 1973). Th e dominance of Amhara culture within cities is due to two primary reasons. First, although it was not the case in Jimma, many Ethiopian cities were originally garrisons established by Amhara soldiers during the northern expansion into southern Ethiopia that took place during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Th is has meant that the Amhara have been disproportionately represented in urban populations. Second, the historical, political and economic dominance of the Amhara has provided incentives for other ethnic groups to culturally assimilate to the Amhara norm. Th is is clearly visible in Jimma where many young people of Dawro or Kafa descent speak only Amharic and their families have practised Orthodox Christianity, the religion oft en associated with Amhara identity, for multiple generations. Th is is not to say that urban youth identify themselves as Amhara. In most cases young people in Jimma identify themselves based on the ethnicity of their parents or simply consider themselves to be ‘Ethiopian.’5 While youth social groups were generally ethnically mixed, the urban environment means that Amhara culture provides a baseline for understanding changes in relations of power surrounding young people. In the past, a distinct phase of life that could be referred to as ‘youth’ did not exist within rural Amhara culture (Levine 1965; 96–8). Young men and women would gradually take on more and more adult responsibilities until in terms of work their day-to-day life more or less resembled that of their parents. Once this point was reached, the next step was marriage. For women this process generally began around the age of seven and ended at thirteen, while young men began providing signifi cant help with ploughing around the age of fourteen and married in their late teens or early twenties. Th is was a continuous process and at no point did young people experience a lapse in which they had to struggle to occupy themselves or determine what they would do in the future. Deference to elders was a signifi cant aspect of Amhara culture and young people generally obeyed the directives of their elders with very little questioning. Th ere was no notion that youth represented a

5 See Mains (2004) for a more complicated discussion of the interrelationship between ethnicity, religion, and nationalism in Jimma. cynicism and hope 141 distinct phase of life or a social problem. Within the age-grade system known as gada, traditionally practised by the Oromo, youth clearly did occupy a particular social position (Asmarom Legesse 1973). However, among Jimma Oromo the gada system has not been practised since the mid 19th century and young people transitioned to adulthood in a gradual manner involving marriage and, for men, the inheritance of land from one’s father (Mohammed Hassen 1990; Lewis 2001). Youth as a distinct and problematic social category began to emerge with the expansion of public/state education. Education provided a socialising eff ect, creating a cohesive group of students whose experiences and worldviews were distinct from previous generations. Levine (1965) and Bahru Zewde (2002a) claim that these students had a greater interest in Western culture and generally did not want to take on the occupations (usually farming) of their parents. Th ese students may be divided into roughly two groups – those who attained secondary education and the much larger group who did not. During the 1959–60 academic year, nearly 28,000 students were enrolled in grades 5–8 (middle school) compared to approximately 8,500 in secondary or post-secondary institutions (Teshome Wagaw 1979). While secondary educated youth generally found government employment, Levine (1965, 110) explains that the much larger group who did not pass their 8th grade examinations were left with little to do except ‘live as loiterers on the streets’ of the nation’s capital. Although they were few in number, secondary and post-secondary educated youth drew more attention because they were able to rise quickly to positions of power. Intellectuals have historically had an important infl uence on Ethiopian politics, and the power and solidarity possessed by students can be seen in the key role they played in both the failed coup of 1965 and the 1974 revolution (Balsvik 1985; Bahru Zewde 2002a; 2002b, 220–6). Despite the important role that educated young people have had in shaping Ethiopian history, they were a very small and elite group. Until the 1990s the numbers of the semi-educated unemployed were not yet great enough to attract notice, and the majority of young people who continued to live as rural subsistence farmers lacked a cohesive identity in popular discourse. It was aft er the fall of the Derg that a combination of increased urbanisation and a dramatic rise in unemployment created the population referred to as ‘youth’ today. Although around 85 percent of Ethiopia’s population still lives in rural areas, the urban population is steadily increasing. For young people, living in the 142 daniel mains city has meant an increased exposure to education. In recent years most urban youth have had primary education and around half have had at least some secondary education (CSA 2009). Th ese students are very diff erent than the elite group of the past. With the increase in the number of students the quality of education has declined. A typical secondary school classroom contains 80–90 students, sharing books and learning in English, a language that many students do not understand well. In 2007 only around 6.5 percent of young people between the ages of twenty and twenty-nine had advanced beyond a 10th grade education (CSA 2009). Th e others left school having learned very little in the way of practical skills that could be used in securing employment. Th e recent introduction of technical schools may reduce unemployment and increase the number of students with post-secondary education, but for most of the post-1991 generation these changes are too late. Th e boom in secondary educated youth has been accompanied by other changes that have led to high unemployment among young people in urban areas. International Monetary Fund (IMF) imposed structural adjustment has caused a major decrease in public sector employment opportunities in Ethiopia (Krishnan 1998). Th ese were the types of positions that secondary school students typically expected to obtain aft er graduation. Th is, combined with a lack of industry and cultural stigmas towards certain types of manual labour, has contributed to massive levels of unemployment among urban youth. Serneels (2007) claims that more than half of urban youth with a secondary education are unemployed, meaning that unemployment is a defi ning force in the day-to-day lives of urban Ethiopian youth. While unemployed young women spend the bulk of their time doing housework, for young men excess amounts of time and little access to money have caused days to be generally spent in public areas, hanging out and passing the time. Th e physical presence of young men on street corners, in cafes or under shady trees serves continually to remind others of their existence and feeds into the notion that they represent a social problem. Young men are thought to pass the majority of their time with activities that present a danger to society as a whole, especially substance abuse (usually chat,6 alcohol, and cigarettes), crime,

6 Chat is a leafy bush that acts as a mild stimulant when chewed. Ethiopian Muslims traditionally used it for religious purposes (Ezekiel Gebissa 2004), but especially in cities, during the past decade, it has become popular among Orthodox Christians as well. cynicism and hope 143 and casual sex. Many adults and some young people complain that young men have become generally disrespectful, insulting their elders in the street and behaving in a way that shows disregard for the norms of their community. To some extent, an environment of fear has been created and at the time of my research it was generally felt that anyone venturing out aft er 10 pm was inviting assault or robbery. Also in contrast to the past, ‘youth’ has become a phase in life that is elastic in duration and may occupy many years. Levine claims that in Amhara culture, ‘the three events which more than anything else establish one as an adult are marriage, moving into one’s own house, and begetting a child’ (1965, 99). In post-1991 urban Ethiopia youth frequently remain unemployed for three to four years aft er leaving school (Serneels 2007) and even aft er obtaining work, it takes longer before a young man is capable of moving out of his parents’ house and starting his own family (Mains 2012). As becoming an adult begins to take more time, ‘youth’ encompasses individuals of increasingly older chronological age. Parents once expected to be supported by their children, but now they complain that they are forced to work into old age or to use their meagre pensions in order to feed their twenty-eight- year-old ‘children.’ As this population has expanded in size and been identifi ed as a potential source of social problems, it has increasingly become the topic of discourse, both in casual discussions and media accounts, under the label of ‘youth’. Th is discourse, which constructs young people as a potentially dangerous population, has legitimised particular interventions into their lives. When ‘youth’ becomes reifi ed, then the young people who fi t within that category may become implicated within relations of power. In the context of the 2005 election, government interventions into the lives of youth took on increasing importance and power relationships surrounding youth were reconstructed.

Youth and changing relations of power

In his work on land tenure among rural Amhara, Hoben (1970; 1973) explains that relations of power were almost entirely vertical, and generally structured along the lines of patron/client relationships.

Although chat is consumed by many adult men in Jimma, adults still oft en claim that it is associated with unemployment and the ‘problem of youth’ (Mains 2012). 144 daniel mains

Put simply, lords provided a degree of protection for peasants and sometimes assisted them in litigating for land, and in turn peasants paid taxes in the form of grain and labour, and gave their lords social and political support. In this sense, the continued power of the lord was based partially on his ability to provide tangible benefi ts for his subjects. With urbanisation, government employment took the place of nobility as a source of power and a means of distributing favours to others. As Hoben (1970, 222) notes in describing Addis Ababa under the reign of Emperor Haile Selassie, the authority of the ‘gwilt-holding lord’ had been replaced by the government administrator, and education had taken the place of military activity as a means for accessing social mobility. Although the ideologies and structures of rule have clearly changed, based on research conducted among children in Addis Ababa, Poluha (2004) argues that power relationships in Ethiopia continue to fi t the patron/client model. Like the power relationships described by Hoben, subordinate individuals and groups accept and support the rule of others as long as they are provided with social, emotional, and economic safety (Poluha 2004, 95). While Poluha’s insight regarding the patron/ client model and relationships of power is useful, an important qualifi - cation must be made. In the patron/client model, the patron’s rule is partially dependent on the support of his or her clients. In the system of land tenure based on rist rights and cognatic descent described by Hoben continued social support from peasants was necessary in order to legitimate the land holdings of nobility. Th is system was specifi c to the northern regions of Ethiopia. During the northern expansion into southern Ethiopia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries land was granted to northern rulers regardless of popular support at the local level (Donham 1986). Th e power to rule came from above and there was no reciprocal relationship between rulers and subjects. A similar analysis may be applied to urban settings. Under the Derg and the Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), the maintenance of power has not generally depended on the consent of the ruled. As Poluha notes, within the bureaucratic structure of the state upper-level leaders have relied on the continued support of their subordinates, but a similar relationship has not existed between leaders and the general population. Both the Derg and EPRDF governments maintained power largely through a combination of military strength and occasionally distributing favours to supporters. Based on brief periods of research I conducted in 2008 and 2009 in Jimma, it appears cynicism and hope 145 that the EPRDF has increasingly sought to solidify its support among urban youth through the distribution of micro-grants and job opportunities.7 Despite these qualifi cations, the patron/client model is still useful for understanding the power relations surrounding urban youth. Although specifi c relations of power vary historically and spatially, in each case an element of mutual dependency exists. I am not arguing that contemporary power relationships surrounding urban youth are structured strictly on the patron/client model. Although this model has had continuity through diff erent historical eras, it has also changed signifi cantly. I use the patron/client model to provide a base for understanding variation in the relationship between youth and the Ethiopian state, particularly in the context of the 2005 elections. Legitimacy in the eyes of youth has not always been necessary for the continued rule of the EPRDF, but young people have felt that the government is responsible for (if not interested in) their well-being. In interviews concerning unemployment youth oft en expressed the idea that it was the government’s responsibility to provide them with an education and work, and blamed the government for the problem of unemployment. While youth did not have faith in the possibility that the government (conceived abstractly) would actually solve their problems, on a personal level they sought to form relationships with government workers in order to receive increased access to opportunities for education, work, and housing. Th ese more personal relationships resembled the patron/client model. Even at the lowest levels, government workers were able to distribute economic and social benefi ts to friends and family. Th ese ranged from expediting bureaucratic paperwork to providing access to valuable opportunities with non-governmental development organizations. In return, government work ers received social support that was important for accumulating local prestige. Extremely high attendance at the funeral of any government worker was just one indication of their high status. While the state was oft en critiqued, on a personal and local level government workers were able to engage in patron/client relationships that brought them increased power and prestige. While this relationship between government workers and youth still exists, it has been disrupted in the post-1991 period by IMF-imposed economic reforms. A signifi cant reduction in the size of the public

7 Research in 2008 and 2009 was supported by United States National Science Foundation Grant #0717608. 146 daniel mains

sector has meant that government employees have been greatly constrained in the benefi ts that they are able to distribute. Th e parents of youth frequently commented that the major diff erence between their generation and that of their children is the current lack of wealthy and powerful individuals who could provide employment and economic support. Most importantly for young people, establishing a patron/ client type relationship with a government administrator no longer insured that one would obtain government employment aft er complet- ing secondary school. In Jimma young people were certainly not opposed to establishing relationships with government workers, but they had lost faith in the eff ectiveness of these relationships for enabling upward mobility. Th e 2005 election also shift ed the dynamics surrounding the patron/ client model. In the past, the social support of one’s community was important for government leaders in terms of prestige, but their power had not directly depended on this support. In theory, an election places the power of leaders in the hands of the community. In the case of urban Ethiopia, although young people were no longer receiving signifi cant benefi ts from local leaders, youth could suddenly infl uence the continuation of their rule. Th ese shift s in the relationship between rulers and subjects help to contextualise the interventions into the lives of youth described below. Th e emergence of ‘youth’ as a problematic social category has legitimised and focused government interventions onto the lives of a particular population, and in the context of the elections these interventions have been partially necessitated by the shift in patron/client relationships described above.

Youth and police

In the following sections I make use of the terms ‘government’, ‘ruling party’, and ‘EPRDF’ almost interchangeably. According to the Ethiopian constitution, branches of the government like the police or judiciary are independent of any party infl uence. However, youth generally assumed that the government and the EPRDF were indistinguishable. My sense is that many young people did not realise that government and party were legally independent. In other words, for youth it was natural that the police should function as an arm of the EPRDF. Young men who were unemployed or working in the informal sector habitually engaged in a number of activities that brought them into contact with the police, regardless of the presence of a national election. cynicism and hope 147

Th ese activities generally consisted of staying out late into the night, drinking, carousing, and sometimes fi ghting with each other. In response to the perceived social problems associated with unemployed youth, a ‘Vagrancy Control Proclamation’ was issued in January 2004 by the federal government.8 Although the proclamation is vague, it appears to give police the right to arrest anyone spending time on the streets without a visible means of subsistence.9 Joining a youth mahaber (association) and possessing a government-issued Youth Identity Card, which I will describe below, was one means of avoiding arrest for this off ence. In addition to vagrancy, arrests for fi ghting, illegally operating businesses (for example video houses), and petty theft were common, and many of the young men that I worked with had spent at least a few nights in jail at some point in their lives. In the fi nal weeks before the election, contact with the police took on political dimensions. In the months preceding the election young people expressed very little interest in the process. In Jimma, it was only in the last month prior to the election that young people began to express any political leanings. Although many young men continued to voice narratives of cynicism that I describe below, with few exceptions during the fi nal weeks before the election those who did begin to take an active interest in politics were supporters of the Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD). Youth claimed that young people who openly voiced support for the opposition would be arrested. Th e offi cial reason for this was not that the individual was an opposition supporter. Instead, police would give special attention to suspected opposition supporters and wait for them to make a minor violation of the law. Young men claimed that inevitably they would be walking home at night aft er drinking, making a bit of noise and enjoying themselves. Th at is when the police would strike, and they would be beaten and possibly arrested. Numerous stories circulated about young men wearing opposition t-shirts or fl ashing the symbol of the CUD party and later being arrested.10

8 ‘A Proclamation to Provide for Controlling Vagrancy,’ Proclamation No. 384/2004. 9 Anteneh Ayele, ‘How Can We Tackle Vagrancy Without Addressing the Social and Economic Problems of Youth?’, Th e Reporter, 2004. 10 Th e symbol for the CUD, the strongest opposition party in most urban areas, was two fi ngers raised in the sign for victory. Th is symbol was printed on the ballots in order to aid illiterate voters. It also allowed CUD supporters to easily indicate their political allegiance to others which may have been a factor in generating support, particularly among youth. 148 daniel mains

Just before the election I spoke with a police inspector in Jimma about this issue. He claimed that no one had been arrested because of his political position. Some youth were arrested for tearing down political posters, but they were quickly released aft er being warned not to do this in the future (tearing down posters was a violation of the code of conduct agreed upon by all parties). He did acknowledge that around one month prior to the elections, approximately sixty adegegna bozene11 were arrested. Around half of them were quickly released and the other half was still being held. He claimed that the individuals still being held were known criminals and repeat off enders who represented a danger to society, and that their arrest was not related to the upcoming election. Both youth and authorities acknowledged the possibility of young hooligans disrupting the election. Another common term for a young man was fendata which loosely translates as ‘explosive’.12 Fendata did not have the criminal connotations of duriye or bozene and refers more to the nature of young men. Young men were seen as full of emotions that they could not control. Th e term fendata implied that young men were a time bomb that could very easily explode in the intense environment of an election. In addition to their potential to disrupt the elections, it was commonly believed that disenfranchised youth were almost entirely supporters of the main opposition party, the CUD. ‘CUD is the party of duriye,’ one young man claimed. Th e reasons for this were not particularly clear, but rumors of CUD representatives distributing petty cash or chat to youth were sometimes cited. According to youth, arrests of bozene were intended not only to eliminate a potential source of chaos, but to reduce the number of opposition voters. Although massive detentions may seem to suppress the political freedom of youth, the state sought to justify the forced removal of

11 Th e terms bozene and duriye are used almost interchangeably to describe young men who are unemployed and are a potential danger to society. In government or media discourse that appears in English, the term ‘hooligan’ is oft en substituted. Adegegna simply means dangerous and in practice bozene is almost always preceded by it. Th e term ‘thug’ – also used by Weiss (2002) in relation to young men in Arusha, Tanzania – works as a close approximation but I never encountered youth who valor- ised the labels of duriye or bozene in the manner of a ‘thug life’ within popular American hip-hop. 12 In Addis Ababa youth jokingly use the expression ‘K-50’ as a synonym for fendata/youth. K-50 refers to a model of a gas cooking stove that was known for accidental explosions. Th anks to Tobias Hagmann for pointing this out to me. cynicism and hope 149 adegegna bozene in terms of the greater health of the population.13 Th is process begins with the identifi cation of ‘youth’ as a category of person within the larger population body. Once youth is identifi ed as a sub- population, it may be examined in greater detail, identifying individuals who are potentially dangerous. Th e election provides a context where the removal of these dangerous hooligans is especially necessary. Just as the human body is susceptible to germs and bacteria at times of stress, the elections place the population body at risk. Police act as a surgeon removing the diseased portion of the body so that it may sur- vive and emerge from the elections as a healthy whole. Th is practice was particularly apparent during the post-election period when protests sparked riots and police violence throughout Addis Ababa in early June and in early November of 2005. Close to two hundred people were killed in the June and November uprisings, and thousands of young men were moved to detention camps outside the city where they were held without charge (Abbink 2006).14 Th ese detentions reveal some of the ambiguities in relations of power surrounding youth. On the one hand, police violence and the detentions were justifi ed with arguments about the potential for unemployed young men to riot in urban areas and create increased violence (Toggia 2008). For example, in an interview following the June 2005 violence State Minister of Information, Bereket Simon, (quoted in Henshaw 2005) explained, ‘We are not happy that people have died. We are not happy that Ethiopians are being detained – some of those for reasons they don’t stand genuinely for – but this is a country that needs to move forward, which needs to guard itself from anarchy taking over. If you allow violence and anarchy to reign in this country the result – that we have managed to avert – will take place and that, I assure you, would be very, very disastrous.’ Youth were held outside the city, and detention centres were not given any attention within Ethiopia by the government-controlled media. Th e location of detained youth was frequently not even known by their families, and in this sense detainees simply disappeared. Eff orts made by the government to divert public attention from the detentions contributed to the sense that the detention of youth was an intervention not intended to instil fear, but to promote the well-being of society as a whole.

13 See Toggia (2008) for an application of Michel Foucault’s notion of bio-power to the case of police and the body politic in Ethiopia. 14 ‘Ethiopian Opposition Dismisses Probe into Killings,’ Reuters, October 30, 2006. 150 daniel mains

On the other hand, tens of thousands of young people, mostly young men, were detained and removed from Addis Ababa (Abbink 2006). Th e process of physically removing these young men from streets and homes could not have been hidden. With such a large number of individuals and families aff ected, this act of power must have also been experienced as a demonstration of the state’s right to control life. Police had the ability to enter a home and remove individuals. Although the government attempted to construct its actions within a framework of improving the well being of society, it is unlikely that this was the manner in which it was perceived. In this case, although the state seeks to represent its power as productive in the sense that it promotes the health of the population body, this does not necessarily legitimise relations of power. Both young people and adults questioned police detainments and perceived them as an EPRDF tactic to maintain control of the government. Foucauldian analyses like Toggia’s (2008) are useful in the sense that they highlight the productive nature of power, but one must also keep in mind how relations of power are experienced. In the case of youth mahaberoch that I will discuss below, there is the same tension between the produc- tivity of power relations and the refusal of youth to legitimise state power.

Th e youth mahaber and political engagement

While detentions and police harassment were a means of removing youth from the population body, other attempts were made to reconstruct the relationship between youth and the government. During the period leading up to the elections, one of the primary modes of intervention in the lives of youth was the creation of youth mahaberoch. Mahaber may be translated as ‘association’ or ‘group’, and the suffi x ‘och’ denotes the plural. Th e mahaber is an institution deeply rooted in Ethiopian culture and history. Ethiopian Orthodox Christians have traditionally created mahaberoch devoted to diff erent saints, but a mahaber could also be created on the basis of friendship or another common interest. A mahaber is formed by men or women, young or old, but generally the membership within each mahaber is homogenous. Reli- gious mahaberoch vary in size and meet once a month on their saint’s day to share homemade bread and beer. Th e use of traditional institutions for political mobilisation is not an EPRDF innovation, and cynicism and hope 151 during the Derg regime the government forced individuals to join workers’, women’s, and youth mahaberoch. Perhaps because of the longstanding relationship between mahaberoch and politics, the fact that a mahaber is a traditional institution did not enhance its appeal for young people.15 In the year preceding the elections, a major push took place to encourage youth to join a mahaber. Mahaberoch were organised by willing youth on the basis of neighbourhood. In order to join a mahaber a young person fi rst had to obtain a Youth Identity Card (ID) from the neighbourhood (kebele) government offi ce. Aft er receiving an ID card, youth were encouraged to attend regular neighbourhood meetings and organise themselves into mahaberoch. Th e primary focus of youth mahaberoch was on job creation. Youth were asked to organise themselves into small groups with a specifi c plan for creating work. Fre- quently these groups would be organised by youth who shared a similar interest or trade, for example woodworking or electronics repair. Once these groups were formed, the offi ce that administered youth mahaberoch would seek to locate small loans or grants that could provide the initial capital necessary to start a small business. I met representatives from the youth mahaber offi ce twice. On the fi rst occasion, approximately fi ve months before the elections, the offi ce organised the meeting with me, hoping that I might be able to assist them with locating funds to support youth businesses. Th e representative explained that 4,300 youth in Jimma were registered with youth mahaberoch and that this was a number they were hoping to increase.

15 In terms of the use of traditional organisations in order to harness political support, it is interesting that in one Jimma neighborhood a youth iddir was created during the period leading up to the elections. An iddir is a burial association in which members contribute monthly dues to cover the cost of funerals for members or their families (see Pankhurst and Damen Haile Mariam 2000). Th e youth iddir planned to focus its energy on supporting members while they were alive by providing care for the sick and eventually creating programmes aimed at job creation. In this case, the neighborhood was known for having a particularly strong iddir that was involved in a number of development projects. It was unclear if the government established the youth iddir, or if it was grassroots organisation and government offi cials only provided organisational assistance. Some informants argued that because the iddir had a high level of legitimacy in this neighbourhood, the government organized a youth iddir in order to mobilise youth political support. While I am uncertain about the political allegiance of its members, young people in the neighborhood were very enthusiastic about the iddir and eager to become members. Th e greater enthusiasm for the iddir may be due to its lack of association with politics in the past and the positive role that iddirs had played within that particular community. 152 daniel mains

Th e walls of the offi ce were covered with bar graphs illustrating the breakdown of youth mahaber membership by gender and neighbourhood. At the time they did not have any funds to off er and the best they could do was to help youth mahaberoch make contact with diff erent NGOs that were running micro-credit projects in Jimma. Th e second meeting I had with the youth mahaber offi ce took place approximately one month before the elections and the tone of the meeting was very diff erent. Unprompted, the offi ce representative was quick to tell me that the youth mahaber offi ce has no connections with the government and that it is a ‘civic association’. Although the offi ce was housed in a government building devoted to sport and culture he claimed that they received no government funds. Instead their funding came from monthly dues paid by youth members. By the time of the second meeting, the youth mahaber offi ce had become involved in more activities aimed at reducing youth unemployment. Numerous spaces within the city had been given to youth for use in starting small businesses, training courses were being off ered to youth entrepreneurs, and funds had been located to provide scholarships for youth at the vocational school or to give them small business loans. Th e selection of youth for these projects was based on both economic need and individual character. Youth who were especially poor and were known to avoid negative social behaviour were the recipients of help from the mahaber offi ce. Although fewer women than men participated in youth mahaberoch, young women were actively recruited by offi ce representatives. During both meetings, representatives noted that one of the reasons why youth are reluctant to join is the experience of previous generations with mahaberoch during the Derg regime. Under the Derg, participation in youth mahaberoch was oft en mandatory and members were frequently pressed into military service. As a consequence of this experience parents oft en discouraged their children from becoming involved with these types of associations. Th e youth mahaber offi ce was responding to the same ‘problem of youth’ as the police detentions described above. However the intent of the mahaber was to reform young people instead of simply removing them. While both types of intervention may be interpreted as productive forms of power, they functioned very diff erently in relation to youth. Th e youth mahaber was intended to produce employment and education. Both were highly valued by youth and were considered necessary for the improvement of the quality of life in Ethiopia. Th e mahaber also cynicism and hope 153 enumerated youth and established norms for what it means to be a positive young citizen. At the most basic level this occurred with the issuing of Youth ID cards. ID cards are common in Ethiopia and are necessary for receiving government services, but the Youth ID card allowed a very specifi c population to be identifi ed. Youth ID cards were especially encouraged for all young people who lack regular employment, including those working in the informal economy. As noted earlier, it is this sector of the society that had been identifi ed as particularly prone to creating disturbances and the ID cards enabled the collection of their names, location of residence, gender and other information. Youth who were hanging out in public without a Youth ID Card could be arrested for vagrancy. Th e ID Card allowed a sub-population to be diff erentiated from the whole and then counted and examined for basic demographic information (gender, age, neighbourhood, etc.). Th e greater the involvement a young person had with the mahaber offi ce, the more that was known about him or her. Th is information was gathered through numerous forms as well as person-to-person interactions with offi ce representatives. In order to select the right young person to receive help through the mahaber offi ce, their economic status and social behaviour had to be known. Th is required the collection of further information and the development of a model for the type of person that may receive assistance. Involvement in the youth mahaber necessitated participation in various training programmes that directed individuals towards this model for the ideal young citizen. While the identifi cation and enumeration of youth were important products of their interactions with the mahaber offi ce, youth narratives complicated my understanding of what was at stake in becoming involved with a mahaber. Among youth, the most common reaction to the activities of the mahaber was one of scepticism and cynicism. While the offi ce representatives that I spoke with were careful to distance themselves from the government and politics, the majority of youth saw the mahaber as being inherently political. Youth argued that it was no coincidence that assistance from the mahaber was being handed out so close to the elections. Th is was a clear attempt on the part of the ruling party to build up goodwill among young people. Youth understood the mahaber within the context of power dynamics associated with the patron/client model described above. Recent economic changes at both the global and local levels had prevented government leaders from distributing the type of assistance that youth 154 daniel mains desired and expected. As a consequence, the legitimacy of the government had been eroded and youth believed that job creation through the mahaber was an attempt to win back their political support. One young man, employed as an assistant on a mini-bus taxi (a woy- alla), explained that Youth Mahaber ID cards were only useful for avoiding hassle from the police. He knew no one who had received assistance. Th at said, he argued that if one did want to apply for a loan, right before the election was the time to do it. Th e young man explained, ‘You might get lucky enough to be chosen and paraded around on ETV [state-controlled television] to show how the EPRDF is solving the problem of youth.’ In the two months preceding the election, some of the youth involved in my research were successful in obtaining assistance through the youth mahaber offi ce. Th ey stated quite clearly that this assistance would never have been given if the EPRDF did not feel threatened in the upcoming election. I suggested to one young man who was granted land to open a small business that he might now have a good reason to become an EPRDF supporter. He laughed and argued that he may very well lose his land once the outcome of the election was clear. He would do his best to take advantage of any help that was given, but as for allying himself with the government, he was not interested in that. Youth viewed the mahaber as an institution intended to capture their allegiance to the ruling party. Although many did join the mahaber they explicitly rejected the notion that this implied their support for a particular political party. Youth were not necessarily opposed to exchanging economic assistance for political support, but based on previous experience they did not believe that aid would be available beyond the brief period surrounding the election. Young people recognised that as members of the social category ‘youth’, they represented a population that was of political concern to the state. As youth they were exposed to the dangers of police harassment as well as desirable economic assistance through mahaberoch. Young people did not respond to these interventions by manoeuvring their position in relation to the category of youth. I did not observe discussions among young people about who constitutes ‘youth’ and therefore is more deserving of government support through the mahaber. To the contrary, in one case, a group of young men organised as a mahaber received government support to start a new business. Th e support off ered was not adequate to allow all of them to engage in the entrepreneurial activities that they desired. Th ey chose to remain together as a mahaber in name and allow one of their members to use all of the government cynicism and hope 155 support for his business. Th is decision was made because it was felt that it was better for one person to benefi t than none at all. In deciding who should utilise the government support, the young men did not employ the same standards as the mahaber offi ce. Rather they made the decision based on personal friendships and the likelihood that individual could operate a profi table business. Like police detentions, the power relations surrounding the youth mahaber were complex. On the one hand, young people willingly entered into a relationship with an institution that transformed them into a particular type of subject. Partially in order to avoid police harassment and partially in hopes of obtaining economic assistance unemployed youth allowed themselves to be identifi ed, counted, and pushed towards a predetermined norm. However, to ignore the narratives of youth and the relationship between the youth mahaber and the ruling party’s struggle to maintain control of the government would be short- sighted. In the context of the national election, an institution that might have otherwise been perceived as benefi cial was viewed with a high degree of suspicion. Regardless of the youth mahaber representatives’ denial of any political goal, the majority of young people felt that the programme was specifi cally intended to win their vote. Most youth held the same perspective on other urban development projects that took place in the months prior to the election. Improved roads and street lights were met with a certain degree of suspicion. Instead of being happy about improved living conditions, youth took this to be a sign that the government had the money to make changes but refused to do so unless an election was approaching. In this sense youth had an almost anti-hegemonic perspective. Th e government did not lead for the benefi t of youth, and even changes that appeared to be in their interests were interpreted with cynicism. Th ey were still willing to accept whatever assistance was available but youth avoided participating in the mahaber at a deeper level than this. Youth refused to enter into the type of patron/ client relationship that would provide legitimacy for government leaders, and in this sense the context of the election limited the ability of the government to engage youth in particular relations of power.

Power, cynicism, and hope

Up to this point I have focused primarily on government interventions into the lives of youth. In this section I will examine the narratives of youth surrounding the election in order to better understand how 156 daniel mains young people actively repositioned themselves in relation to power. As is oft en the case in Ethiopia, an event of importance was met with layers and layers of talk. Especially for those with large amounts of time on their hands, chewata16 has long been a favourite activity of Ethiopians, regardless of generation or gender. Th e talk surrounding the elections was strongly characterised by narratives of cynicism, apathy and ambiguity, but also in some cases hope. Perhaps the most direct statement of apathy that I encountered came from a young man who commented that his voter registration card would be more useful as toilet paper. Others simply stated that they did not bother registering to vote because they knew that high-level political change would not aff ect their lives. Other statements were less direct but still refl ected an opinion that the election was absurd or irrelevant. One young street-side mechanic claimed that he was defi nitely voting for the EPRDF. I was surprised to hear him make such a bold statement of political allegiance and questioned him about this. He explained that the EPRDF’s symbol is the honeybee and that he is a great drinker of locally produced honey wine. Anyone with his love for honey wine should naturally support the bee and the EPRDF. Of course he was joking, but the implication was that the only thing separating diff erent political parties was arbitrary symbols. Like many youth, this young man portrayed the election as a choice between bees, horses and victory signs, instead of social and political issues. Related to these narratives of apathy were diff erent stories intended to illustrate what was at stake in this election. Again, these stories did not make reference to political issues. Instead they portrayed the electoral process as something that was suspect and not related to solving the day-to-day problems faced by youth. One such story was about a man with a number of fl ies gathered around a sore on his arm. A friend comes by and brushes the fl ies away. Th e man is furious. ‘Why did you do that?’, he shouts, Th ose fl ies had been there for a long time. Th ey were fat and satisfi ed and they were no longer bothering me. Now new fl ies will come and begin eating at my arm again. A similar comparison was made between the dangers represented by a hyena with a full belly versus an empty belly. Th e point of these stories

16 Literally translated as ‘play’, chewata refers to talk, conversation, storytelling and joking among friends. cynicism and hope 157 is clear: all politicians are corrupt and therefore it is better to stick with a government that has already been satiated. A fi nal style of narrative involved a combination of rumour and joking, especially concerning the main opposition party. Th is began with rumours that CUD representatives were distributing money and chat to delinquent youth (duriye) in the city centre. Th e story was that party members would show up in the aft ernoon when chat was being sold and buy a bundle of leaves for anyone who happened to be in the vicinity. Stories like this fed into a number of common jokes. A group of young people eating lunch together might joke that the bill was being paid by Qinijjit, the Amharic acronym for CUD. Another joke was that if the CUD were elected, life would be so good that everyone would eat seven times a day. In addition to the rumours about hand- outs, these jokes were based on the numerous promises that youth were hearing from leaders of diff erent parties through news media. Like youth reactions to the mahaber, these jokes and rumours are best understood in the context of patron/client power relationships. Youth assumed that political support is something to be exchanged for economic aid, but the jokes indicate that they did not actually believe this aid would be forthcoming. I have argued elsewhere (Mains 2004) that rumours are a particularly Ethiopian form of political discourse in the sense that they allow the speaker to off er commentary without directly claiming these criti- cisms as one’s own. Th is style of communication resembles traditional riddles known as ‘wax and gold’ in which a comment has both an apparent (the wax) and hidden (the gold) meaning (Levine 1965). Th e joking and rumours described here function in a similar manner in the sense that they allow youth to comment on the election and politics while still maintaining a high level of personal distance from the political struggle. Th e apolitical nature of youth discourse is especially evident when compared with that of university students. Although they were of a similar age, university students were generally highly political and actively involved in all aspects of the election. Most of the students that I spoke with did not hesitate to declare their allegiance for the party of their choice. Th ey were quick to explain their choice in terms of their party’s position on the issue of ethnic federalism. Ethiopia’s policy of ethnic federalism has been the most contentious topic of debate among intellectuals and politicians. Depending on one’s perspective it is either the major contribution or fault of the EPRDF, and therefore it is a topic 158 daniel mains of great sensitivity. Unlike students, among urban youth in Jimma issues such as the rights of ethnic minorities, language policy and national identity were rarely discussed. My point is not to deny that youth were interested in the outcome of the elections or hopeful about the potential of new parties. Th e atmosphere of hopeful anticipation that existed in the fi nal week or two leading up to the elections was clearly illustrated by the massive opposition rally that took place at Mäsqäl Square in Addis Ababa. While the involvement of youth in the election was greater in Addis Ababa, many young people in Jimma also began quietly to voice support for the opposition. However, unlike the students, youth discussions did not approach politically volatile issues like ethnic federalism. In many ways youth narratives were less exaggerated versions of the jokes described above, expressing a belief that a new party would provide changes that were important for their lives – more jobs and a higher standard of living. In contrast to comments expressing cynicism and apathy, these narratives focused on change and expressed a general sense of hope. Particularly as the elections drew closer some youth began to openly vocalise support for the main opposition party in Jimma and many other urban areas, the CUD. In explaining their position these youth discussed an abstract notion of ‘change.’ Th ere was a sense that change was necessary regardless of the form it might take. Anything new would be better than the present condition. Th e following quote comes from a group of unemployed, male CUD supporters: Aft er fourteen years some kind of change is necessary. For fourteen years we’ve seen no improvement in Jimma. No factories, only one new road, nothing. Th e government makes a show of doing a lot of work right before the election but it is a lie. Qinijjit will bring change. You know, today we have no choice regarding education and this will change. Also if someone fails his school leaving exams he isn’t given another chance. If Qinijjit was in power, he would get another chance. Th e comments of these young men on education are indicative of this type of narrative. With a change of government anything is possible. Even those who have failed and appear to have no potential future will be given another chance. In this sense the state is invested with the potential to erase the past and the present, creating an opportunity for a new and brighter future. Youth expressing these narratives were willing to support opposition parties because they believed the parties could provide them with the cynicism and hope 159 opportunities for education and employment that they had been missing.17 Narratives of hope were not limited to opposition supporters. A handful of youth were vocal supporters of the EPRDF. When I questioned them about their political allegiance they explained that the government was implementing numerous eff ective programmes for job creation. Th ey pointed to specifi c examples of other young people who were active volunteers at their neighbourhood (kebele) offi ce and had received grants for starting small businesses or opportunities to further their education through NGO development projects. Th ese youth had faith that their actions would bring them the help needed to move beyond their current state of underemployment. It is interesting that many of the young women I spoke to expressed these hopeful narratives concerning the EPRDF. Th ey argued that the EPRDF has given real attention to the rights of women. Although I hesitate to draw conclusions based on a what was a very small number of interviews, it did appear that the combination of cultural biases that excluded women from some of the more lucrative areas of the informal sector with local and international trend towards promoting the participation of women in development projects may have led young women to perceive the current government as more benefi cial in meeting their needs. Narratives of cynicism and hope express contrasting attitudes regarding the political process as a whole. Narratives of cynicism imply that change does not come from the government. From this perspective elections are a meaningless exercise that has no repercussions on the everyday lives of young people. As noted above, narratives of hope place responsibility on the government for all types of social and economic change. In these narratives the system as a whole is not questioned, and change can be made by replacing particular individuals or parties with others. I should note that high levels of cynicism among youth may be partially explained by their lack of experience with competitive elections. Once young people did realise that the opposition had a chance to win the 2005 elections, more of them became interested in the process. Th is may also explain some of the diff erence in

17 With few exceptions, youth I spoke to in 2008 and 2009 were very disinterested in politics. Even those who had been heavily invested in supporting opposition parties in 2005 no longer wanted to discuss politics. Th ey explained that they did not believe the opposition would ever be given the space to eff ectively compete again and that the maintenance of peace and stability outweighs any potential benefi ts that could come from political change. 160 daniel mains levels of engagement between regional centres like Jimma and Addis Ababa. Unlike in the capital, in Jimma the opposition campaign was small and many people did not recognise its signifi cance until the fi nal weeks before the elections. Th ese contrasting perspectives also express diff ering relationships to the patron/client model of power. To express cynicism regarding the election was also to withdraw from a patron/client-styled relationship with the state. Cynicism and apathy imply that one has little to gain from such a relationship and therefore participation is pointless. Hope, however, implies a willingness to enter into these relationships of power, and to support a particular party with the expectation that one will receive reciprocal benefi ts. Th ese perspectives had further implications for positioning ‘youth’, as a bounded group, within the fl ows of power that surrounded the 2005 election. One of the key aspects of narratives of cynicism is that they allowed youth to comment on the elections without directly taking a position. Youth generated a large amount of discourse surrounding the election, but much of it was muddled and ambiguous. Some youth explained their own silence in relation to the elections partially as a response to police harassment. However, by speaking in a way that distanced them from the election, youth did more than simply avoid trouble with the police. Th ey situated themselves outside the power struggle and avoided being defi ned as existing in opposition to, or in support of, any party. Th e avoidance of political discourse allowed youth to construct an identity that did not make reference to political power. Youth perceived interventions such as the youth mahaber and police harassment as attempts to control their political behaviour. By using mechanisms like humour and apathy to create distance from the fi eld of politics, youth attempted to neutralise these interventions. Shift ing their political identity has no impact on the underlying conditions of joblessness and social deviancy that motivated interventions into youth lives. However, to some extent youth were able to mitigate the intensifi ed fl ows of power that were generated by the election. In contrast, youth who expressed narratives of hope in regard to the political process placed themselves into the centre of fl ows of power. In Jimma these young people were few in number, but they appear to have been much more numerous in Addis Ababa. Th ey were oft en given small tasks in supporting the political parties like running errands or making signs for rallies. Th ese youth were deeply invested in the cynicism and hope 161

maintenance of the patron/client relationship as the dominant model of power in Ethiopia. Publicly voicing support for a party implied the belief that a victory for their side was likely and they stood to benefi t personally from this victory.

Conclusion

In this paper I have argued that power relations involving young people have been shaped by two primary factors. First, is the recent emergence of ‘youth’ as a distinct social category in urban Ethiopia in a manner that has legitimated various government interventions into the lives of young people. Second is the continued infl uence of the patron/client model for power relationships between the state (presumably elders) and young people, and the new and complicated ways that these relationships are limited by the ability of each side to off er benefi ts and support to the other. Th e 2005 national election intensifi ed each of these factors in the sense that there was an increased need for the government to control the behaviour of youth (especially young men) and to engage them in the political process. I have analysed police detentions and youth mahaberoch as government interventions into the lives of young people. Each of these interventions represented a productive form of power to the extent that in state discourse they promoted the health of the population body and produced knowledge regarding youth. Despite these seemingly productive qualities, these interventions did not legitimate relations of power between youth and the state. Youth narratives reveal the manner in which they negotiated with these interventions and sought to reposition themselves in relation to power. Th ese discourses relied on contrasting narratives of cynicism and hope in order to construct the election as either irrelevant or as a potential solution for the problems faced by young people. Th e diff erence in these narratives may also be conceptualised as diff erent positions on the legitimacy of the state in the context of a patron/client relationship. To dismiss the election as irrelevant was to deny the potential of the state to provide social or economic benefi ts that should be reciprocated with political support. To express enthusiasm for a political party was to imply that the state did have the potential to create positive changes within the lives of its citizens. In the end, it was this choice between withdrawal and involvement, cynicism and hope that provided a means for youth to structure their own relationship to power. 162 daniel mains

Bibliography

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Pankhurst, Alula, and Damen Haile Mariam 2000. ‘Th e Iddir in Ethiopia: Historical Development, Social Function, and Potential Role in HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control.’ Northeast African Studies 7 (2): 35–57. Poluha, Eva. 2004. Th e Power of Continuity: Ethiopia through the Eyes of its Children. Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet. —— . 2007. Th e Worlds of Girls and Boys in Rural and Urban Ethiopia. Addis Ababa; Forum for Social Studies. Richards, Paul. 1996. Fighting for the Rain Forest: War, Youth, and Resources in Sierra Leone. Oxford: James Currey. Serneels, Pieter. 2007. ‘Th e Nature of Unemployment among Young Men in Urban Ethiopia.’ Review of Development Economics 1 (1): 170–86. Shack, William A. 1973. ‘Urban Ethnicity and the Cultural Process of Urbanization in Ethiopia.’ In Urban Anthropology: Cross-Cultural Studies of Urbanization, edited by Aidan Southall, 251–85. London and New York: Oxford University Press. Teshome Wagaw. 1979. Education in Ethiopia: Prospect and Retrospect. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Toggia, Pietro S. 2008. ‘Th e State of Emergency: Police and Carceral Regimes in Modern Ethiopia.’ Journal of Developing Societies 24 (2): 107–24. Weiss, Brad. 2002. ‘Th ug Realism: Inhabiting Fantasy in Urban Tanzania.’ Cultural Anthropology 17 (1): 93–124.

CHAPTER 6

ISLAM AND POLITICS: THE EPRDF, THE 2005 ELECTIONS AND MUSLIM INSTITUTIONS IN BALE1

Terje Østebø

Introduction

In the few months before the national elections in May 2005 there was a signifi cant wind change in the political climate in Bale. From being indiff erent to the upcoming elections, people started to think that real political change could actually be possible; they started to discuss politics and were looking forward to May 15. A number of opposition parties had registered for the election, and though only a few actually campaigned in Bale, some managed to defeat the incumbent Oromo People’s Democratic Organisation (OPDO).2 In Sinana and Adaba constituencies, the Oromo National Congress (ONC) gained the most votes, while the Oromo Federalist Democratic Movement (OFDM) won in Dodola and Kokosa. In the latter constituency, the result was contested by the OPDO, who defeated the OFDM in the re-run. Th e Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD) ran in most of the constituencies, yet the only place it was likely to win was in the Amhara stronghold of Goba. Th e reason they did not was that their main candidate was off ered 10,000 Birr and thus withdrew his candidature. Th e same was reportedly true for the ONC candidate in Agarfa/Gasera, who received 2,000 Birr and a piece of land. In this case, the National Election Board of Ethiopia (NEBE) failed to inform the voters of his withdrawal, resulting in the annulment of the votes for the ONC.

1 Th e data on which this chapter is based were collected during extensive fi eldwork in the period 2005–07. 2 Opposition parties registered in Bale were the United Ethiopian Democratic Forces/Oromo National Congress (UEDF/ONC), Oromo Federalist Democratic Move ment (OFDM), Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD), Oromo Abbo Liber- ation Front (OALF), Oromo Liberation National Party (OLNP), Oromo Liberation Unity Front (OLUP), Gadda System Advancement Party (GSAP). 166 terje østebø Parties OPDO ONC OFDM CUD OALF OLNP OLUF GSAP Independent in Bale election the 2005 national of Results AdabaAgarfa/GaseraDodola 74.80GinirGoba 40.46Goro 30.62Jarra 47.17Kokosa 82.97Menna 44.71Sinana 76.45 74.76 58.99 51.57 6.50 17.17 82.05 6.03 25.63 10.07 10.99 46.95 41.01 38.67 8.13 16.62 10.49 7.98 1.73 22.27 1.83 2.30 14.76 5.15 7.74 4.12 10.28 3.32 0.00 2.19 1.89 4.14 1.13 5.38 Table 6.1 Table Constituencies (2005) Ethiopia of Board Election National Source: islam and politics 167

While there were several reports of intimidation and harassment of both the electorate and opposition candidates prior to the elections, pressure continued immediately aft er May 15. When the votes were counted, the OPDO ‘cadres’ – surprised and disappointed by the results – forwarded serious threats to the winning opposition candidates, as well as to those counting the votes. Th is eff ectively put a stop to the opposition’s political activities and led to the closure of their branch offi ces. Th e unrest in Addis Ababa in June and November 2005 only had implications for a few people in Bale, namely the candidates and the vocal CUD supporters, who were repeatedly imprisoned and harassed. In general, the Oromo of Bale remained passive in the face of these actions, regarding it as an ‘Amhara matter’. Votes in the 2005 elections largely correspond to the ethnic topogra- phy of Bale. Th e CUD gained those from the Amhara and partly from the Shoa Oromo constituency, while the ONC and OFDM votes mainly came from the Arsi Oromo. While the latter viewed the ONC and the OFDM as truly independent opposition parties, they were, however, seen as substitute choices in the absence of the ‘real Oromo party’, the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF). Th e votes given to the opposition by the Oromo, and particularly by the Arsi Oromo, were fi rst and foremost a protest against a regime regarded as illegitimate, as well as a counterweight to the CUD, which was perceived as aiming to reverse the system of ethnic federalism and curtail the rights of the country’s ethnic groups. Allegedly, many Arsi Oromo preferred the OPDO to the CUD in areas where there were no ‘Oromo’ opposition parties. Religion, on the other hand, seemed to be an issue that was absent from the election. Th is may be a little surprising, given the fact that the present regime has removed many of the earlier restrictions on religious expression: enabling Muslims in Ethiopia to carve out public space for themselves, making Islam more visible, as well as creating stronger confi dence among Muslims. Allegations of an increasing polit icisation of Islam are more oft en heard in the debate, in which several (Christian) Ethiopian observers, in reference to the mushrooming of mosques countrywide and to the way Muslims are ascending to government positions, claim that Ethiopian Muslims are aspiring to political power with a programme of radical religious ideas. In particular, it is the alleged growth of Salafi sm (with links to Saudi Arabia) – or Wahhabism as it is referred to locally – that has received much attention. It is in Ethiopia seen as part and parcel of a wider Islamist movement waging 168 terje østebø armed struggle under the banner of jihad (Alem Zelalem 2003; Hibret Selamu 2004; Johannes Sebhatu 2004). Th is contribution seeks to move beyond such presumptions and argues that the situation is far more complex than can be surmised at fi rst glance. With the Bale zone in Oromia National Regional State as a case in point – an area which in recent decades has become a stronghold for Salafi Islam, and which has a long history of resistance towards the political centre – my intention is to discuss the interrelationship between Muslim and political institutions in that area. I will take a broad historical perspective and explore how situated actors have been deeply involved in producing discursive narratives, which have reciprocally aff ected their images of each other, and had an impact on the way they relate and on their strategies for seeking power. A major point will be to demonstrate how the incumbent party has viewed Islam as a potential political force, to discuss how it sought to monitor and co-opt the Islamic leadership, and, at the same time, to explore the diff erent strategies this leadership applies in negotiating their role in relation to formal political structures. Dealing with religion in Bale immediately brings up the issue of ethnicity, which, as I will demonstrate, remains closely interrelated with that of religion and in turn informs broader political discourses in Bale.

Religion and politics

Before embarking on a discussion of the subject matter, there are three issues that need to be considered. Th e fi rst refers to the role of religion in relation to politics. Th is issue has become an increasingly complex matter in contemporary politics, in which defi ning the boundary between religion and politics, the question of legitimate political power and the right for representation of religion in politics are critical issues at stake. It is not only a question of ‘systems’ and ‘structures’, but is also related to the actors involved, how they perceive themselves and others, and how this determines the actual relationships within the system. Although liberal democracy, as one set of thoughts about exercising power, presupposes the inclusion and participation of diff erent actors, including religious ones, the boundaries between religion and state are usually clearly demarcated. Political institutions are supposed to be religiously neutral, securing people’s rights and well- being regardless of religious affi liation. In Ethiopia this is enshrined in the 1994 constitution, which rules out a state religion and provides the islam and politics 169 assurance of no government interference in religious matters and vice versa (FDRE 1995, art. 11). Article 27 warrants freedom of religion, belief and opinion, which includes the right of believers to ‘establish institutions of religious education and administration in order to prop- agate and organise their religion.’ Furthermore, the constitution opens up the possibility for religious marriage ceremonies and religious courts relating to personal and family issues (arts. 34, 78). Such restrictions of religion’s access to the political sphere have in Islamic contexts led to the emergence of movements seeking to erase this public-private divide and to integrate Islam in political aff airs. While these represen- tations have gained much attention over the last decades, it is important, as this contribution will demonstrate, to underline that the broader spectrum of Muslim actors are engaged in far more complex processes of negotiations over public and political space, which do not necessarily lead to the Islamisation of politics. Th e second issue is the lack of distinction between party and governmental structures in Ethiopia. When people in Bale refer to mootummaa – government – they do not distinguish between the offi - cial structures of the zone, woreda or kebele - and the party appa ratus. Th is clearly refl ects the manner in which the ruling party has taken control over the governmental institutions, how it uses them for its political purposes and hence erases the boundaries between state and politics. Consequently, it infl uences how people then relate to the offi - cial institutions, as they are constantly aware of not just dealing with a ‘neutral’ offi cial body, but with the party. It also aff ects the researcher’s use of such terms. When I refer to political institutions in the following, I generally make no distinction between central or local bureaucratic structures and those of a formal political nature, i.e. executive and legislative offi ces. Th e third point is the notion of traditional Islamic authority and the fl uid concept of the ‘traditional’. As pointed out by the editors of this volume, a fruitful approach to traditional authorities would be to not view them as relics of the past but as dynamic actors constantly re-negotiating the past in relation to present conditions. While the lack of a strict hierarchical structure in Sunni Islam at the outset makes the Islamic leadership a rather heterogeneous body, traditional authorities in Bale are moreover characterised by inherent internal diversity, entailing both a division (to a certain degree) between ‘secular’ and ‘religious’ leadership institutions, as well as a functional diversifi cation within the religious authorities. Moreover, there are also instances 170 terje østebø when the political authorities have tried to integrate traditional ‘secular’ institutions into its structures, seen clearly through the Imperial Government’s appointments of abba bokus as balabats.3 Th is was reversed by the Derg regime, and neither of the previous regimes sought to integrate Islamic institutions in a similar manner. Th e internal diversity of the so-called traditional institutions has furthermore been accentuated by recent processes of religious change, leading to the formation of new structures and to the emergence of actors that are of a diff erent nature than the so-called traditional ones, which in turn has complicated relations to the political institutions.

Th e context of Bale

Bale is the second largest zone within Oromia National Regional State. It covers an area of more than 67,000 square kilometres, currently divided into 20 woredas, with Robe as the zonal capital. Th e overwhelming majority of the 1.4 million population is Muslim (78 percent), while the rest is largely Orthodox Christian (19 percent).4 Islam in Bale traces its roots back to the Bale Sultanate of the medieval period. However, as a result of the wars of Ahmed ibn Ibraham (‘Gragn’) between 1529 and 1543 and the subsequent Oromo migrations from the 1540s, Islam lost its foothold in Bale. It was not until the late 18th century that a process of Islamisation among the Arsi Oromo started – a process that is still ongoing at the south-western fringes of present- day Bale.5 In general, the kind of Islam emerging in the course of the Islamisation of the Oromo can best be described as a symbiosis of Islamic and non-Islamic traditions. In spite of the absence of organised Sufi turuq (brotherhoods), features from Sufi sm are obvious, most clearly demonstrated by the existence and veneration of various shrines, particularly the shrines of Sheikh Hussein and Sof Umar. Many of the rituals performed at these shrines and, in addition, the veneration of the graves of the ancestors of the diff erent sub-clans, are examples of the survival and integration of pre-Islamic Oromo religious features.

3 Th e abba boku was a leadership fi gure in the gadaa system, which in Bale was decentralised through several clan confederations. A balabat was a local chief responsible for tax collection and maintaining law and order in this area. 4 Th e fi gures for the general population size are based on the 2007 census (CSA 2008). As there are no data available about religion in Bale, the fi gures on religion are based on the 1994 census (CSA 1994). 5 See Østebø (2005), for a survey of the history of Islam in Bale. islam and politics 171

Th ese local features gave rise to a particular local religious leadership, which can be divided into two broad categories. Th e fi rst group, concentrated around the main shrine of Sheikh Hussein, is represented by its guardians, together with the geriba and the fuqra; wandering servants of Sheikh Hussein, who through their possession of karaama had the ability to aff ect people’s well-being through blessings or curses.6 Within the second group we fi nd Islamic teachers, who again can be divided into scholars of Islam – the ulama – and Quranic teachers. Th ere were relatively few of the former, while the latter were found throughout the rural areas. With only a rudimentary knowledge of Islamic scholarship and Arabic, the Quranic teachers combined teaching with the production of talismans based on Islamic writ.

Photograph 2: Emperor Haile Selassie visiting the shrine of Sheikh Hussein in 19647

Source unknown.

6 Th e word karaama (Arabic, karamat) denotes the marvels done by certain selected persons, while in Bale the term refers to the ability to perform such marvels. 7 I am grateful to Qenazmach Abduqadir Qadi Ahmed for providing me with a copy of this photograph. 172 terje østebø

Th e arrival of Salafi sm in the 1960s was the starting point for signifi - cant religious changes in Bale. Th e movement had made an impact in the neighbouring regions of Arsi and Hararge since the 1940s, before arriving in Bale as a result of increased inter-local interactions. Th e key agents of change were indigenous Oromo traders from Bale, who brought these new ideas from the surrounding regions. Also important were the opportunities for higher religious education in Saudi Arabia, attracting local Oromo from Bale, who upon their return became pivotal in the further dissemination of Salafi sm and for the formation of a Salafi identity. Concentrated in the town of Robe, the Nur mosque became an important rallying point for the movement, whereas the Salafi yya Madrassa emerged as crucial for the elaboration of the Salafi doctrines and for securing religious knowledge. Th e Salafi s made a strong point of opposing many of the existing religious practices, particularly the pilgrimages to local shrines and the celebrations of mawlid al-Nabi (the Prophet’s birthday), something which obviously spurred intense controversies with the existing religious authorities.8 As a consequence of the general suppression of religion during the Derg period, the Salafi s were forced to keep a low profi le, yet managed to sustain their presence – before expanding rapidly aft er 1991. However, the post-Derg period also saw growing tensions within the movement with the surfacing of a new generation of Salafi s. While sharing the same ideology as their seniors, this trait of Salafi s, which I refer to here as the Ahl al-Sunna,9 called for far more strict observance of Islamic regulations and claimed many aspects of the Sunna to be compulsory.10 Noticeable aspects were the growing of a beard, wearing trousers above the ankles (isbal) and women covering their faces with black veils (niqab). Th ese youngsters were actively engaged in mission activities (da’wa) urging their fellow Muslims to display greater zeal in their religious performance. When tensions increased from the middle of the 1990s, the Salafi ulama of Robe, in cooperation with the local authorities, managed to oust the key young Salafi s and subsequently weaken the movement.

8 For an extensive discussion of the history of Salafi sm in Bale, see Østebø (2008). 9 As every Sunni Muslim claims to be part of the Ahl al-Sunna wal Jam’a, there is a certain ambiguity in this term. However, diff erent terms and labels, appearing in a particular context, can be carriers of a distinctive meaning. It should be pointed out that the Ahl al-Sunna in Bale never appeared as a movement with organisational structures. 10 Following the example of the Prophet; his words and deeds. islam and politics 173

Ethnically, the overwhelming majority in Bale is Oromo, comprising around 90 percent of the population, with the Amhara as the largest non-Oromo group (8 percent). Th e Oromo can in turn be subdivided into the Arsi Oromo (80 percent) and the Shoa Oromo (10 percent).11 Th e Amhara arrived in Bale as a direct result of the campaigns of Emperor Menelik in the early 1890s, becoming the ruling class as well as wealthy landowners. Th e Shoa Oromo started migrating into Bale during the 1950s and 1960s, either directly from northern Shoa or via Arsi, and were in many ways caught between the Amhara and the indigenous Arsi Oromo. Linguistically, they were close to the Arsi Oromo, yet at the same time more profi cient in Amharic. Certain cultural features were diff erent from those of the Arsi Oromo (i.e. the gadaa system), while they also remained alien to the Arsi clan system. Yet the most important factor was religion. Th eir adherence to the Christian Orthodox faith clearly separated them from the Muslim Arsi Oromo. It identifi ed them more with the Amhara, although they were never accepted as equals by the latter (see Blackhurst 1980). Econo m- ically they remained a poor landless class, tilling the land of both Amhara and Oromo landlords. Th is changed, however, during the Derg period, when they benefi ted greatly from the land reform of 1975.

Th e political transition in 1991 and politics in Bale Th e political transition in 1991 was characterised in Bale by intense competition between the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) and the OLF. Th e latter drew overwhelming support from the Arsi Oromo, who saw the OLF as a liberation force and the TPLF as a continuation of the former oppressive rule. Tensions soon escalated, climaxing in a short but brutal war in the streets of Robe in November 1991. Having easily defeated the uprising, the TPLF subsequently embarked on a campaign to eradicate political opposition in Bale. It targeted both the few OLF contingents and the civilian population, which was terrorised into refusing any support to the OLF. Th e OLF’s military capacity was severely reduced from the latter part of the 1990s onwards and its activities confi ned to the eastern lowlands (Østebø 2008, 271f.). As a result, the OPDO emerged as the sovereign power-holder in Bale, claiming victory in the previous elections of 1995 and 2000. Obviously, the

11 Th ese fi gures are based on the 1994 census (CSA 1994), as no fi gures for Bale have been released from the 2007 census. 174 terje østebø circumstances under which both these elections were held, without any real opposition, combined with pressure on and intimidation of the electorate, were determinant factors in securing power for the OPDO. Th e political climate in Bale in 2005 corresponded to a great extent to fi ndings by Human Rights Watch (2005), which described a general pattern of human rights abuse and political repression for the whole of Oromia. Th rough an extensive network of informants and by infi ltrating civil, cultural and religious institutions, the government kept a tight grip on the population. Whereas mass arrests and imprisonment were more common in the early 1990s, the regime gradually shift ed its tactics towards using sanctions of a more economic nature (layoff s from work, loss of salary, confi scation of property, etc.), all adding up to a situation where fear and a lack of predictability prevailed in people’s minds. As in other parts of Oromia, the OLF remained the devil the regime painted on the wall to secure control over the population. Any form of criticism or opposition to the regime was interpreted as support for the OLF and quickly curbed. Th e same kind of rhetoric was used during the 2005 elections, as local OPDO ‘cadres’ labelled all other parties as un-democratic, i.e. in allegiance with the OLF.

Co-opting the religious institutions Whereas other African countries with similar Muslim populations have a long history of Islamic organisations, Muslims in Ethiopia have largely been denied such representation. Previous regimes blocked their establishment by simply making them illegal. At the end of the Imperial era, the fi rst attempt to establish an Islamic organisation was made with the establishment of Salam Yemuslim Mahaber or Salam Muslim Association in 1962, only to be closed by the government in 1965 (Neima Shikur 2005, 14). Th e Derg approved the establishment of the Ethiopian Islamic Aff airs Supreme Council (EIASC) in 1975, but soon brought it under its own political control. Th is particular background thus becomes crucial for understanding Islam’s informal and deinstitutionalised character in today’s Ethiopia. While the Ethio- pian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) regime’s liberal policy on religion led to the establishment of a number of Islamic organisations in the early 1990s and simultaneously asserted that the government would not interfere in religious aff airs, we see a signifi cant shift in this policy from the middle of the 1990s. Th is was a direct result islam and politics 175 of the violent clash between worshippers and police around the al-Anwar mosque in Addis Ababa, the assassination attempt on Hosni Mubarak in Addis Ababa in June 1996, and the bomb attacks carried out by al-Itihad al-Islamiyya during 1995. A number of Islamic organisations were consequently banned, and prominent leaders were arrested or forced to fl ee the country. Th e EPRDF policy has hence shift ed towards seeking to monitor, control and restrict the institutions’ operating space, as well as to co-opt them for the realisation of its own political programme.

Semi-offi cial institutions Th e EIASC received legal status in 1991 and was subsequently re-organised in 1992 according to the federalist arrangement with federal, regional, zonal and woreda councils (Nuredin Jemal 1998). It has developed an elaborate formal structure through which the members of each level’s council are elected from among the faithful. Th e councils have their chairmen, vice-chairmen and secretaries (on the federal level the term ‘president’ is used), similar to other civil organisations. Th e members of the councils are oft en laypersons, although the representation of ulama seems to be relatively high. In general, its assigned task is to coordinate the various activities of the Muslim community. In Bale, the council is represented with its zonal offi ce in Robe and has expanded its activities since 2000 by setting up sub-councils in most of the woredas. It organises public celebrations of Muslim holi- days, partakes in distributing funds it receives domestically or from abroad, and it is supposed to mediate in confl icts within the Muslim community. Th e incidents during 1995–96 led the regime to call for the election of a new council, which was closely monitored by the government and allowed the EIASC to emerge as the sole actor claiming to represent the Muslim population as a whole (Abbink 1998, 118; Østebø 1998, 429–30). Th e council’s vast apparatus and its close links with the regime have eff ectively enabled the latter to monitor and control developments within the Muslim community, and the council has for its part proved to be a loyal instrument in curbing unwanted currents, in particular the Salafi movement. In January 2004, the EIASC voted to remove all the executive members of the council and replaced them with staunch anti-Salafi s. It is interesting to note that the voting sessions were attended by a representative from the Ministry of Foreign Aff airs. 176 terje østebø

Th e EIASC has widely been seen in Bale as an institution under the regime’s control, with its main leaders regarded as ‘cadres’ of the ruling party. Although there are no formal links with the governmental structure, there are enough indications that confi rm the validity of this perception. Parallel to the developments at central level, only those loyal to the OPDO were granted access to the council’s main leadership. As part of the regime’s mechanisms for controlling the population, the EIASC has thus become an important tool for extending the regime’s infl uence in the Muslim community. Since its restructuring in 1992, it has been charged with organising the elections of the committees of the main mosques in Bale, which enabled the OPDO, through a rather manipulated election process, to have party loyalists elected onto the committees. Th e EIASC is also used by the political authorities to garner support for their political agenda. Th is was clearly seen during the Ethiopia-Eritrea war (1998–2000), where the public celebration of Id al-Fitr (marking the end of fasting) was used by the council to prop- agate the views of the government and to collect fi nancial support for the war. While the EIASC was deploying observers at national level during the 2005 election, its branch in Bale was directly involved in campaigning for the OPDO.12 In public meetings, the leaders of the council voiced their support for the party and also moved around in the community calling on people to vote for OPDO candidates. In addition, key persons among the ulama of Robe were approached and urged to participate in collecting votes for the OPDO. As most of them refused to get involved, this only aggravated the relationship between the council and the ulama. Although shari’a courts had existed throughout the history of Islam in Ethiopia, the system was fi rst legally formalised by the Italians. Upon his return from exile, Haile Selassie took this a step further by formu- lating the legal provisions for the shari’a courts in 1942.13 Similar to other countries with a substantive Muslim population, the jurisdiction of the shari’a courts was restricted to matters related to family law – marriage, divorce, inheritance and guardianship of minors (Ibrahim Idris 1994, 152). A dilemma was created with the passing of the Civil

12 On national level EIASC deployed 113 observers to monitor the elections. 13 ‘Proclamation to Establish Kadi Courts,’ Negarit Gazeta, 1, No. 12, 1942. Th is was confi rmed by the ‘Proclamation to Provide for the Establishment of Naiba and Kadis Councils,’ Negarit Gazeta, 3, No. 62, 1944. islam and politics 177

Code of 1960, which repealed previous rules pertaining to family law and succession. Th is eff ectively curtailed the jurisdiction of Islamic law, as well as implicitly abolishing the shari’a courts. Responding to widespread Muslim protests, the Imperial Government issued a circular allowing the shari’a courts to function de facto in accordance with the proclamation of 1944. No additional legislation was introduced and during the period of Imperial rule, as well as throughout the Derg period, the shari’a courts constituted a quasi-legal entity.14 In 1999, the House of Peoples’ Representatives issued a proclamation formalising the role of shari’a courts in Ethiopia, while at the same time integrat- ing them into the formal judicial structures. Defi ning its areas of jurisdiction, the courts were made accountable to the Federal Juridical Adminis tration Commission (Art. 3), which was also to approve the appointment of qadis or shari’a court judges (Art. 17).15 In Bale, the shari’a courts are organised with a zonal court in Robe and lower-level courts in six woredas. Th eir offi ces are located in the governmental court buildings, and the qadis’ salaries are funded by government grants. While this makes the courts’ formal links with the judicial structure obvious, the regime has also extended its political infl uence to the courts. It is clear that a major criterion for becoming a qadi is membership of, or at least loyalty to, the OPDO. Th is has created a perception that the shari’a courts are part of the regime’s political apparatus – and the qadis the party’s cadres. In a situation where the shari’a court, on the one hand, is a key institution providing services that are important to every Muslims, its proximity to the regime, on the other hand, creates a high degree of distrust among people, distancing them from the courts and in turn reducing the courts’ activities.

Th e Salafi ulama and traditional religious leadership Th e Salafi ulama of Robe are considered the most infl uential leaders of Islam in Bale. Th ey constitute a rather uniform body concentrated around the Nur mosque and the Salafi yya Madrassa in Robe. Th e Nur mosque is run by a democratically elected committee, one that the EIASC has never managed to infi ltrate. Together with the imam, this committee exercises both religious and administrative authority.

14 For more details on the development of shari’a courts in Ethiopia, see Idris Ibrahim (1994) and Abdul Wasie Yusuf (1971). 15 ‘Federal Courts of Sharia Consolidation Proclamation,’ Proclamation No. 188/1999. 178 terje østebø

Th e members of this committee are not necessarily scholars, but also pious laymen and subscribers to the ideas of the Salafi movement. Previously under the supervision of the Nur mosque, the Salafi yya Madrassa was established during the Derg period with its own autonomous structure and its own administration, with a director and a board. Teaching is organised through a system of classes and grades, and text- books and curriculum are imported from Saudi Arabia. Formal religious education is also the criterion for being recognised as a teacher, and the stress is on appropriate knowledge of the sources and doctrines of (Salafi ) Islam. Of the 27 former and present teachers at the school, 20 of them earned their degrees from institutions in Saudi Arabia, mainly from the University of Medina. While the regime’s approach towards the EIASC and the shari’a courts has been that of co-option, it has embarked on a strategy of monitoring and controlling the Salafi ulama. It is a widely held perception that the regime’s cadres are infi ltrating the mosques and that informants are actively listening in on what is said in the sermons. Th ere are examples of imams being questioned by the security apparatus for things that are not related to politics: One time I was preaching in Bilal mosque, saying that according to the hadith every Muslim is a brother of a Muslim. Th e meaning of this is that the Muslims should live in peace with each other (…) But aft er that the woreda administrator called me to his offi ce. I asked them why they had called me. He said, ‘You said that every Muslim is the brother to other Muslims. Does this mean that the Christians are not the brothers of the Muslims?’ He then said, ‘From today we will not hear such things in the mosque. We have a person in the mosque watching you.’16 During the 2005 election, the regime made a renewed eff ort to co-opt the Salafi ulama. Several members of the ulama were approached either by representatives of the EIASC or by OPDO ‘cadres’ and asked to motivate the people to cast their votes for the incumbent party. More- over, there were some few attempts by ‘cadres’ to campaign for the ruling party in the mosques during the Friday prayers. Th is attempt was, however, immediately silenced by the congregations. Partly in order to strengthen the regime’s legitimacy on the ground, the main reason for this was to curb the ulama’s role as independent political actors by making them dependent on the political structure. Although a few

16 Interview, Robe, 9 June 2005. islam and politics 179 have been attracted by off ers from the government, most of the ulama have refused to be associated with the regime.17 Th e so-called traditional Islamic leadership was signifi cantly marginalised during the Derg regime. Seen as backward and as representing a superstitious worldview, it was deemed ill-suited to the regime’s progressive policies. Moreover, the shrine of Sheikh Hussein and its devotees were particularly targeted, mainly due, as we will see, to the role they played in the armed struggle against the regime. Today the remains of this traditional leadership are mostly concentrated around the shrines of Sheikh Hussein and Sof Umar, with a scattering of individuals in rural areas off ering their services to people in the form of healings, the casting-out of spirits and material assistance to the poor. To some degree, they are still able to infl uence part of the rural population and those that still participate in the yearly pilgrimage to the shrines. Th e present regime has sought to reverse previous policies by paying increased attention to the traditional religious leadership and to the Islamic shrines. In line with the policy of ethnic self-determination and the reaffi rming of the Oromo language, culture and history, the local shrines were classifi ed as ‘valuable historical sites’ and considered important for the development of tourism in Bale. Several attempts have been made to include both the Sheikh Hussein and Sof Umar shrines to UNESCO’s World Heritage List and to obtain funding from the central government for upgrading the sites.18 Th e regional government has constructed a new all-weather road to the Sheikh Hussein shrine, facilitated bus services for the pilgrims and embarked on a larger road construction project through the village, connecting Bale with Hararge (Miller 2005). Senior government offi cials, such as the former presidents of the Oromia National Regional State, Juneydin Sado and Abba Duula Gamada, have regularly attended the annual pilgrimage ceremonies. At the Sof Umar caves, the Regional Culture and Tourism Bureau has published extensive development plans, which among others things include bringing electric lighting to the caves. Moreover, the pilgrimage ceremonies at both shrines have become

17 Th e off ers from the government consist of money, land or other sorts of gift s. 18 See Bale Zone Cultural and Information Department, ‘Natural and Cultural Properties to be Inscribed in the World Heritage List from Bale Zone,’ 1998. Interest- ingly, the US embassy in Ethiopia issued a grant of 25,600 USD for the preservation of the shrine in 2005. 180 terje østebø important occasions for the local authorities to provide information on HIV/AIDS and other health- and development-related issues. Prior to the 2005 election, the regime focused increased attention on the shrine of Sheikh Hussein, seen among other things in the instal- ment of a new generator and in the provision of drinking water to the area. In April 2005, the president of Oromia National Regional State made a high-profi le visit to the shrine, arriving with a procession of thirty cars (Miller 2005).19 While these eff orts at co-option are obviously part of the authorities’ strategy to extend their control over the pilgrimage population, the regime’s involvement in the aff airs of the shrines must also be seen in relation to the government’s eff orts to construct a state-controlled Oromo consciousness, whereby Oromo institutions, practices and sites are re-confi gured to fi t this particular narrative. In this regard, the shrines of Bale are celebrated as symbols of the true indigenous Islam of Bale, which is seen as tolerant and pragmatic. Th is aspect has a direct polemical twist against the dominating Salafi Islam of Bale, viewed by the regime as an alien ‘fundamentalist’ current.

Th e EPRDF’s motives

Th e constitutional principle of separation of religion and state is, as has been demonstrated, exercised rather pragmatically when it comes to the state’s involvement into religious aff airs. Th e regime’s clientelist strategy, through which it sought to extend its control over the institutions as well as curtailing their operational space, was directed towards securing votes and limiting the infl uence of the opposition parties in the 2005 election. However, this policy was part of a broader picture, including discourses about Islam’s legacy in Ethiopia and contemporary religious developments, as well as the particular political history of Bale.

Old prejudices and new fears Dating back to the 16th-century confl ict with Ahmed ‘Gragn’, the political centre of Ethiopia has always harboured a distinct fear of Islam and the devastating eff ects it might have for national sovereignty and unity.

19 Th e National Election Board election results from 2005 showed that the ruling party received around 75 percent of the votes in Jarra constituency, where the shrine is located. islam and politics 181

It was perceived as an external threat potentially becoming aligned with the country’s own Muslim population.20 Th is fear was the main reason why the ruling elite marginalised the Muslim population, curbing their access to public space and hindering their access to political power. As Ethiopia entered the 20th century, the superior position of Christianity and the inferior position of Islam were institutionalised in the political culture of the country. During Haile Selassie’s reign, Muslims were excluded from holding top public offi ces, ranging from higher ranks in the army to main political posts (Markakis 1974, 251, 255). Any attempt to overturn this balance produced quite strong reactions from the Christians, as could be observed aft er the large Muslim demonstration in April 1974 when representatives of the Addis Ababa churches submitted a complaint saying ‘the Muslims undermined the historical position of the country and threatened the unity of the country’ (Hussein Ahmed 1994, 781). While this pattern was reversed in the early 1990s, it simultaneously spurred allegations of ‘Islamic fundamentalism’ spreading through Ethiopia. Developments at local, regional and global levels nurtured the old pejorative pattern, while at the same time adding a new dimension to the ancient fear of Islam. Th e incidents in the mid-1990s, as discussed above, made the regime extremely alert to a potential politicisation of religion, especially the possibility of Islam becoming a resource in the competition for power in the political arena, causing it to reverse its liberal policy towards the Muslims. Th is was moreover exacerbated aft er 9/11, which led to the framing of local discourses within the narratives of global jihadism and the so-called War on Terror. When the Horn of Africa caught the attention of outside actors, such as the United States, who made references to ‘terrorism’ and ‘regional stability’, the EPRDF made an eff ort to curb inputs from the ‘Muslim world’. As a direct result, much of the Saudis’ activities and cash fl ow into Ethiopia were considerably reduced (Shinn 2005). In Bale this was felt in the fi nancial constraints experienced by the Salafi yya Madrassa in Robe. Shortly aft er 2001, the funds from Saudi Arabia were gradually reduced, forcing the school to raise student fees and even to dismiss some of their staff . In general, due to the ulama of Robe’s Salafi preferences, global developments caused the political

20 Erlich (1994, 31) uses the term ‘the Ahmed Gragn Syndrome’ and argues that the experiences of the Ahmed ‘Gragn’ war produced a persistent trauma whereby Islam is perceived as a possible external threat and where the loyalty of Ethiopian Muslims is questioned. 182 terje østebø authorities of Bale to intensify their monitoring of the religious leadership. Accordingly, the Salafi ulama of Robe were seen as potential insti- gators of popular resistance, either religiously or ethnically motivated; they were viewed as a potential security threat and as promoters of ‘Islamic fundamentalism’ and as supporters of the OLF. Following the 9/11 incident, a number of young Muslims were randomly arrested, having been accused of ‘fundamentalist’ activities and disturbing the peace. At that time, it was also claimed that there was a large arsenal of weapons hidden in the Nur mosque of Robe. Th is claim, however, was never substantiated by any proof.

A history of resistance Since the Amhara conquest at the end of the 19th century, the relationship between the Oromo of Bale and the Christian northerners has remained clearly antagonistic, being entangled by both a religious and an ethnic dimension. As political power was assumed by the landown- ing Amhara nobility serving as local administrators, the indigenous Arsi Oromo viewed the conquest as an attack on their independence and the Amhara as occupiers of their land. Th is gradually gave way to sentiments of increasing hostility towards the government – clearly illustrated by the confl icts in the 1960s and the 1970s. Th e best known is the so-called Peasant Revolt of the 1960s under the leadership of Waqo Gutu, but in the early phase of the Derg the Muslim Oromo of Bale, organised under the Somali Abbo Liberation Front (SALF) also found themselves engaged in an armed struggle against the government (Gebru Tareke 1991; Lewis 2002, 231f.; Østebø 2008, 182, 201). Although some armed activities continued into the 1980s, particularly in the eastern lowlands, the SALF’s military capacity was largely crushed by the counter-off ensive of the Derg during the 1978 Ogaden war. While the political authorities viewed these insurgencies as religiously motivated, this was only part of the picture. As expressed by one of my informants: ‘It was not jihad; we were fi ghting for bliisummaa – freedom’.21 It surfaced as a separatist movement within the Bale territories and within the ethnic-religious boundaries of the Muslim Arsi Oromo, its antecedents inspired by Somali nationalism and linked to the Somali government before becoming gradually associated with the wider Oromo struggle. Religion, combined with the other

21 Interview, Robe, 9 October 2005. islam and politics 183 components – language and culture – was a vibrant centrifugal force and reinforced the sense of alienation from the political authorities. Th e alleged religious dimension of the confl icts, the connections to the Somali government and the alleged support from the Islamic world caused the previous regimes to apply rather strong measures to establish peace and order in the region. In 1978, Bale was chosen as the fi rst area for the implementation of Ethiopia’s villagisation programme, which became an important part of blocking popular support for the ‘rebels’, controlling their movements and suppressing future insurgencies.22 Subsequently the confl ict and the succeeding retributions from the regime led to a massive wave of refugees fl eeing to neighbouring Somalia and eventually to other countries.23 Th is particular history has created a perception of Bale as an obstacle to the creation of a stable and unitary state. Th e region has continued to be viewed as unruly and inhabited by a hostile population, causing subsequent regimes to monitor the area closely. On the other hand, for Oromo nationalists Bale has remained an important symbol of their struggle.

Negotiating space

Restricted political space, lack of real representation and continued political pressure from the regime seemingly produced a situation in which religion was detached from politics and where the religious leadership was either brought into the EPRDF fold or rendered extra- neous to the aff airs of the state. Th e hegemonic position of the EIASC and the regime’s co-opting strategies clearly estranged the Muslim community in their relations to political aff airs, but that does not mean that there was a general absence of political engagement. Th e debates that emerged in connection with the 2005 election were not easily accessible to an outside observer, and points of view were advanced carefully in muted conversations. It became clear during these conversations that the religious authorities’ self-perception, their view of politics and their attitudes to Islam’s role in relation to the aff air of the state

22 Th e programme was allegedly initiated due to a large number of internally displaced people, as well as to provide the people with necessary basic services. Between 1978 and 1981, nearly 650,000 people were forcefully moved into a web of new settlements (Clay 1988, 136). 23 It has been noted that in the early 1980s, 200,000 Oromo refugees, the majority from Bale, had fl ed to Somalia (Clay 1988, 142). 184 terje østebø were deeply entangled with inherent local perceptions of religious authorities in Bale with their doctrinal positions, as well as with the particular ethno-religious history of the area.24 While the traditional ‘secular’ Oromo leadership – clan leaders, elders, balabats – played an important part in the insurgencies of the 1960s and 1970s, the religious leadership was never directly involved. Neither the main ulama nor the guardians at the shrines participated in the actual fi ghting; this does not mean, however, that they were indiff erent to the political situation. Yet, as spiritual leaders, they saw themselves positioned as mediators between man and God, with their authority restricted to the spiritual sphere beyond the realm of secular politics. Th eir contribution to the struggle consisted of prayers for the fi ghters and moral support. Th is represents a continuation of the pre- Islamic conception of authority, in conjunction with the gadaa system – producing a certain degree of functional diff erentiation within the Oromo leadership of Bale. While this perception was obviously modi- fi ed during the process of Islamisation and subsequent processes of religious change, such self-imposed constraints on political engagement remain an important backdrop to understanding the contemporary situation. Th e emergence of religious institutions and organisations loyal or with links to the political authorities can be found in various parts of Africa. In an analysis of Islamic Councils in East Africa, François Constantin (1993) pointed out that these councils – whose leadership were oft en political appointees – serve both to coordinate the activities of the Muslim communities and to enhance the regimes’ control over these communities. While such institutions are perceived by the people as representatives of the regime and consequently create a distance between them and the population, there is at the same time a degree of pragmatism. Th e legitimatisation of semi-offi cial institutions oft en supposes clientelist strategies, in which the leaders of such institutions, acting as clients of the politicians, could earn the respect of the grass roots as ‘far as he is able to ‘deliver the goods’, either funds, permits, jobs or status’ (Constantin 1993, 49–50). In Bale, the situation is somewhat diff erent. Apart from facilitating the hajj or pilgrimage, the council has very few goods to deliver; the range of activities of the council is

24 While Lewis (1980) has pointed to the shrine of Sheikh Hussein as a core site for the enactment of the political drama of the 1960s and 1970s, my fi ndings suggest that the shrine’s religious leadership was not greatly involved. islam and politics 185 limited and the resources at its disposal are inadequate to create support among the Muslims. Instead, the council is perceived as interfering in their aff airs and as monitoring and restricting their movements. Interactions with the council are consequently kept to a minimum, and this aff ects the council’s legitimacy.25 One particularity of Ethiopia – and of Bale – is that, since there are no other available organisations to represent Muslims and the dominance of the EIASC hinders their emergence, the Muslim population feels it does not have any real representation. As public fi gures, the main Salafi ulama are bound to be tangled up in government aff airs. Th ey are consulted on various matters, either directly by the local authorities or indirectly through the EIASC and they may (or be forced to) participate in public meetings or workshops. Th e general tendency, however, is that the ulama try to keep this to a minimum. Th is refl ects their strategy of distancing them from formal political institutions, something that arguably refl ects both their opinions about the regime and their view of religion in relation to politics. Th e alleged presence of ‘Islamic fundamentalism’ among the ulama is in stark contrast to my fi ndings, as I have not found any subscribers to such an ideology among the sheikhs in Robe. Although they are ideologically linked to the Salafi doctrines, while the ‘Salafi state’ of Saudi Arabia is said to be founded solely on the shari’a, the ulama of Robe do not hold similar political views. Recognising the religious plurality of Ethiopia, the prevailing view is that religious freedom for all can only be secured under a secular government. With reference to the historical linkages between the state and the church, which are seen as producing religious inequality and discriminatory policies towards the country’s Muslims, the ulama also advocate the idea of religion as a private matter detached from political aff airs. Such attitudes were clearly materialised during the election campaigns, when, as noted above, attempts to garner support for the OPDO inside the mosque were quelled. Such restrictions were also imposed during the transition period: while Robe’s main mosque was decorated with OLF fl ags in 1991, agitation for the OLF or any other organisation was not allowed inside the mosque. When I asked the Salafi ulama if this ban was based

25 It must be added that the situation at woreda level may diff er. Here the size of the community and its transparent character oft en facilitate a situation where the woreda council can act as a real representative of the Muslim community and as a mediator between them and the local government. 186 terje østebø on doctrinal principles or because they disliked the current regime, their answer was short and prompt: ‘Both’.26 While it was said that no religious leaders should use his position to campaign for a political party, there was a general agreement that one was obliged to work for the betterment of human rights and for the improvement of justice. However, there was, at the same time, an unequivocal awareness of the limits to voicing opinions of such a nature. As expressed by one of the sheikhs in Robe: ‘Of course we could talk about democracy and human rights in the mosque, but in doing so we would be accused of agitating for the OLF.’27 Marked by a history of failed resistance, subsequent retaliations by the government and now subject to control and monitoring, there is a prevailing sense of fear in the minds of the sheikhs, as well as self-imposed constraints that prevent them from too deep involvement. Marginalised, spatially confi ned and subject to pressure from the Salafi s, the religious communities of both Sheikh Hussein and Sof Umar very much welcomed the renewed attention from the regime. Th eir alliance with the local and regional authorities became an important strategy for survival in an inhospitable religious landscape, bolstering their self-awareness. Although the regime’s clientelist strategy hardly increased the traditional religious leadership’s actual political leverage, this support defi nitely enhanced their legitimacy in the eyes of their followers, by whom this recognition from the government was construed as yet another sign of the power of Sheikh Hussein. Th e governmental representatives visiting the shrines were viewed as loyal devotees of Sheikh Hussein, which was crucial to the reconstruction of a narrative upholding the shrine’s continued relevance, as well as adding another dimension to its spiritual power so that it became a weapon in the spiritual warfare against the Salafi s. Th e regime’s involvement was, at the same time, viewed with ambiguity. As the main concern of the authorities is to preserve the shrines as historical sites and to promote them as tourist attractions (particular the caves of Sof Umar), their role as religious sites – centres for pilgrimages – has received less attention. Although the guardians of the shrines are forced to accommodate the wishes of the authorities, this

26 Interview, Robe, 9 June 2005. 27 Interview, Robe, 9 June 2005. islam and politics 187 has also sparked some concerns. Th e community at Sof Umar has had repeated run-ins with the regional authorities, and the main religious fi gurehead expressed clear fear over the site’s future: On the one hand, this government is good. Th ey focus on Sof Umar, they try to make it known and to protect it. On the other hand, they focus on tourism. Th ey want to build hotels, bring electric light into the cave and widen the paths. Th at is not good. Th is will bring many modern things to Sof Umar. Th ere may be a big town here, and alcohol may come. I fear that the culture will be swallowed by this (…) We want to keep the site as it is; we don’t want to turn a single stone inside the caves.28 Th e regime’s involvement in the question over legitimate authority at the shrine of Sheikh Hussein during 2005 caused a major confl ict to erupt among the guardians. Th ose belonging to the family of imams descended from Sheikh Muhammed Tilma Tilmo (the fi rst imam) had been lobbying the regional government for years to get their support in the restoration of the imamate. Th e last imam, Imam Mahmoud Muhammed Sayid, who fl ed to Somalia at the beginning of the Derg period, passed away in 2003 and it was his son, Imam Muhidin Mahmoud, the lobbyists sought to bring to power. When the regional government announced the restoration of the imamate – by the time of the election – the existing leadership openly contested the decision, and soon the whole community found itself split into two factions. Although the government denied any direct interference, arguing that the decision was to be taken by the local community, the documents issued by the Oromia Culture and Tourism Bureau contain clear orders that Muhidin Mahmoud was to be authorised as the imam of the shrine of Sheikh Hussein.29 Whether or not the authorities anticipated the opposition from the people of Sheikh Hussein is hard to ascertain. A possible consequence in the long run could be a more estranged relationship between the two and declining support for the regime. If this were to happen and if the power struggle is exacerbated, the shrine and its religious community could fi nd themselves further marginalised and isolated.

28 Interview, Sof Umar, 29 May 2006. 29 Letters from the Oromia Regional Government, Cultural and Tourism Bureau, No. P-S-M-D-S-H/6/1669/98, 17 June 2006 and No. 5/M/2/D/6101/99, 24 November 2006. 188 terje østebø

Politics, ethnicity and Islam

Congruent with general political sentiments in Bale, the religious authorities have largely supported the OLF. During the summer of 1991, when OLF soldiers were camped near the Shaya river some fi ve kilometres from Robe, it was said that only the Amhara remained in the town; the rest of the inhabitants went out to welcome them. As one of the sheikhs of Robe described it: ‘Had it not been for the laws of Islam, we would have danced with joy.’30 By 2005, the OLF enjoyed similar support from both the people and the religious leadership, revealing the strong sense of Oromo ethno-nationalism in Bale. Among the Salafi ulama, it is the idea of Oromumma, a community based on ethnic exclusiveness, and not that of the ummah, a community based on religious exclusiveness, that is advocated. One of the Salafi sheikhs even said that a potential insurgency would be ‘a war of ethnicity, not of religion. And in that case it would be okay to fi ght other Muslims.’31 Th is is clearly illustrated by the change of the self-referential term used in Bale. Up until the fi nal years of the Derg, the Muslim Oromo of Bale commonly referred to themselves as Islaamaa, a term that marked their religious affi liation but also defi ned them as an ethnic group within the locality of Bale. Th e replacement of Islaamaa by the term Oromo reveals that identity has transcended the boundaries of locality and points to the introduction of a conceptual distinction between ethnic and religious affi liation; the former is associated with the public sphere and the latter seen as something private. Among both the religious leadership and the rest of the Muslim community, faith is considered an individual matter by which man identifi es himself in relation to God. Ethnicity is the collective identity marker by which the individual identifi es himself in relation to the collective: fi rstly as an Arsi Oromo, secondly as an Oromo in the wider sense and, thirdly, as distinct from other ethnic groups in Ethiopia. As one of my informants stated: Today my religion and my ethnicity are two diff erent things. One is faith, the other is nation. Religion is about reaching Allah, but it is my nationality that I am proud of. Oromo was before Islam, it is from my forefathers, it is my belonging and my background. Religion is diff erent.32

30 Interview, Robe, 15 March 2005. 31 Interview, Robe, 6 March 2005. 32 Interview, Robe, 13 August 2005. islam and politics 189

Even if the prevailing point of orientation remains ‘being Oromo’, the ongoing religious changes creating a stronger Muslim identity among the Oromo have complicated the interrelationship between ethnicity and religion in Bale. Th is became noticeable during the 2005 elections, indicating that religion was surfacing as a major issue. Just a few weeks before the poll, rumours emerged that the Muslims of Bale were launch- ing a campaign to oust the Christians from offi ce and to favour Muslim candidates only. When investigating these allegations, it became clear that, fi rstly, there was no organised movement and, secondly, it was more about ethnicity than about religion. Only this time it was not the Amhara that were targeted but the Shoa Oromo. Th e tensions between the Arsi and the Shoa Oromo date back to the rebellion in the 1960s, when the latter deliberately distanced themselves from the Muslim Arsi Oromo and instead identifi ed themselves with the political aims of the Imperial Government. As the fi ghting continued in the 1970s, the alliance with the government became obvious, leading to open confl icts between the Shoa Oromo and the SALF guerrillas. In 1991, when the OPDO and the OLF were competing for power in Bale, the Arsi Oromo and the Shoa Oromo once more found themselves divided. While the Muslim population rallied behind the OLF, the Shoa Oromo gave their support to the OPDO, a move that markedly reversed their marginal position. Since then, they have dominated the zonal and woreda administrations. Between 1991 and 2005, half of the zonal administrators were Shoa Oromo – a high number given the fact that they only constitute 10 percent of the population. Seeing the political apparatus as dominated by the Shoa Oromo, the Muslim Arsi Oromo accused them during the elections in 2005 of favouring their kin in the allocation of land, opportunities for jobs and development schemes. Grievances of a religious nature were never mentioned. Religion clearly remains, however, an intrinsic part of the picture. During the Derg, the Shoa Oromo perceived and feared that the SALF was an Islamic movement supported by Siad Barre and the wider Islamic world, whose aim was to Islamise Bale. A similar image was very much re-invoked in 1991, as the Muslim Arsi Oromo came out unanimously in support of the OLF. Th is was also accelerated by the rapid expansion of Salafi sm in Bale during the 1990s, adding a new dimension to an already existing fear of a politicised Islam. Th e Muslim Arsi Oromo, on their side, suspected the Christian Shoa Oromo of being less committed to the Oromo cause. A common allegation among the Muslims during the election was that a number of Shoa Oromo 190 terje østebø were pressured by their Orthodox priests to vote for the CUD.33 Th is particular ethnic-religious relationship in Bale demonstrates that within the locality of Bale, religious boundaries were superseding ethnic cooperation in an intra-ethnic quest for local representation and political positions. In the trans-local arena, ethnic cooperation was superseding the religious boundary in an inter-ethnic struggle for what was perceived as the rights of the Oromo nation.

Conclusion

Th e de-institutionalised and fragmented character of Islam in Ethiopia has largely been a result of successive political regimes’ eff orts to deprive the Muslims of independent representation and curtail their operating space. Such policies have been driven by a prevalent fear of the potential of Islam as a political force to threaten the national unity and sovereignty of Ethiopia. Adding to this has been the emerging discourse of the politicisation of Islam in conjunction with growing regional instability and international terrorism. Such concerns clearly guided the EPRDF regime, leading them to restrict the space granted to Ethiopia’s Muslim community in the early 1990s. Eff orts made to control movements and a general lack of democratic leeway were thus major reasons for the apparently marginal role played by Muslim institutions during the 2005 elections. Th is is, however, only part of the picture, as my fi ndings in the fi eld have led me to the conclusion that Ethiopian Muslims are generally reluctant to infuse religion into politics. Muslim leaders are exercising self-imposed constraint in their use of Islam as a basis for political involvement and as a force for political mobilisation. As Bale is one of the areas where Salafi Islam has its strongest support, this would call for a re-examination of the movement’s content and motives, more based on systematic analysis than on general assumptions and unfounded charges. Treating Islam as a homogenous phenomenon may easily lead us to overlook the fact that any religious ideology – or any ideology for that matter – that transcends its cultural and spatial boundaries oft en becomes remoulded and even altered within the new cultural system. In Bale,

33 It has obviously been impossible to verify this allegation. Yet, according to the results of the 2005 election there is a clear trend that CUD received more votes in areas dominated by Shoa Oromo than in areas dominated by Muslim Arsi Oromo. islam and politics 191 reformist activities have so far only focused on the individual’s correct observance of Islamic praxis, and the need to ‘cleanse’ Islam of Sufi and pre-Islamic elements. Th is should not lead, however, to the conclusion that religion is irrelevant in contemporary Ethiopian politics. As this contribution has demonstrated, religion needs to be seen in relation to the persistent strength of ethnicity. By the time of the 2005 elections, the lack of trans- ethnic and trans-regional cooperation was clearly aff ecting Islam’s potential as a force for wider allegiance. Contrary to the very idea of Islam, as a religion that transcends boundaries by uniting the faithful, there was recognition of diversity not only within the Ethiopian society, but also among the Muslims, something not even a trans-local movement of reform, like Salafi Islam has managed to supersede. Today, six years aft er the election, there are clear indications that religion is becoming even more important as a dividing factor in Ethiopia. An increasingly fragile Christian-Muslim relationship, with recurrent clashes between the two communities, confi rms this. Furthermore, the regime’s political pressure and the internal struggles within the OLF seem to have weakened the ethnic card among the Oromo. What remains clear is that developments at regional and global level, as well as the thorny inter-religious legacy of the Ethiopian past, could contribute to enhancing the relevance of Islam as a force for political mobilisation. Th erefore, it remains imperative to recognise the role and force of religion in contemporary Ethiopian discourse.

Bibliography

Following local usage, Ethiopian authors are referenced by their fi rst name. Abbink, Jon. 1998. ‘An Historical-Anthropological Approach to Islam in Ethiopia: Issues of Identity and Politics.’ Journal of African Cultural Studies 11 (2): 109–24. Abdul Wasie Yusuf. 1971. ‘Sharia Courts in Ethiopia: Th eir Status, Organisation and Functions.’ BA thesis, Haile Selassie I University. Alem Zelalem. 2003. ‘Saudi Arabia’s Wahabism and the Th reat to Ethiopia’s National Security.’ Ethiomedia, September 26, 2003, http://www.ethiomedia.com/press/ wahabism_threat_to_ethiopia.html (accessed October 25, 2007). Blackhurst, Hector. 1980. ‘Ethnicity in Southern Ethiopia: Th e General and the Particular.’ Africa 50 (1): 55–65. Central Statistical Authority (CSA). 1994. Th e 1994 Population and Housing Census of Ethiopia. Addis Ababa: Central Statistical Authority. —— . 2008. Summary and Statistical Report of the 2007 Population and Housing Census. Addis Ababa: Central Statistical Authority. 192 terje østebø

Clay, Jason W. 1988. ‘Th e Case of Bale.’ In Th e Spoils of Famine: Ethiopian Famine Policy and Peasant Agriculture, edited by Jason W. Clay, Sandra Steingraber, and Peter Niggli, 136–56. Cambridge, MA: Cultural Survival. Constantin, François. 1993. ‘Leadership, Muslim Identities and East African Politics: Tradition, Bureaucratization and Communication.’ In Muslim Identity and Social Change in Sub-Saharan Africa, edited by Louis Brenner, 36–58. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. Erlich, Haggai. 1994. Ethiopia and the Middle East. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner. Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (FDRE). 1995. Constitution of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia Proclamation No. 1/1995. Addis Ababa: Federal Negarit Gazeta. Gebru Tareke. 1991. Ethiopia: Power and Protest: Peasant Revolt in the Twentieth Century. Lawrenceville, NJ: Red Sea Press. Hibret Selamu. 2004. ‘Proof of Wahabi Activities in Ethiopia.’ Ethiomedia, July 15, 2004, http://www.ethiomedia.com/newspress/proof_of_whahabism_in_ethiopia (accessed: October 12, 2007). Human Rights Watch (HRW). 2005. Suppressing Dissent: Human Rights Abuses and Political Repression in Ethiopia’s Oromia Region. New York: Human Rights Watch. Hussein Ahmed. 1994. ‘Islam and Islamic Discourse in Ethiopia (1973–1993).’ In New Trends in Ethiopian Studies, edited by Harold G. Marcus, Vol. 1, 775–801. Lawrenceville, NJ: Red Sea Press. Ibrahim Idris. 1994. ‘Freedom of Religion and Secularization of State: Th e Legal Status of Islamic Law and Shariat Courts in Ethiopia.’ In New Trends in Ethiopian Studies, edited by Harold G. Marcus, Vol. 1, 151–6. Lawrenceville, NJ: Red Sea Press. Johannes Sebhatu. 2004. ‘Th e Emergence of Radical Islam in Ethiopia (1991–2004).’ Ethiomedia, July 3, 2004, http://www.ethiomedia.com/commentary/radical_islam _in_ethiopia (accessed: September 25, 2007). Lewis, Ioan M. 1980. ‘Th e Western Somali liberation front (WSLF) and the legacy of Sheikh Hussein of Bale.’ In Modern Ethiopia: From the Accession of Menilek II to the Present, edited by Joseph Tubiana, 409–15. Rotterdam: Balkema. —— . 2002 [1965]. A Modern History of the Somali: Nation and State in the Horn of Africa. Oxford: James Currey. Markakis, John. 1974. Ethiopia. Anatomy of a Traditional Polity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Neima Shikur. 2005. ‘An Autobiographical Narrative of Ato Seraj Adem.’ BA thesis, Addis Ababa University. Nuredin Jemal. 1998. Th e Establishment of the Supreme Council: Developments, Strength and Weaknesses. Addis Ababa: Ethiopian Islamic Aff airs Supreme Council. Østebø, Terje. 1998. ‘Creating a New Identity: Ethiopian Muslims in Contemporary Perspective.’ Swedish Missiological Th emes 86 (3): 423–53. —— . 2005. A History of Islam and Inter-Religious Relations in Bale, Ethiopia. Stockholm: Almquist & Wiksell International. —— . 2008. ‘Localising Salafi sm: Religious Change among Oromo Muslims in Bale, Ethiopia.’ PhD thesis, Stockholm University. Shinn, David. H. 2005. ‘Ethiopia: Governance and Terrorism.’ In Battling Terrorism in the Horn of Africa, edited by Robert I. Rotberg, 93–118. Cambridge: World Peace Foundation. CHAPTER 7

‘WE SAY THEY ARE NEFTENYA; THEY SAY WE ARE OLF’: A POST-ELECTION ASSESSMENT OF ETHNICITY, POLITICS AND AGE-SETS IN OROMIYA

Charles Schaefer

‘We say they are neft enya; they say we are OLF’ was repeated verbatim by two interviewees two hundred kilometers apart and in radically dif- ferent circumstances, yet it communicates the dipoles of politics in Western Oromiya region of Ethiopia in the months following the May 2005 elections. In one instance, it was used to explain why police and other armed men broke down the door to a classroom and proceeded to indiscriminately beat male and female high school students.1 In the other instance, the phrase was used by a businessman of mixed Tigrean/ Eritrean ethnicity to explain the increased hostility he feels his neighbours hold towards him.2 Th e acrimony imputed in the phrase is borne out in the actions of government forces, particularly the Federal Police and Oromo People’s Democratic Organization (OPDO), against the Oromo people for politics in Ethiopia is dissolving into the zero- sum battle over power that characterises much of Africa. Yet focusing exclusively on the polarities ignores the enormous gains made in the democratically contested middle ground of the 2005 elections and mis- represents attempts to fi nd workable solutions and political compromise. Th e focus of this chapter is precisely this contested, at other times negotiated, middle ground between the Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolu- tionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) and opposition parties as related to ethnicity and politics. Neft enya, literally ‘gunmen’, harkens back to the nineteenth century when Emperor Menilek’s northern armies conquered southern Ethiopia and left behind soldier-settlers to administer the regions (Donham and James 1986). Th ese neft enya were rewarded with legal

1 Interview, Nekempte, 15 December 2005. In cases where the security of the interviewee may have been at risk, names and other identifying details have been omitted. 2 Interview, Dembi Dollo, 12 December 2005. 194 charles schaefer rights to exploit the indigenous population inhabiting large parcels of land. Land was not of utmost value; it was the peasants residing on the land who, through coercion, provided labour (Tesema Ta’a 1986; Guluma Gemeda 2005). Th us an ethnic divide emerged and continues today, with non-Oromos residing in traditionally Oromo areas viewed as neft enya, an image actively propagated by Oromo opposition parties during the election campaign to discredit the EPRDF. Th e Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) is the oldest political party representing the Oromo people. Th e OLF was a comrade-in-arms alongside the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) and the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF) in the military struggle to unseat Mengistu’s Derg. Th ough together victorious, through various misun- derstandings over democracy, federalism and power-sharing prior to the 1992 election, the OLF withdrew from the elections and was immediately declared an illegal party by the triumphal EPRDF. Blocked from participating in the political fray, the OLF has mounted armed resistance on occasion and in certain locales, while also attempting to remain a party wedded to democratic ideals; needless to say, the schizophrenic nature of the OLF has confused the international community and played into the hands of the EPRDF. Yet despite all, as conditions continue to deteriorate for the Oromo people, the OLF assumes almost a messianic promise of deliverance in spite of the fact that the OLF is wholly underfunded and lacks a cohesive political agenda. For a person to be called neft enya is to be castigated as an outsider, an imperialist; for a person to be called OLF is to be viewed as someone willing to subvert the constitution – in post-9/11 discourse, a terrorist. With the heightened tension existing in Western Oromiya (henceforth this region will be referred to as Wallega, the provincial name used under former regimes), where Federal Police, in bluish-camoufl aged uni- forms, patrol town streets, and groupings of local police, party cadres and local militias perpetuate abuses and arouse fear throughout the countryside, the real issues concerning power and governance tend to be overlooked. Th is chapter will dissect the ethnic divide in terms of electoral politics and traditional authority structures with specifi c attention given to the relationship between Oromos and northerners who have settled in parts of Oromiya. Th e second section will analyse party politics following the elections and how the situation on the ground has moulded the contending parties’ platforms as they react to a legacy of northern ‘we say they are neftenya; they say we are olf’ 195 domination. Th is will lead to considerations about future elections and prospects for democracy, inclusiveness and reconciliation as the authority of traditional power constellations gives way to new constructs. It should be noted that the Oromo of western Wallega represent an anomaly to the fi ndings of most of the contributors to this volume in regard to the incorporation of customary authority structures and persons into the modern political sphere. In many parts of Ethiopia, electoral politics reproduced traditional authority structures along aristocratic lineages, clan lines or religious authorities; however, in West Wallega, or specifi cally in Sayyoo woreda around Dembi Dolo, this did not take place. As explained below, traditional authority structures and gerentocratic persons have historically been attached to the OLF. Since, in the minds of the Oromo, politics is a struggle between the EPRDF and the OLF, to voluntarily join the EPRDF/OPDO or even be allowed to be ‘encadred’ would go against Oromo identity. Th e Oromo who join the OPDO are viewed as outsiders – called neft enya according to its revised defi nition described below. In a remarkable demonstration of their infl uence, traditional authorities supported the upstart Oromo Federal Democratic Movement (OFDM) which, despite its late arrival, poor organisation and lack of funding did remarkably well in the May 2005 elections, primarily because it was not viewed as antagonistic to the OLF. Th e third section will consider the growing age-gap between the political establishment and youth, particularly as it manifested itself in post-election human rights abuses of youth in Wallega by government forces. What complicates this observation is the fact that there are two political establishments: the OPDO reality and the OLF mythology. Determining with whom the youth will identify in the long term is exceedingly diffi cult. Th e human rights debacle of 2005 would indicate the OLF; development of infrastructure, education and employment opportunities since 2005 would augur for the EPRDF/OPDO.

Th e ethnic divide in electoral politics

When picking apart the manner in which the ethnic divide played out in the elections, the simple answer is: it did not, yet it did. Th e paradox is central to the question over contested power in Wallega. Demographics and history argue against the neft enya having the slightest infl uence on vote count. First history: the Ethiopian census of 2007 indicates that 196 charles schaefer

Oromos comprise approximately 37 percent of the total population of 74 million. In Wallega, the percentage of Oromos to non-Oromos, if one excludes traditional indigenous populations like the Gumuz inhabiting the Didessa River valley, is off the charts.3 Neft enya and newly arrived northerners in resettlement communities are statistically insignifi cant. Th e elections bear this out. In towns and cities that I visited in December 2005 the opposition did remarkably well. In Nekempte, Col. Berhanu Tessema of the Oromo National Congress (ONC) won the parliamentary seat and two other ONC candidates, all under the umbrella party of the United Ethiopian Democratic Forces (UEDF), were elected to the Regional Council. In addition, ONC/UEDF candidates won parliamentary seats in Shambu, Jimma Arjo, Nunu, Fincha, and Kombolcha in Eastern Wallega. In all Merera Gudina, leader of the ONC, claimed the ONC/UEDF won 43 parliamentary seats particularly around Ambo in West Shoa but also from as far afi eld as Harrar, Arsi and Bale, although for various reasons (including one being killed and another dying) they assumed 39 seats in parliament in December 2005.4 Th e Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD) candidates were surprisingly successful in West Shoa and East Wallega, even though the party was primarily viewed as an ‘Amhara party’, which is strictly incorrect. According to the father of one informant, who lives in a remote village in Sibu Sire woreda comprised exclusively of Oromo peasants, there were only two choices on the ballot: EPRDF/OPDO and CUD. Th e people did not even know the candidates or their ethnicity, yet they all voted for Tefera Feleke, the CUD winner.5 In West Wallega ONC ran in a few places, but the most successful opposition party was the OFDM, winning eleven parliamentary seats.

3 According to the 2007 population census for all Oromiya, Oromos comprised 88 percent of the regional population. It is likely to be signifi cantly higher in Wallega (CSA 2008, 93–5). 4 Interview with Merera Gudina, Addis Ababa, 6 December 2005. Merera Gudina is the Founder and Chairman of the ONC and the party leader who brought the ONC into the UEDF. In mid-November 2005 there was a leadership struggle within the ONC, and the National Election Board of Ethiopia affi rmed that pro-EPRDF Tolosa Tesfaye was the new leader, in essence taking away the prerogative of an opposition party to choose its leadership and giving it to an organ of the ruling party, see ‘Ethiopia Electoral Body Confi rms New Leadership of Oromo’s ONC’, Sudan Times, November 18, 2005. 5 Interview, Nekempte, 9 December 2005. ‘we say they are neftenya; they say we are olf’ 197

Th e only independent candidate in all of Ethiopia elected by a constituency to represent them in parliament was Negaso Gidada, ex-President of Ethiopia from 1995 to 2001, in his hometown of Dembi Dollo. Th ese tallies do not include the number of opposition candidates elected to the regional government of Oromiya. By all objective measures the opposition was extraordinarily successful, yet the OPDO was even more so. It must be noted that the OPDO did not run candidates under its own banner as in past elections, but ran candidates under the banner of the EPRDF.6 It appears the primary issue in the lead-up to the election was not ethnicity; rather, it was party presence, party platform and party organisation. Th e OPDO has always been well organised. To an extent, the OPDO’s organisational superiority is a feature that has been present from its inception (Schaefer 1994; 2002). Membership in the OPDO involves a long apprenticeship; recruits are given petty assignments in their fi rst year during which time they must contribute 10 percent of their salary to the party. Aft er passing the initial assessment, an individual is made an OPDO member and additional party chores are given and payment of party dues increase; in addition, the candidates have to attend weekly party meetings and subscribe to the weekly OPDO newspaper as part of their instruction in the party platform. Only the most loyal and brightest are encouraged to climb up the party ranks to become cadres aft er another three years of indoctrination, service and evaluation. From the early 1990s the OPDO has developed recruitment and indoctrination procedures that ensure a perpetually revitalised party membership and leadership.7 Th is was nowhere more evident than in the 2000 elections that I observed in Dembi Dollo. Yohannes Genda, the OPDO parliamentary candidate, spelt out an ambitious platform highlighting education, health care, agricultural improvements and infrastructure development, yet when pressed he could elaborate on feasibility studies and other minutia that illustrated his command of party objectives. It later became apparent that Yohannes Genda was basically repeating election issues spelled out in a party pamphlet prepared by the OPDO for all candidates running throughout Oromiya regional state (Schaefer 2002, 105– 6). Th e same attention was given to the OPDO platform in 2005,

6 I will henceforth refer to OPDO candidates running in 2005 as EPRDF/OPDO. 7 Interview with Dr. Negaso Gidada, former president of the EPRDF and former senior offi cial in the OPDO, Addis Ababa, 19 December 2005. 198 charles schaefer although the schooling of candidates may not have been quite as thor- ough. Th e EPRDF/OPDO initiated its formal election campaign in January 2005 by holding compulsory village and town meetings, ostensibly to ‘evaluate’ the EPRDF/OPDO party cadres and select candidates. However, attendees claim that there was no evaluation and that candidates had already been selected. Th e mass meetings were merely forums for OPDO cadres to instruct the people to vote for the Bee – the symbol of the EPRDF/OPDO – and threaten them if they did otherwise.8 Th e moulding of the EPRDF/OPDO candidates and cadres is instructive especially when compared to the lack of instruction and mentoring of the opposition party members as discussed below. But this formative process has had another eff ect, for it fundamentally changed the mind frame of OPDO cadres from advocating strictly Oromo objectives to one in which they are proponents of a nationalist/ federalist agenda authored by Tigreans (Abbink 1995, 2006; Aalen 2006; Turton 2006; Tronvoll 2009). Th is has tainted their identity and ethnicity in the eyes of most Oromos, thus providing a new defi nition for a neft enya. Th e neft enya no longer exist in their historic sense as northern soldier/settlers welding political power and economic might on location, be it in the countryside or in towns throughout Wallega; rather, descendants of the neft enya, though still referred to as neft enya, continue to try to retain their economic status but have relinquished all pretence to political power. In the political vacuum left by the historic neft enya, a new northern (EPRDF/TPLF) power construct has emerged whose agenda is being carried out by OPDO members or Oromo sym- pathizers reporting to the OPDO – a scion of the EPRDF. Th is is nowhere more evident than in the newest tactic to create a sub-kebele administrative structure. Beyond the typical preparations, the EPRDF/OPDO put in place sub-kebele administrative structures that were to ensure control of the population and the ballot boxes. Th e structures are known as the gott and garee.9 Th ese structures illustrate the changing terrain of politics and their failure to ensure an EPRDF/OPDO electoral victory points to a resurgent form of traditional authority that will be analysed below. Essentially every rural kebele is divided into groups of between sixty

8 Interviews, Nekempte, 8 December 2005 and Nego, 14 December 2005. 9 A comprehensive assessment of the gott and garee systems, their origins and their political implications, is found in Human Rights Watch (2005). ‘we say they are neftenya; they say we are olf’ 199 and ninety households called gotts. Th ese are further subdivided into groups of ten to twenty households called garees.10 Th e political implication of the gott and garee system was to extend the arms and ears of the ruling OPDO government apparatus down to the household level. Allegedly the gott and garee system was intended to bring development down to the household level by recruiting a representative from the ten to twenty households, in the case of the garee, and thus rural farmers would be able to voice their needs to appropriate government institutions through their ‘elected’ representative. But theory rarely dovetails with practice, and according to Human Rights Watch (2005, 31–32): ‘Elections’ were actually a simple show of hands for or against a slate of candidates chosen by the kebele (…) ‘Th ey just brought their people and said, “Th is is the gott and this is the garee. Do you agree?” ’ Many farmers said that all the people kebele offi cials chose as candidates were very young men who had no real stature within the community but who were malleable and staunchly pro-OPDO. In reality, the gott and garee system was a tactical socio-political measure to assert control over the whole population to an extent that the Derg never dreamt of even with its ill-fated villagization programme of the mid 1980s. According to informants, one had to get permission from the garee representative to take one’s produce to market. Minor decisions about plant rotation, which fi elds to leave fallow, what lands to clear all had to be approved by gott or garee offi cials as they could loosely be defi ned as ‘development.’11 With regards to the May elections, the gott and garee system gave the EPRDF/OPDO offi cials false confi dence, for by having party operatives residing at the lowest levels and reporting all goings-on to kebele and woreda offi cials, it was assumed that peasants would not go against the ‘recommendations’ of the party in casting their ballots. Th at assumption proved wrong. In East Wallega the EPRDF/OPDO won only four of fourteen parliamentary seats; particularly embarrassing was the fact that a few of

10 Human Rights Watch (2005) claims the garee were comprised of approximately thirty households. However, I was told that they ranged between ten and twenty households, interview with Adam Melaku of EHRCO, Addis Ababa, 6 December 2005. 11 Interview with Mekane Yesus lay leader, Dembi Dollo, 10 December 2005. René Lefort (2010) assesses this development aspect of the gott in the Amhara region following the election of 2005 through 2010 and, while conceding the political dimension, emphasizes the Ethiopian government’s attempt to revitalise the rural sector by privileging the ‘model farmers’. 200 charles schaefer those were uncontested by other opposition parties. According to an ONC leader, the ONC’s resources were stretched such that the ONC could not fi eld candidates in some districts, which partially explains why they worked with the predominantly ethnically defi ned ‘Amhara’ CUD to oppose the EPRDF/OPDO. In West Wallega, where infrastructure, roads and distances make campaigning extremely diffi cult and costly, the EPRDF/OPDO won ten of seventeen seats but, again, most of the victories were in uncontested campaigns. In areas where OFDM ran they too were remarkably successful in both towns and rural areas, indicating that the gott and garee system had little eff ect in determining vote count. As mentioned above, northerners who have relocated into East Wallega as part of both the old Derg and new EPRDF sponsored resettlement programmes, and who were oft en referred to as neft enya by the Oromos, were insignifi cant as an electorate. Technically, northern settlers could determine a few elected offi cials for the Oromo Regional Council, but even in those scattered districts the EPRDF/OPDO took no chances by ‘forbidding’, according to an opposition party member, the CUD and other national parties to campaign in those areas. In the remote resettlement sites of Gedah Kermu, Gutin and Obi Dongoro there was no opposition and all ballots had only EPRDF’s Bee sign on them, yet according to domestic election observers many of the northern settlers cast blank ballots as a form of protest vote, even though it had no eff ect on the uncontested elections.12 Th e EU, the Carter Center and various other international election observation groups have issued credible reports that span the spectrum from free and fair to fraudulent and farcical (Carter Center 2005; European Union 2006). According to informants interviewed in December 2005, there were very few international observers in Wallega. An ONC member claimed that there were only four international observers covering both East and West Wallega, while campaign workers for ex-President Negaso Gidada claimed they saw only two pass through Dembi Dolo.13 More reliable are the Ethiopian Human

12 Interviews Nekempte 9 December 2005 and Gutin, 16 December 2005. 13 Th e European Union Election Observation Mission fi elded more than 200 observers, while the Carter Center and a number of other organisations added signifi - cantly to the total number, which argues against the paltry numbers. Yet the point being made by Oromo opposition parties was that the international observers were essentially invisible and had little to no moderating infl uence on how the elections were conducted. ‘we say they are neftenya; they say we are olf’ 201

Right Council’s (EHRCO) reports from Nekempte, which basically endorse the election, albeit aft er noting irregularities especially in the countryside.14 Other informants throughout West Wallega confi rmed that the voting itself was ‘good, no problems at the beginning’.15 Th is claim seems credible, having witnessed substantive improvements in the mechanics of electioneering between 1992 and 2000. Ethiopia is making enormous progress in stipulating and enforcing the rules of Electoral Operations at polling stations.16 Moreover, the Ethiopian population is becoming accustomed to voting; the vast majority knows what to do once in a voting booth. Th ere were signifi cant improvements in 2005 over past elections; however, effi ciency and familiarity do not inhibit other kinds of electoral abuses. Two additional implications garnered from the voting experience warrant discussion. First, there appears to be a developing awareness of locality diff erent from what existed prior to 2005. Before, people identifi ed place with a neft enya’s landholding or a parish, or aft er the Derg with the kebele as the source for service and centre of administration. But layered above these – for they have not disappeared – is a sense of identifying with a polling station – a registered, voting constituency. Oft en the polling station is near the kebele offi ce, but proximity is not the issue; the issue is one of a new identity based on electoral locality. For those individuals interested in politics, their constituency, expressed at the ballot box, represents the possibility of electing an opposition candidate that they themselves put into a position of authority and whom they entrusted to look aft er their interests. Suddenly peasants and city dwellers were identifying with an ONC or OFDM elected offi cial – a non-neft enya according to the new political defi nition – whom they viewed as their own and who was there as a check and balance to the dominant OPDO administration. Below I assess how politically ineff ectual the ONC and OFDM were, but the point here is that, to the Oromo people, the beginnings of representation have taken

14 Interview with Addisu Duresa, ERHCO branch head, Nekempte, 8 December 2005. Th e offi cial stance of the ERHCO was that the national elections were not free and fair, interview with Adam Melaku, Addis Ababa, 6 December 2005. 15 Interviews Dembi Dollo, 11 and 12 December 2005; Begi, 13 December 2005; Nego, 14 December 2005; and Gembi 14 December 2005. 16 Th e National Election Board of Ethiopia (NEBE) has taken huge steps towards ironing out issues related to elections and making them more transparent. Th is can be observed through their website (www.electionsethiopia.org). 202 charles schaefer on geographic dimensions – a sense of place layered above others that off er identity and belonging. Second, competition in electoral politics had less of an impact on strengthening ethnic identity and more on intensifying enmity towards the EPRDF/OPDO – thus the title of this chapter. Amhara settlers voted for the UEDF represented by ONC thus Oromo candidates; Oromo voted for CUD candidates who also happened to be Oromo. Without a doubt Oromo aspirations were central to the election, but to a large extent they coalesced with the desires of other ethnic groups living in Wallega, and all condemned what was widely seen as a thirteen-year record of inaction by the OPDO. Th e election in Wallega was less of a vote for the opposition and more of a vote against the EPRDF/ OPDO. When viewed objectively, Oromos were the candidates for all parties and the voting public was overwhelmingly Oromo. Th e distinction was merely a government-sponsored Oromo party versus Oromo opposition parties; or, put another way, a party identifi ed with neft enya domination versus parties supporting Oromo aspirations and thus sympathetic to the OLF. Th e opposition parties themselves appear to have avoided competition and fragmentation. In fact just the opposite: there appears to have been considerable coordination and mutual assistance during the campaigns. ONC leaders in Nekempte informed me that they basically gave western Wallega to the OFDM when they came on the scene in late 2004, just months before the election, because the ONC fi gured they were already stretched too thin and could not contest the election in that region adequately.17 In Dembi Dolo the OFDM worked hand in glove with ex-president Negaso Gidada’s campaign workers, sharing transportation and coordinating schedules so as not to duplicate resources.18 Finally, as will be discussed in greater depth below, both ONC and OFDM members appeared to be favourably disposed to the OLF re-entering the political landscape. Th ey even claimed a willingness to move aside for OLF, which they recognised embodied the spirit, and garnered the support, of the Oromo people.

17 Interview, Nekempte, 9 December 2005. 18 Interview with Dr. Negaso Gidada, Addis Ababa, 19 December 2005. ‘we say they are neftenya; they say we are olf’ 203

Party politics and power constructs since the election of 2005

To summarise, the EPRDF/OPDO entered the 2005 elections with signifi cant advantages. By Ethiopian standards, they had virtually limitless funds; the use of government apparatus including personnel, vehicles, communications equipment including video-conferencing facilities between the top politicians in Addis Ababa with woreda- level candidates; a tacit acknowledgement that there was little separation between party and government; coordination between the National Election Board and the judiciary; a well-honed party structure; a long history of electioneering; and the imposition of the gott and garee system at the sub-kebele level administration. Th ese advantages manifested themselves in ways too numerous to list. However, when viewed from the grassroots, only EPRDF/OPDO candidates were able to reach Nunu Kunba district to talk about the government platform, yet peasants asked why only the Bee, the sign for the EPRDF/OPDO, was being discussed. Th ey were dissatisfi ed and claimed they had ‘democratic rights and wanted to hear about the other parties.’19 To an extent, the comparative advantages were negated by the OPDO’s governing record, for, as testifi ed by the above quote, peasants were looking for alternatives. Th e OFDM, recognised as a political party in December 2004, began campaigning about eight months before the election, yet managed, despite its organisational and funding troubles, to win 11 seats in parliament. Negaso Gidada won the seat for Dembi Dolo despite having been President of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, the former spokesperson for the EPRDF, and ostensibly the leader of the OPDO, because he was a native son and because he spoke directly to the Oromo people explaining why he parted ways with the government by emphasising the ethnic policies that hurt the Oromo. He appeared genuine and they believed him.20 Th e UEDF, under whose banner the ONC fronted their candidates, won many seats, despite being under funded, poorly staff ed, possessing a disappointing record in past elections and suff ering from lack of a

19 Interview, Nekempte, 9 December 2005. 20 Interview, Dembi Dolo, 11 December 2005. 204 charles schaefer singular party line and structure, due to the fact that it was a loose coalition party. For opposition parties in Wallega the elections came at an opportune time, for the population was discontent and willing to express their disapproval at the polls. But in the aft ermath of the elections new power constructs emerged. Th e OPDO exhibited bipolar tendencies, mired between two per- sonality types: the benign party seeking self-criticism to improve its performance, versus the vindictive party out to punish those who betrayed them on election day. In this light all prognoses must begin by balancing how eff ective the OPDO’s future campaign initiatives have been against the post-election oppression of 2005 and 2006. On the benign side, aft er the elections the EPRDF held self- criticism-type meetings or gim gema21 – a tacit acknowledgment that government needed to be more accountable – to redirect the OPDO to serve the people and thereby increase party membership and, as in all democracies, win over the people. To aid the recruitment eff orts and legitimate the meetings the EPRDF/OPDO authorities invited the shemageles and other key members of the community such as priests, pastors and wealthy merchants, to the meetings, promising them fi nancial and social incentives, yet again these eff orts were a lost cause for the Oromo elders were unreceptive to bribery or coopta- tion.22 To an extent, the strategy is a tried-and-true tactic employed by the EPRDF to increase party membership; Christopher Clapham (2000, 14) coined the process as ‘encadrement’. It must be noted that these eff orts were of short duration and, according to informants I interviewed throughout Wallega, were only conducted in a few cities. Resistance to encadrement has a long history in Wallega. In the major urban centres including Nekempte, Ayira. Dembi Dolo, Nego and Gimbi, serious attempts had been made over the years to co-opt traditional Oromos leaders or educated clergymen of the Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus with negligible

21 In the past Meles Zenawi initiated similar episodes to expunge the party of its wrongdoings and recommit it to accountability, transparency and service to the electorate. In June 2001, Meles initiated a ‘Renewal Movement’ to win back both foreign and domestic support for his regime, although student riots and brutal police retalia- tion basically slammed the door on the movement soon aft er it was started (see Medhane Tadesse and Young 2003). 22 Interview with a national NGO development expert, Dembi Dolo, 10 December 2005. ‘we say they are neftenya; they say we are olf’ 205 success.23 As far back as June 1992 traditional leaders and clergymen resisted the OPDO’s incorporation eff orts and, in fact, expressed support for the OLF (Schaefer 1994; 2002). Th is verbal support, albeit made in private aft er 1992, remained consistent and to a signifi cant degree is borne out by the lack of government positions that these shemageles held in the intervening years. Amongst the educated, most were affi liated with either the protestant church, schools, NGOs or private businesses. Traditional leaders retained ceremonial legitimacy but relied on agriculture or other local resources for income.24 To assist and abet the OPDO was considered to be part of the new power construct authored and directed by the EPRDF. As stated at the beginning of this chapter, the Oromo voted less for a viable Oromo opposition party and more against the OPDO. Th e reasons are culturally and politically embedded in the history and identity of the Oromo people. Th e OPDO is looked upon as the modern-day equivalent of Ras Gobana. Th e ‘Ras Gobana syndrome’ is an Oromo nationalist term and implies that an Oromo has ‘bought into’ the neft enya establishment – in modern vernacular the EPRDF/ OPDO – just as Ras Gobana, himself an Oromo, had ‘bought into’ and in fact led Emperor Menilek’s conquest of the South and the subjugation of the Oromo people for the benefi t of the Amhara and Tigrean invaders. Histories detailing the survival of Ethiopian independence during the Scramble for Africa depict Ras Gobana as a loyal warrior and national hero; to many Oromo, who suff ered over a century of exploitation by the state, he is reviled as a sell-out. Th e President of Oromiya and the OPDO, Abba Duula Gamada, is viewed as a new Ras Gobana, an outsider, a man of questionable parentage – at least that is the word on the street where political opinion is formed – and one willing to subvert the aspirations of the Oromo people for the patronage of the Tigrean-dominated EPRDF (Paulos Chanie 2007). Th e greatest challenge the OPDO faces is its record. From an Oromo peasant or urban dweller’s perspective, the OPDO’s record refl ects EPRDF domination. Th e people who carry out the party directive are the new neft enya. Th e new neft enya are not determined necessarily by ethnicity but rather defi ned by political allegiance.

23 Interviews in Nekemte, 9 December 2005; Ayira, 10 December 2005; Dembi Dolo, 11 December 2005; Nego, 14 December; and Gimbi, 14 December 2005. 24 Interview with Negasu Gidada, Addis Ababa, 19 December 2005, and with a national NGO member, Dembi Dolo, 10 December 2005. 206 charles schaefer

Between the benign and repressive measures employed by government offi cials against the Oromo people rests the gott and garee system. Th e payback from instituting the gott and garee system proved too costly in May 2005, for it did not guarantee victory. Without a doubt the system remains a useful security tool to extend the arm of government all the way down to the household level, yet whether it remains in existence or is deactivated in Wallega depends upon how government reassesses its function following the May 2010 election. It did not win friends and guarantee victory in 2005; whether it is determined to be an eff ective tool in the arsenal of security, control and intimidation remains to be seen. In other regions of the country the EPRDF has tried to co-opt local authorities in order to increase their local appeal as reported in other chapters in this volume. To an extent, the imposition of the gott and garee system can be viewed as a failure on the part of the government to identify a useful authority structure in Wallega and co-opt traditional authority structures (Lefort 2010). Th e gott and garee system was essentially a foreign import from Tigray imposed on the Oromo for lack of an autochthonous alternative. To my knowledge, the EPRDF has not tried to adopt or adapt aspects of the gada system (Mohammad Hassan 1994; Asafa Jalata 1998; 2005; Leenco Lata 1999; Asmarom Legesse 2000; Negaso Gidada 2001), with its traditions of compromise and consensus-making, i.e. democracy, to their political advantage. Th e ethnic/cultural impasse appears to remain in place, for the objectives are wholly diff erent. Th e gott and garee system lends itself to hierarchical, autocratic power constructs; an adaptation of the gada system, potentially, would promote power sharing. Concerning vindictive measures, the OPDO mounted a veritable war of intimidation and oppression. Shortly aft er the election and concurrent with meetings to woo the Oromo people back to the OPDO, supporters of the party physically abused the citizenry and took bold steps to marginalise the opposition. Th ese measures will have long-term eff ects that will not ingratiate the OPDO with the Oromo people; nevertheless, they may allow the OPDO to retain power for as long as the current regime exists in spite of its lack of popular support. Other issues that hampered the record of the OPDO include the attempt to change the capital of Oromiya from Addis Ababa (Finfi ne) to Adama. Most of the student protests against this and the government’s harsh response were results of Oromo students taking to the streets to protest against the government’s unilateral decision (later ‘we say they are neftenya; they say we are olf’ 207 withdrawn) to implement measures that it determined were in the best interest of the Oromo people without consulting Oromos themselves. Th e protest and subsequent arrests at Addis Ababa University led students to seek assistance from the Mecha Tulema Association for food and shelter considering that Oromo students were not able to return to campus without getting arrested and had no other means of support. Th e Mecha Tulema Association’s assistance gave the EPRDF the excuse it needed to claim the association was meddling in politics, arrest the association’s leadership and dismantle it, beginning in late 2005.25 Th e Mecha Tulema Association has a long history as Ethiopia’s premier self-help association, and the fact that it is dominated by the Oromo is important in the ethnic politics of the post-Derg era. To have it shut down is symbolically yet another blow for Oromos. Government manipulation or elimination of political opponents extends to the opposition parties as well. Th e situation for the ONC, and therefore the UEDF, was daunting. To a signifi cant degree there appeared to be a breach between the ONC’s leadership and its members. In November and December 2005 the party was in the midst of a power struggle, the purpose of which was to sideline the senior leaders – Merera Gudina primarily – and elevate a younger cohort led by Tolossa Tesfaye. Questions emerged concerning the motivation behind the power struggle, but in Wallega most supporters thought the upstart Tolossa Tesfaye was yet another Ras Gobana – a puppet of the government,26 for memory serves up how the EPRDF tried to co-opt the UDN (United Democratic Nationals) leadership back in the early 1990s, before the EPRDF decided to eliminate the UDN. Speculation about Tolossa’s connections to Meles’ regime were rife, while loyalty to Merera Gudina by the majority of ONC members unswerving. While speaking with the ‘old’ ONC leadership the conversations focused exclusively on two points, fi rst the UEDF’s (therefore the ONC’s) decision to assume their seats in parliament and the implications thereof; and second, the all-consuming party power struggle and the role of the EPRDF in favouring the upstarts over the experienced politicians. Yet only when prodded was the party leader willing to discuss party structure, recruitment and platform.27 In sum, the ONC

25 Interview with Tessema Ta’a, Addis Ababa, 7 December 2005. 26 ‘Ethiopia Electoral Body Confi rms New Leadership of Oromo’s ONC’, Sudan Times, November 18, 2005. 27 Interview with Merera Gudina, Addis Ababa, 6 December 2005. 208 charles schaefer leadership appeared consumed with politics in Addis Ababa’s centre, Arat Kilo. Moreover, the ONC found itself in an awkward position with reference to Oromo identity. By joining the UEDF, by coordinating with the CUD, by entering parliament as members of a national party, the ONC had lost touch with Oromo political aspirations in the eyes of many Oromo in Wallega. Th ese party-leadership issues were not shared by ONC members in Nekempte and Ambo; on the contrary they advocated the usual Oromo concerns: true representative democracy under a federal state, economic integration and fi nancial investment, publication and education in the Oromiff a language, and preservation of Oromo cultural identity – age-old issues constituting the four- legged table of the OLF platform. Where the new ONC leadership, Tolossa Tesfaye and his supporters, lost the support of grassroots members was in attacking the OLF as ‘regionalists of Wallega’ and ‘children of missionaries’28 – a not so veiled reference to the OLF leaders being alumni of the Presbyterian high school, Bethel Evangelical Secondary School (BESS), in Dembi Dolo. Th e problem was that this hugely infl uential institution has educated church leaders, OLF cadres when they were still fi ghting alongside the TPLF against Mengistu, and even OPDO offi cials. In a convoluted, oft en circuitous manner, the American mission curriculum espoused the virtues of democracy and respect for human rights that dovetails with Oromo identity and political aspirations encompassed in modern interpretations of gada (Leenco Lata 1999; Negaso Gidada 2001) and allowed those who graduated to better communicate their political agenda to the international community. Rather than see themselves as the scions of missionaries, the intelligentsia of Wallega has woven strands of western political philosophy and threads of gada into a culturally loaded worldview.29 By calling the OLF regionalists, the Tolossa faction of the ONC was distancing itself from the Oromo population of Wallega who identify wholeheartedly with the OLF. Whether the ONC, under Merera Gudina, retains its appeal to the Oromo people depends on its outspokenness in parliament on behalf of their aspirations and how eff ectively these views are communicated to their political base back in Wallega and other Oromo regions. In the

28 Interview, Nekempte, 9 December 2005. 29 Donald L. Donham (1999) illustrates the convoluted method by which Protestant Christianity has given rise to unlikely partners in the move towards modernity. ‘we say they are neftenya; they say we are olf’ 209 fi ve years between the 2005 and 2010 elections, this does not appeared to be the case. In Merera Gudina’s own words, ‘parliament has ceased to be even a talk-shop.’ With bitterness and a sense of despondency, he described how the parliamentary schedule was fi xed by the EPRDF with little to no time allotted for the opposition to off er proposals or voice their objections, even on issues strictly concerning Oromo interests.30 In exasperation, other ONC parliamentarians, as well as Negaso Gidada and the eleven OFDM members rarely attended and at times stopped attending parliament altogether. Th e manner in which parliamentarians communicated their representation to their constituents was likewise an abysmal failure. Indeed the pessimism expressed about the projected woreda elections, held in April 2008, verged on debilitating. Th e ONC and OFDM opted out and did not even contest them. Th e May 2010 elections constitute a capitulation, a surrender, to the EPRDF and the disengagement of Oromo opposition parties from the democratic process as defi ned by EPRDF’s National Election Board. Th is brings me to perhaps the most noteworthy political observation made in 2005 about both ONC and OFDM members in Wallega; namely, they all appeared to be going through the charade of political engagement simply to bide time before the OLF would rightly assume its place as leader of the Oromo people. On numerous occasions politically active opposition members informed me they would step down or join forces the moment the OLF re-entered the political fray. Th e OLF has assumed almost messianic qualities, less because of things it has done and more because of things left undone by the OPDO such as alleviate oppression and bring prosperity. By being out of government, the OLF has not contributed to the population’s malaise and loss of hope. ‘Deliver us from tyranny’ – words heard in a sermon in Dembi Dolo – summarises the prayers of most Oromo and the party believed to be suffi ciently powerful to do something about it is the OLF. Implied in this, tragically, was that ONC and OFDM supporters viewed their own parties as exceedingly weak and ineff ectual. Th e only vision off ered to restore dignity, in all its social, political and economic dimensions, was to demand another national referendum where old grievances would be addressed and new modes of power sharing legitimised. But even that demand on the part of the ONC and OFDM conceded their weakness and was more a plea that a national referendum would be

30 Interview with Merera Gudina, Trondheim, 2 July 2007. 210 charles schaefer organized by the EPRDF. Also implied in the desire for a national referendum is a tacit acknowledgement that party politics does not work in Ethiopia, that selecting candidates with wide appeal, developing grassroots party structures, funding campaigns and trusting in the election results are fruitless activities. In the aft ermath of the 2010 election, the salient question is this: If there were indeed a free and fair election in the near future, would the Oromo population’s sympathies still lie with the opposition? Dis- counting the 2010 elections, where there were no viable Oromo opposition parties, and returning to the 2005 election as the litmus test, the ability of the ONC or OFDM to mobilise their parties and mount viable campaigns must be questioned. With the post May 2005 experience as a guide, it is doubtful that the population of Wallega would risk voting their conscience again and would dutifully go through the simulation of supporting the status quo, for history demonstrated the limitations of the opposition parties. To illustrate this point, the OFDM party structure warrants comment. Th e OFDM was a new party fi rst recognised in December 2004; moreover, its success in May 2005 was largely due to the largesse of its leader Bulcha Demeksa, a former chairman of Awash International Bank. Yet in comparison with the EPRDF/OPDO party structure and its well-oiled recruitment and mentoring schemes that foster responsibility and accountability up and down the party hierarchy, the OFDM harkens back to the roving tent capitals of nineteenth-century Shoan kings where no one felt comfortable to initiate anything without the king’s approval. To achieve that meant chasing the king around the countryside from locale to locale until he was located – so too the OFDM. In December 2005 it was reported that Bulcha Demeska had disconnected his mobile phone because he was inundated with phone calls from all over Wallega requesting everything from party directives to pencils.31 To get in touch with him party members resorted to taking buses to Addis Ababa to wait outside the party headquarters until he showed up. Th en they were forced to join the throng trying to get his attention. In a fl ashback to the 1960s, this reminds me of peasants and wealthy petitioners alike congregating around the expected route of Emperor Haile Selassie’s motorcade bowing or putting their shämmas (white, cotton shawls) on the road as a sign requesting imperial

31 Interview with OFDM offi cial, Addis Ababa, 19 December 2005. ‘we say they are neftenya; they say we are olf’ 211 intervention as he passed by in his Rolls Royce. One OFDM party member, who spent considerable time and money only to be ignored, was frustrated to the point of quitting.32 In retrospect, May 2005 looks like an anomaly, for the opposition parties were wholly unprepared to assume the responsibilities of governing. Th ey simply did not have the bureaucratic infrastructure vital to operate a party and even more so a government in the twenty-fi rst century. What tilted the outcome of the 2005 election was familiarity with the idea of democratic elections, deep-rooted grievances verging on anger, and the free spirit of the Oromo people. As the 2010 election has shown, the precipitous decline of the Oromo opposition parties, in terms of party enthusiasm, organisation and infrastructure, led to a 2000-model campaign, where the only opposition to the OPDO were laughable independent candidates who had no awareness of politics but viewed their election as a ticket to personal fi nancial security and a villa in Addis Ababa as a means to escape from Wallega (Schaefer 2002). Th e pressure is on all parties to mobilise the masses and develop sustainable political organisations, assuming all are allowed to. Th e consequences for 2015 and beyond if they are not allowed greater freedoms and political space will be an intensifi cation of the repression already extant in Wallega and a real threat of widespread violence and rebellion. Prospects for democracy, inclusiveness and reconciliation hinge on how willing the EPRDF is to practise its ethnic federalism enshrined in the Ethiopian constitution. Th e nationalities question and land tenure, which were central to the student movement of the 1960s and 1970s, remain at the heart of politics in Wallega. All issues can be reduced to the Oromo people’s desire to determine their ethno-political identity and equitable use of resources.

Age-sets: elders versus youth

In the eyes of the EPRDF leadership, another element has emerged in Ethiopian politics and is certainly manifest in Wallega. Th is element is the youth of the nation that, it appears, the EPRDF does not fully understand and therefore fears. A brief assessment of Ethiopia’s demographic pyramid provides the necessary analytical backdrop.

32 Interview with an OFDM member who was passing through Begi at the time I was there, Begi, 14 December 2005. 212 charles schaefer

Citizens aged 35 years and older are comparatively few in comparison to those less than 35. In 2008 Ethiopia’s female fertility rate of 5.3 (UNICEF 2008) was among the world’s highest and totally overshad- ows mortality rates despite chronic famine, malaria and HIV/AIDS. As demographers have plotted, Ethiopia is now a country of youth, with 45 percent of the population below the age of 15. Rather than a pyramid, the demographic profi le looks more like an inverted wine glass as illustrated in Ethiopia’s latest census (CSA 2008, 13–14). Th e prevalence of youth has not been lost on the political leadership. A brief assessment of post-election strategies imposed by the EPRDF in Wallega illustrates the issue of age-sets. Election results rocked the EPRDF to its core. Despite imposing the gott and garee system, the EPRDF almost lost the election, even according to its own count. As mentioned above, their fi rst reaction was one of bewilderment followed by constructive measures to assess the damage and repair the OPDO. Th ese measures took the form of village meetings to which elders, teachers, priests and pastors, and merchants, essentially all those persons of 35 years and above who were in good standing and collectively referred to as shemageles, were invited to voice their opinions about how the OPDO could improve and meet the needs of the Oromo people. In actuality, however, criticism was not well received, and the meetings were more of an attempt at political resuscitation by breathing ‘old’ life into the party by recruiting the older generation, the shemageles, into the OPDO. Th is strategy harkened back to a political paradigm that may no longer be valid, for it attempted to legitimise the EPRDF/OPDO by bolstering the party’s ranks by incorporating traditional power bases. Two things derailed this strategy: fi rst, the shemageles did not join for reasons described in the section immediately above; second, the EPRDF/OPDO may have realised that traditional authorities no longer held the power and infl uence they once had, for their actions certainly indicate a strategic shift away from the elders towards the youth. Shortly aft er gim gema was abandoned, the EPRDF/OPDO launched wide-ranging reprisals against the youth of Wallega, beginning around November 2005. Not by accident, this coincided with the killings and roundup of youth in Addis Ababa and their detention in the Didessa valley. In a remarkable expansion of human rights abuses, not only were students and the youth of the towns singled out, but young people in the countryside were oft en beaten as well. As reported to me on numerous occasions and in disparate locales, there were well organised ‘we say they are neftenya; they say we are olf’ 213 attempts to punish Oromos by deploying a combination of party militias, Federal Police and local police into the countryside at night, surround a village and at dawn go door to door pulling out the peasants and beating their children in front of them. Th e preferred method was to knock the youths over and beat them on the bottom of their feet with a truncheon, preferably on the instep. Youths claimed that they were beaten on the bottom of their feet to prevent them from running away. Certainly it was eff ective, for the youth were eff ectively crippled in the short term. In towns the same routine was carried out at schools and those caught loitering on the streets. Informants said parents and the elderly were usually left unhurt. In a macabre twist, the strategy was reminiscent of the Derg persecution of students during the Red Terror oft en in front of their parents (Kjetil Tronvoll et al. 2009); of course this time it was far less severe. Th e dif- ference, worth repeating, was that the Derg never punished the peasants with the intentionality that the EPRDF/OPFO did. A result of the Red Terror was to render Ethiopia’s urban population, both young and old, quiescent; perhaps an aim of the reprisals in Wallega was to do the same while also enforcing complacency in the countryside. During the 1960s and 1970s the youth were transfi xed with politics as the route to social justice and economic development. But Ethio- pia appears to be undergoing an attitudinal shift that places the radical generation of the 1960s and 1970s in the same category as those whom they were trying to replace, the old imperial guard, for both saw politics as the sole avenue forward and were committed to jealously obtaining and retaining power. Th e attitudinal shift appears to be deem- phasising politics and, conversely, elevating communications, education and employment as avenues towards social equality and economic betterment. When, however, it appears that politics interferes with youths’ perceived freedom to pursue their individualistic goals, then they can, and did, demonstrate their displeasure politically through the ballot box or later on through school boycotts and university demonstrations. By contrast, when the emphasis is on assessing the infl uence of traditional authority on electoral politics, it would be disingenuous to ignore what appears to be taking place in Wallega, which is the emergence of a generation gap between the Oromo youth and the Oromo elders. Coincidentally, the EPRDF/OPDO establishment and the Oromo elders hold similar ideas about the utility of politics. Th e aims and ambitions of the youth are inarticulate and diff use, but 214 charles schaefer basically revolve around exploiting the communications and market- ing opportunities of roads, text messaging, and Internet communications in Ethiopia which have both local and global implications. Th e reliance on the level of technology, of course, depends on geographical access, but the Internet had reached Dembi Dolo by December 2005 and mobile phone service was spreading rapidly. Today they are a given in almost every urban centre. Moreover, youth appear to be seeking education for its vocational advantage. Th roughout Wallega there is an explosion of new, privately funded vocational schools and colleges, whose enrolment almost instantaneously exceeds classroom space and staffi ng. Youth are interested in education, not only because it is necessarily a ticket to Addis Ababa and the world beyond, which was the case in the past, but because they seek to become competent profes- sionals. If the fi eld of study is primary education at a private teachers’ college, students seemed to be driven to be the best teachers they can be and are worried less about national politics or union aff airs than about fi nding remunerative jobs in their area where they can teach. Likewise, nurses are concerned with health care in their locale and how they can best serve the community (Schaefer 2008). Irrespective of the outcome of the election, the socio-political cohe- sion of Ethiopia is most at risk if youth demonstrate their displeasure. To an extent, the aft ermath of the 2005 elections provided a pretext for students to express their repressed frustrations, over the election results but more widely over a wellspring of issues encapsulated in the lack of opportunity and the curtailment of their ambitions to pursue their own agenda. In short, the older generation’s reduction of everything to politics appears to be more like a straight jacket restricting the aspirations of the youth. To target students and the youth from the countryside was meant to enforce not only political control but a gerontocratic power struggle to preserve an older age-set’s view of social and political order. Th e youth do not necessarily hold to those values and, while the 2010 election reveals very little, future elections, assuming that there is a viable opposition, may reveal startling results, not least of which is the fact that the hold the OLF has had on the minds of the Oromo people in 2005 may in fact be dead.

Conclusion

In the past century the neft enya dominated politics in Wallega. As the twentieth century closed, it was increasingly diffi cult to determine true ‘we say they are neftenya; they say we are olf’ 215 descendents of the neft enya due to intermarriage and because the political objective of conquest had morphed into a nationalist agenda that tried to suppress ethnicity. Yet, from the Oromo perspective, those who tried to smother Oromo aspirations were identifi ed as neft enya. In this light, the ethnic card has changed and the EPRDF and by extension the OPDO have assumed the label of the neft enya. True northern descendents of the neft enya still living and working in Wallega are a marginalised group who are no longer part of the political equation. Some act as if they still were, others seek to shed their northern ethnicity and identify wholeheartedly with their Oromo neighbours and clients. Another group that has a legitimate claim to be referred to as neft enya are those Amhara and Tigrean farmers who took advantage of both the Derg’s and EPRDF’s resettlement schemes (Pankhurst and Piquet 2009). But as election results demonstrated, they too are diffi - cult to categorise, for their votes went both ways in substantial numbers, so much so in fact that the EPRDF/OPDO wreaked its vengeance on the northern settlers of Guten and Abi Dongoro, where roving groups of OPDO militias randomly burnt the grain bins of Amhara settlers at night.33 Th e EPRDF have assumed the label of neft enya and the OPDO the Ras Gobanas of the twenty-fi rst century. Together they shape and implement the political agenda of Wallega. In perspective, the May 2005 election may go down in history as an outlier on the graph of ERPDF/OPDO control of Wallega. Th e OFDM, UEDF (alias ONC) and CUD did surprisingly well, perhaps because of the overconfi dence of the EPRDF/OPDO in their preparations for the elections, the gott and garee system being the prime example. Th e EPRDF/OPDO opened political space for the opposition parties and they took advantage of it. Not only did the parties campaign in their essentially unprofessional manner, but the electorate demonstrated their political rights in the voting booth showing as much their displeasure with the OPDO as their support for the opposition. Th e Oromo of Wallega are now relatively experienced voters. Th ey have voted in four national elections and a number of regional elections. Th e Oromo electorate has come a long way since 1992; the concept of democracy expressed by party names and symbols is understood by all voters. Th e manner in which Oromos came out in huge numbers to cast their votes shows that the

33 Interview with ERHCO members, Nakamte, 9 December 2005. 216 charles schaefer ideal of democracy – harkening back to the ideology of gada – is deeply embedded in Wallega. Th e question that must be asked is whether the EPRDF/OPDO will ever allow another election like 2005. Certainly the 2008 regional elections and the 2010 election portend against this ever happening again on their watch. Th e relevant question is: Has the EPRDF abandoned democracy? Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s remonstrations following the European Union’s fi nal election observation report, because it elaborated on the ‘the lack of a level playing fi eld for all contesting parties’ (European Union 2010, 1), appears to indicate that the EPRDF is unwilling to allow the political space opposition parties need to be competitive, yet Meles Zenawi insists Ethiopia remains committed to democracy – the logical assumption is a one-party state ‘democracy’ that is intolerant of opponents and political descent. In Wallega in 2005 and 2006 the reprisals against the opposition parties and the general population were so severe and widespread that another question was being posed: If there were another election would there be an opposition? Th e regional elections of 2008 and the May 2010 national election basically confi rm the foresight for posing that question as the opposition either voluntarily withdrew or were leveraged out of campaigning in either election. However, the analysis about why this question was posed is still valid, for the 2005 election was the only genuinely competitive election in Ethiopia. Aft er the election, in December 2005, all one saw was the emasculation of the opposition parties. Party formation and political activity were dor- mant; the National Election Board was more interested in renouncing party credentials than certifying new parties; offi ces were boarded up, oft en because rents were raised so astronomically high that opposition parties could not pay them – one landowner informed me he was directly ordered to raise rents by OPDO offi cials34; citizens feared party association for it brought ostracism, lack of opportunity and persecution, especially to their sons and daughters; campaigning was oft en viewed as a treasonous act by the Federal Police; independent media had been shutdown, and opposition parties were essentially bankrupt.

34 Interviews with OFDM offi cial and landowner, Nego, 14 December 2005. ‘we say they are neftenya; they say we are olf’ 217

Th e EPRDF/OPDO dominates political space and discourse, and increased its control through the May 2010 elections. It sets the political parameters and will determine whether democracy will in fact be allowed to use its deep, root system to grow into a tall, resilient tree, as symbolically depicted on the Oromiya fl ag. Th e untested force in Wallega is the OLF. Th e legitimacy of the OLF has increased tenfold in the eyes of the older Oromo population by its mere absence. As the title of this chapter implies, the dipoles of ethnicity and politics have widened in Wallega and because of the oppression of the Oromo people, the OLF has taken on messianic qualities in the eyes of many Oromos. Th ose most interested in the OLF reengaging in the political arena are older men, the shemageles. Many of them were OLF fi ghters or clandestine supporters in its struggle against the Derg. As they have aged, they have assumed many of the traditional positions of civic authority – but with one signifi cant diff erence. Whereas their predecessors were wholly rooted in Oromo identity and ideology, the new shemageles ethnically defi ned themselves as Oromo but ideologically they are all over the map, held together only by their opposition to neft enya domination. Th e wildcard in the politics of Wallega is the youth. While much more study needs to be done, it appears that the youth are more pragmatic. Th e OLF is viewed by this age-set with enormous hope, but in reality the OLF has been in the shadows since they were born (recall that 45 percent of the population is under the age of 15). In the last twenty years the OLF has been in the bush, out of touch, and has not been able to deliver economic or political goods. Moreover, this generation has grown up in an atmosphere of democracy, albeit questionable democracy, and they or their older friends have already expressed their displeasure through the ballot. Th e youth appear disenchanted with politics, for political authority has always meant autocracy. Th eir disparate aims and ambitions are more suited to the amorphous agenda encapsulated in true representative democracy (Schaefer 2008). In the introduction to this chapter, I expressed reserved optimism for the Oromo of Wallega. To an extent, that optimism rests on the shoulders of the young, for they appear to be interested in exploiting the terrain between the dipoles. Th e EPRDF/OPDO, the sanctioned opposition parties and the OLF should all be aware of this younger age-set, for soon they will dominate politics and will insist on a one person, one vote nation. 218 charles schaefer

Bibliography

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Pankhurst, Alula, and François Piguet, eds. 2009. Moving People in Ethiopia: Development, Displacement and the State. Oxford: James Currey. Paulos Chanie. 2007. ‘Clientelism and Ethiopia’s Post-1991 Decentralisation.’ Journal of Modern African Studies 45 (3): 355–84. Schaefer, Charles. 1994. ‘Free and Fair in Ethiopia.’ Th e Cresset LVII (9): 19–23. —— . 2002. ‘Dutiful Voters and Non-participants: Campaigns and Elections in Dembi Dollo, Oromiya.’ In Ethiopia since the Derg: A Decade of Democratic Pretension and Performance, edited by Siegfried Pausewang, Kjetil Tronvoll, and Lovise Aalen, 100– 18. London: Zed Books. —— . 2008. ‘Aft erword.’ In Contested Terrain: Confronting Challenges to Politically Engaged Scholarship in Oromo Studies, edited by Ezekiel Gebissa, 241–47. Trenton, NJ: Red Sea Press. Tesema Ta’a. 1986. ‘Th e Political Economy of Western Central Ethiopia: From the Mid- sixteenth to the Early Twentieth Centuries.’ PhD thesis, Michigan State University. Tronvoll, Kjetil. 2009. War and the Politics of Identity in Ethiopia: Th e Making of Enemies and Allies in the Horn of Africa. Oxford: James Currey. Tronvoll, Kjetil, Charles Schaefer, and Girmachew A. Aneme, eds. 2009. Th e Ethiopian Red Terror Trials: Transitional Justice Challenged. Oxford: James Currey. Turton, David, ed. 2006. Ethnic Federalism: Th e Ethiopian Experience in Comparative Perspective. London, Oxford, Addis Ababa: James Currey and Addis Ababa University Press.

CHAPTER 8

CUSTOMARY INSTITUTIONS IN CONTEMPORARY POLITICS IN BORANA ZONE, OROMIYA, ETHIOPIA

Marco Bassi

Introduction

Customary institutions are varyingly understood by scholars, development experts and governmental offi cers. Since they are not legally or constitutionally recognised by the state, most sociologists and political scientists have usually assumed that customary institutions are informal. Elizabeth Watson (2001, 4, 18) has tried to apply this mainstream theoretical model to natural resource management in Borana Zone, but she found a mismatch with the fact that the Borana ‘indigenous’ institutions operate in quite a formal way. Indeed, functionalist anthropology has fully shown how roles of authority, decisional and juridical procedures, norms and institutions are legitimised or formalised in non-industrial polities. Th e problem with functionalism was that customary institutions were ethnographically treated as if in isolation from the colonial or post-colonial states. Th e formal/informal theoretical divide refl ects the diff erent disciplinary and methodological approaches to the study of social reality. Customary institutions are in fact considered ‘formal’ when priority is given to the point of view of local actors; they are regarded as ‘informal’ when evaluated through the sole legitimating prism of the nation-state. With the development of the notion of indigenous rights, this dichotomy can be considered a dated one. In fact, the expanding body of international law on indigenous and tribal peoples provides the legal framework for the recognition of customary law, institutions and territorial rights. Self-determination is the encompassing political principle that defi nes an independent decisional space with reference to the management of natural resources and development. In practice, however, the enhancement of these rights varies greatly between diff erent continents and is highly dependent upon the degree to which international law has been adopted into national legislation. Despite the fact 222 marco bassi that the peoples of Ethiopia have a variety of fully fl edged and still operative customary institutions, the internal political debate and the international discourse on development have so far been constructed without any reference to indigenous rights. Th e post-Derg government of Ethiopia has shown full awareness of indigenous mechanisms’ potential for confl ict resolution. Attempts to institutionalise the contribution of elders in this fi eld were made in Oromiya back in 1992, before the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) withdrew from the Transitional Government of Ethiopia (TGE) (Leenco Lata 1999).1 More structured attempts to involve elders in an advisory role have been made in the Afar and the Somali regions (Kelemework Tafere 2006, 93–4; Vaughan and Tronvoll 2003, 39; Lister 2004, 26; Hagmann 2007). In the fi eld of development, the attention to customary institutions has been mainly raised in the pastoral sector. Th e pastoral lowlands of Ethiopia were less aff ected by the imperial and socialist land reforms forcibly implemented by the Ethiopian governments (Boku Tache and Gufu Oba 2009, 412–13). Th e governance of the natural resources on which pastoralism relies remained fundamentally based on customary elements. Th e contemporary relevance of the customary institutions is recognised in an international report commissioned by the Interna- tional Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and prepared for the Pastoral Community Development Project (PCDP), an initiative by the World Bank, IFAD and the Government of Ethiopia to reduce poverty among pastoralists. In this report it is claimed that ‘the PCDP is based on the assumption that pastoral livelihoods can be improved by strengthening the self-management capabilities of indigenous institutions’ (Waters-Bayer 2003, 2). Th e report goes on to advocate capacity- building for both governmental and indigenous institutions among the Somali, the Afar, the Borana, and various ethnic groups in South Omo. Th e Pastoralist Communication Initiative (PCI) has been particularly active in the fi eld of advocacy. Its initial objective was to obtain a chapter dedicated to pastoralism in the National Poverty Reduction Paper. In line with the poverty reduction strategy of ensuring citizens’ participation and institutional responsiveness, the PCI supported the dialogue between the pastoralists and the Government of Ethiopia.

1 Th e OLF was one of the three major political organisations that formed the TGE aft er the fall of the Derg government in 1991. contemporary politics in borana zone, oromia, ethiopia 223

Along with various initiatives in the ‘formal’ political sector, from February 2004 on it tried to work through the customary institutions. Th is initiative was in line with the policy adopted by the Oromiya Pastoral Development Commission and included an explicit reference to the need to integrate the pastoralists’ customary institutions (OPDC 2003). Customary leaders in the study area were invited to a number of local and regional meetings and gatherings facilitated by the PCI.2 Th e PCI advocacy initiatives run in parallel to the eff orts made from 1998 onwards by civil society and the government on Pastoralist Day.3 Most of the aforementioned initiatives to involve customary leaders are theoretically grounded in the theory of ‘direct’ or ‘participatory’ democracy, implying a capacity of poor and marginalised groups to infl uence policy outcomes outside of the standard mechanisms of electoral representation. Th is issue is particularly relevant in Ethiopia, a country aff ected by seriously fl awed mechanisms of formal representation and accountability to constituents (Lister 2004, 13–14, 28–30). Customary institutions are presented as a ‘bridge’ with the community (Hagmann 2005, 529) or a ‘ready-made set of participatory structures’ (Watson 2001, 15, 18). As explained by Sarah Lister (2004, 27), it is assumed that ‘the interaction between formal and traditional systems mediates between citizen interests and policy outcome, and thus fulfi ls a “representation” function’. Despite these assumptions, the Ethiopian federal policy on pastoralism completely disregards customary institutions and promotes a model of development entirely opposed to the customary governance of natural resources (FDRE 2002). In this paper I will analyse the outcome of the interface of customary with state politics in the pastoral area of the Borana, taking as my main reference the 2004 referendum on the defi nition of the border between Oromiya Regional State (Region 4) and Somali Regional State (Region 5) as well as the 2005 national elections.4 In the conclusion I will address

2 Th ey include the meeting held in Yaaballoo in 2004, the Global Pastoralists Gathering held in Turmi, South Omo in 2005 and the Horn of Africa Regional Pastoralists Gathering held in Qarsaa Dambii in 2006, again in Borana Zone. 3 Th is initiative started with local meetings organised by civil society with the participation of local governmental offi cers. Th e role of the government increased over the years. In 2005 a large gathering was organised in Dire Dawa, under the leading role of the Ministry of Federal Aff airs, with the participation of several customary leaders. 4 Th is study was implemented in two phases of fi eldwork during the 2005 national elections and draws on the author’s previous research experiences in the area. Interviews were mainly conducted in Borana Zone with elders and customary leaders of the Borana, the Gabra and the Guji. Other interviews were held with elders of the 224 marco bassi the risk involved in dealing with customary institutions in a theoretical framework of ‘direct democracy’, without any reference to the international notion of indigenous rights and to the inherent legal instruments and development procedures.

Th e peoples of Borana District and Borana Zone

Th e area considered in this study is politically characterised by the interaction of various primary groups.5 Th ey can be broadly classifi ed along the Oromo and Somali linguistic divide. Since the 1991 change of government, the Borana administrative area has progressively shrunk to the east, a process that has its historical roots in the southward and westward expansion of the Somali-speaking groups and is well recorded in oral as well as in written sources.

Pre-colonial settlement In 1896, just before its incorporation into the Ethiopian state, Italian explorer Vittorio Bòttego’s second expedition crossed this region. Th e area had already been explored by Donaldson-Smith, Bòttego and others. On this occasion Bòttego received the mandate to expand and reinforce Italian colonial infl uence, signing protectorate treaties with the local leaders and establishing a military post in the important trade centre of Luuq (Vannutelli and Citerni 1899, 14). Accordingly, the explorers carefully collected information about the distribution of local groups and their trade relations. Th e rock ‘Dacà-Barru’ (Dakaa Barruu), on the caravan route along the Dawa River, was clearly identifi ed as the marker of the old border between the Borana (Oromo) and the Muslims (Somali). According to the cartography drawn up by Achille Dardano in Rome (in Vannutelli and Citerni 1899), this rock is located on the southern side of the Dawa River, corresponding to present-day Man- dera. Th e locality of ‘Bua-Herere’, probably not far from present-day

Degodia in Filtu and of the Garri in Moyyale. In Filtu and Moyyale, the local administrators assisted with identifying knowledgeable elders, and provided a place for the interviews in government offi ces. An article on local history and ethnic confl ict based on this research was published in the Journal of Eastern African Studies (Bassi 2010). 5 Primary groups are individuals sharing a common identity and exercising coher- ent governance over a broad and sometimes scattered range of natural resources. Th ey also share a common language (Bassi 2010, 224; 2011). contemporary politics in borana zone, oromia, ethiopia 225

Ramu, was the fi eld of a major battle occurred 50 years before Bòttego’s expedition. Th e expedition’s Somali guides recounted that the Somali had gathered from Luuq and Bardera to fi ght against the Borana. Th e Somali alliance won, forcing the Borana to retreat beyond the ‘Sancuràr’ (Sankuraar) wells, a locality reported on Dardano’s cartography as being to the north-east of Eel Deer. ‘Sancuràr’ was considered the border between the Borana and the Somali at the time of Bòttego’s second expedition. Th e Muslim groups identifi ed on their route were the ‘Garra-Marra’ (Garrimarro) living in a small triangle at the confl uence of the Dawa and the Ganale Rivers, the ‘Garra-Ganana’ along the Mandera tract of the Dawa River, and the ‘Garra-Lìvin’ along the caravan route roughly between present-day Malka Mari and Sancuràr.6 Th e ‘Garra-Ganana’ were said to be Somali, but they were able to speak Borana. Th e ‘Garra-Lìvin’ also identifi ed themselves as Somali and Muslim, but the explorers considered them to be culturally and linguistically closer to the Borana (Vannutelli and Citerni 1899, 136–9).7 Th is cultural affi nity can be explained with the Borana hegemony in the region. Th e Ajuran and the Garre were part of a Borana network of alliance until the Somali eff ectively challenged the Borana power in the mid 19th century (Goto 1972; Gufu Oba 1996, 123–4, 128–9; Haber land 1963, 141–2).8 Th e 19th century resurgence of international trade favoured the emergence of new city-states in the interior of southern Somalia including Luuq (Luling 2002, 3, 21). Th e account provided by the survivors of Bòttego’s exploration describes the existence of a Somali trade network including the towns of Luuq and Baardheere (Bardera). Luling has also outlined Luuq’s links to Geledi, the coastal and Swahili towns, and to Awdheeglee (2002, 184). Such

6 In Dardano’s cartography this section of the caravan route appears to be close to the likely course of the Dawa River, but in reality they were far from it. Th e explorers had lost sight of the Dawa River and were not aware of its northwards turn. 7 ‘Sancuràr’ may correspond to ‘San Kural’ in Donaldson Smith (1896) who crossed the area in March 1895. In this source, the border between the Borana and the ‘Gère Lìban’ is set at Aimola, east of San Kural. Th e ‘Garra Ganana’ are here reported with the name ‘Gère Badi’. Donaldson classifi es the Gère Lìban among the ‘Galla’ (Oromo) and he claims that they are not Muslim, thus confi rming the strong cultural affi nity of this group with the Borana (1896, 134). 8 Th e encroachment of new Somali clans into the region started in the mid 18th century (Gufu Oba 1996). Günther Schlee has found that the expression Warr Libin is used still today in Northern Kenya to stress cross-ethnic solidarity based on the ancient Borana-centred alliance (2007, 424–26). Th e ‘Garra-Lìvin’, or ‘Gère Lìban’, were probably the Garre group most closely tied to the Warr Libin. 226 marco bassi city-states interlinked the nearby local clans in a web of trade relations. Th e ‘Garra-Ganana’, and the ‘Garra-Lìvin’ mentioned by Vannutelli and Citerni thus became part of the Luuq confederation. Th e Degodia, another Somali clan encountered by the explorers to the east of the Ganale River, were apparently excluded, having been described as an ‘independent tribe that is normally an enemy of Lugh’ (Vannutelli and Citerni 1899, 90, author’s translation). In the mid 19th century this network appears to have been scaled up into a military alliance against the Borana Oromo in order to gain control of trade. Indeed, Bòttego and his colleagues were told by their Garre friends that fi ft y years earlier anyone advancing beyond ‘Dacà-Barru’ without permission would have been killed (Vannutelli and Citerni 1899, 136, 149). By the time of Bòttego’s expedition, aft er the Bua-Herere defeat of the Borana, several tolls were still imposed on Somali caravans crossing into Borana country, as were fees for watering at wells and for grazing their animal. Th is indicates that trade relations favoured the emergence of the notion of a border before the region was incorporated into the colonial or imperial states. Th e following account provided by Duuba Dima suggests that the same notion was applied to grazing: Grazing in Borana territory was subject to a non-trespassing rule. Other groups could apply by conforming to a formal procedure demanding them to stop at the boundary. Access for grazing was accorded by the hayyu, the customary leaders of the Borana.9 Th e westwards movement by the Somali was confi rmed in the interviews made during my 2005 fi eldwork with both Degodia (Somali) and Borana (Oromo) elders.10 Th e Degodia justifi ed Somali expansion as a defensive reaction to the cruel attitude of the Borana, a ‘pagan’ group, towards the Muslims. Th e Borana mentioned the presence of several relatively recent Borana tombs deep inside current Somali territory, including in Luuq. Indeed Vannutelli and Citerni reported the presence of numerous Oromo tombs along the same caravan route between ‘Dacà-Barru’ and Bua-Herere. As for Luuq itself, explorers described a Somali-dominated multi-ethnic town, with the presence of many Oromo slaves (1899, 82, 139).

9 Interview with Duuba Dima, 9 August 2005. Duuba Dima was a balabat (inter- mediate leader during the imperial era) son of the main balabat of Liiban region during the Italian occupation. Th is statement is based on Duuba’s father account of the old times. 10 Various interviews, August 2005. contemporary politics in borana zone, oromia, ethiopia 227

Administrative demarcation until 1991 By the time of the Ethiopian conquest, Borana territory extended from Teltelle to the confl uence of the Dawa and Ganale Rivers. Despite the penetration of the Degodia and Mareexaan Somali clans and the bilin- gual Garre communities into the eastern sector of their territory from the 1920s onwards and, especially, during the Italian colonial era, this large territory came to be identifi ed as a ‘Borana’ administrative space within the Ethiopian state.11 Aft er the Italians were defeated, the old provinces of Borana and Welayta were merged into the Sidamo Region. Still in 1991, Borana Province (awraja) was a major administrative division of the Sidamo region and was subdivided into two districts (woreda): Liiban and Doolo. Liiban District took its name from the portion of the Borana customary territory known by the name of Liiban that was bordered by the Dawa and Ganale Rivers and extended eastwards to the confl uence of the two rivers. Th e customary Liiban included Doolo District, an area that by 1991 was mainly inhabited by Mareexaan and Degodia Somali.12 Th e western portion of the Borana customary territory was under Areero Province, subdivided into Teltelle, Dirree, Yaaballoo, Areero, Mooyyale, Burji and Hagaramaram districts. With the exception of Burji and Hagaramaram districts – inhabited by the Burji and the Guji respectively – Areero Province was mainly inhabited by the Borana. Th e districts of Yaaballo, Areero and Mooyyale included the whole of Dirree, a second important customary region of the Borana that was oft en coupled with Liiban to indicate the Borana homelands and ritual centres. Dirree is the Borana customary territory to the southwest of the Dawa River and north of the escarpment that roughly divides Ethiopia from Kenya. Dirree is characterised by the presence of the famous tulaa wells.13 Th e Gabra, an Oromo- speaking community, and the Garre had regular access to some of the wells located in the customary Dirree.

11 Details of the historical process of penetration of the Muslim groups into Borana territory are provided by Belete Bizuneh (1999), Boke Tache and Gufu Oba (2009, 415–18), Bassi (1997; 2010), Haberland (1963), Gufu Oba (1996), Getachew Kassa (1983), Fekadu Adugna (2004, 75–7). 12 In this paper I diff erentiate customary from administrative geographical units by using italics for the fi rst. 13 Th e tulaa are clusters of deep wells found in nine localities. Th ey impressed early travellers by their remarkable physical structures. More recently they have attracted the attention of pastoral development experts because of the important role they play in modern pastoralism. Foreign and indigenous scholars have also studied their complex social and normative implications. 228 marco bassi

Map 2. Borana and Areero provinces, Sidamo Region (1991) and main localities mentioned in the text

Th e demographic politics of space from 1991 Th e collapse of the Somali state in 1991 set in motion a massive movement of population and clans from Somalia to Kenya and Ethiopia. According to its mandate, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) was very active in assisting the refugees and promoting repatriation in coordination with the concerned governments. Th ese settings facilitated the enhancement by the Muslim groups of what I have elsewhere called the ‘demographic politics of space’, a ‘planned attempt to gain control over land by means of forced or voluntary migration’ (Bassi 2010, 241). I introduced this concept by building on Clapham’s (2002, 25–30) notion of ‘the new politics of space’ that defi ned the politics involved in the process of demarcation of ethnic- based regions and other administrative boundaries aft er the introduction of federalism in Ethiopia. Inside the study area, the local politicised elites managed to manipulate demographics by exploiting Ethiopian macro-politics. Aft er its withdrawal from the Ethiopian government contemporary politics in borana zone, oromia, ethiopia 229 in 1992, the OLF established one of its military branches in northern Kenya, just across the border from Ethiopia (Schlee 2003, 358–62). When the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) entered the area, it arbitrated on a number of confl icts that had broken out between the Borana and the Muslim groups connected with the arrival of refugees. Th e Borana were accused of supporting the OLF, a factor that generated mistrust with the TPLF. Th e Muslim minorities within Borana territory were politically empowered, in a context of general disregard for fundamental human and political rights (Bassi 1997; Schlee 2003, 358; Vaughan and Tronvoll 2003, 134; Lister 2004, 24; Bassi 2010, 231–2). Th is was the time when the TGE was re-drawing the administrative borders of the constituent regional states of the emerging federal Ethiopia. Th e large Oromo and Somali regional states were subdivided into more manageable units, or administrative zones. Th e Somali living in Liiban and the new groups of Somali refugees and returnees favoured a further massive demographic infl ux of Somali refugees and Kenyan Somali into Liiban. Similarly, the Garre and the Gabra moved into Dirree (Bassi 1997; Fekadu Adugna 2004, 98–104). UNHCR was working under the pressure of the emergency, with little opportunity to diff erentiate between proper returnees and those who were simply claiming that status. Th e demographic politics of space was thus strongly sustained and funded by international aid, in terms of support to individuals, services provided in the returnees’ settlements, and infrastructural development (Bassi 1997; Fekadu Adugna 2004, 37–40, 113–14; Ahmed Farah Yusuf 1996, 133–4, 138–9). For instance, Filtu, just a small village before 1991, became a district administrative centre with the key support of Italian NGOs. By 1994 an entire administrative zone had been created out of the territory previously perceived as a ‘Borana’ administrative space, which was now put under the administration of the Somali Regional State. Liban Zone is composed of the districts of Doolo, Filtu and Mooyyale. Doolo and Filtu were cut out of the old Borana Province (Liiban), Mooyy- ale was cut from Areero Province (Dirree). Th e addition of Mooyy ale District was made possible by the Garre’s shift from an Oromo identity – which they had used to resettle as returnees in the Borana territory – to a Somali identity. Of the three districts, only Dolo was actually inhabited mainly by Somalis before 1991. Th e remaining parts of what used to be Borana Province and Arero Province in Sidamo Region were re-organised into the Borana Zone of Oromiya. Th is is an area that includes the customary territory of two 230 marco bassi

Map 3. Approximate area of displacement of the Borana from 1991 in Liiban Zone and other territories administered by the Somali Regional State

Note: Th e map includes both permanently occupied territories and seasonally used pastures.

Oromo primary groups, the Borana and the Guji. In 2002 Borana Zone was again subdivided into Borana Zone and Guji Zone, with Yaaballo and Nagelle their respective administrative centres. Despite the ethnic names, even these new administrative divisions do not correspond to the two groups’ customary territories.

Two types of customary institutions

Generally speaking, the Somali give prominence to patrilineal genealogy as a key element of customary social and political organisation. Luling (2002, 2–3) has outlined three models of political organisation. Among the mobile pastoralists of northern Somalia, the lineage represents the main corporate group. Th is is a residential group with contemporary politics in borana zone, oromia, ethiopia 231 corporate control over water points. Ioan Lewis (1999) has stressed the egalitarian process of decision-making in meetings, and the relevance of the ‘contract’ (heer or xeer) among lineages and clans to add fl exibil- ity to the genealogical structure in building larger alliances. In the agricultural and agro-pastoral areas of Southern Somalia clanship is the main organisational principle. Alien groups can be incorporated into the clan through fi ctional kinship. Th e internal segmentation of the clan is refl ected in political representation, with ‘a defi nite and permanent administrative organisation’ built on the offi ce of headman of each lineage and at various levels (Lewis 1994, 136). Under particular circumstances, strong centralised institutions may develop, as in the case of city-states like Mogadisho, Marka, Baraawe, Geledi, Luuq. Th is is the ‘urban model’ analysed by Luling, which is strongly associated with trade. In its typical form it consists of a tied alliance, or federation, of clans or lineages, under the unifying symbol of a sultan (Luling 2002, 81, 176–8). Th e Somali groups of the study area are all mobile pastoralists, but they also show elements of the second and third institutional model.14 Th e intermediation with the British colonial authorities favoured the emergence of the fi gure of Gababa Mohammed Guracha among the Garre. He handed down his leadership to his son Hassan Gababa Mohammed. Gababa led the Garre from Kenya to Qadadaduma and then to Ethiopia from the early 1920s. His son Hassan assisted the Ethiopians with road construction and received the imperial title of grazmatch (literally, ‘commander of the left wing’) before the Italian invasion. Aft er the Italian invasion, he was appointed to the position of administrator at sub-district level (Haberland 1963, 338; Getachew Kassa 1983, 39, 41). In turn Hassan’s son became a leading fi gure in the Western Somali Liberation Front (WSLF). Clearly, elements of hereditary and centralised leadership were emerging in interaction with the colonial and modern states. Indeed it is reported that Mohamed Hassan Gababa has started using the title of ‘Sultan’ of the Garre. Th e Degodia have apparently developed the characteristics of the agro-pastoral Somali model. Fekadu Adugna (2004, 37–40, 113–14) reported that by the time he carried out his fi eldwork, the customary leaders of the Degodia appeared to be fully incorporated into modern

14 Th e term ‘mobile people’ is increasingly replacing ‘nomadic people’ as it is more inclusive in describing diff erent patterns of relations between pastoralists, land and natural resources, including seasonal migrations on a regular basis. 232 marco bassi politics, to a point where the two structures were hardly distinguishable. Tobias Hagmann (2007, 32, 38–9) has described the institutional and constitutional process that led the Somali Regional State to establish a ‘customary’ structure of councils (guurti) at regional, zone and district levels alongside the administrative structure. He also noted that the districts and kebele (the lowest administrative division) in the Somali Regional State were redrawn and assigned to particular lineages and clans (Hagmann 2007, 41). Th e interaction with the state’s administrative structure may have favoured a process of both hardening and formalisation of the cus tomary headman structure among the Degodia, at each level of clan segmentation. Th e customary institutions of the Oromo refl ect a diff erent model, whose structural analogies are rather to be found in the interior of East Africa. Clanship is still a fundamental element of identity and solidarity, but the relation with natural resources is mediated by the political integrative action of the generational class system (Tornay 1988; Tornay 1991, 24; Tornay 1995; Bassi 2005, 274–9). Th e generational class system of the Oromo is called gadaa.15 Th e main element of the gadaa system is a mobile centre (yaa’a gadaa or caff ee) whose responsibility is entrusted to a new generational class every eight years (a gadaa period). Th e generational class is represented by elected and titled leaders who represent the main segments (either territorial or genealogical) of the political unit organised under a single gadaa centre. During this period the generational class is known as gadaa or luba – referring to a central stage of the gadaa life-cycle – which has overall responsibility for the political community at large. As they are scattered over a large and diverse territory, the Oromo have established various gadaa centres in Ethiopia, each providing the governance structure of certain territory.16 Institutional dualism is characteristic of the Oromo. Th e qaalluu- ship constitutes the second ideological pole of Oromo governance, and complements the gadaa (Asmarom Legesse 1973; 2000). Qaalluu is a hereditary offi ce whose sacredness is expressed in the myths of origin. Th ere are several qaalluu among the Oromo, but some have acquired a special institutional signifi cance. At the beginning of the 19th century,

15 Th e gadaa system was described in detail by Asmarom Legesse (1973) and chosen by Bernardi (1995) as an illustratation of the generational model in his classifi cation of age class systems. 16 Th e Oromo are the largest nation in Eastern Africa. contemporary politics in borana zone, oromia, ethiopia 233 the unity of the Oromo was expressed by the pilgrimage to the abbaa muudaa (literally, ‘father of the anointment’), ending in the house of the qaalluu for blessing. Several authors reported pilgrimages (muuda) from western and central Ethiopia to southern Ethiopia, either to the qaalluu of the Guji, Borana or Arsi (Knutsson 1967, 135–56; Mohammed Hassen 1990, 7–9). During the 19th century, the alliance built in northern Kenya around the Borana was symbolised by an anal- ogous long-distance pilgrimage from the lowlands of northern Kenya to the two qaalluu of the Borana in southern Ethiopia, which were undertaken both by Oromo individuals and delegates from other linguistic groups. Th ese long-distance Oromo pilgrimages were inter- rupted by the Abyssinian conquest of Oromo country, which started during the second half of the 19th century, and by the British conquest of Kenya. Th e muuda have now been scaled down to an internal aff air confi ned to each Oromo territorial sub-group, with diff erent confi gurations in relation to each gadaa centre. Among the Borana, each generational class (luba) is ritually represented by six hayyuu adulaa. Th e fi rst to be nominated is known as the arboora; the entire generational class takes his personal name. Th e second and the third are the kontoma. Th e six adulaa are selected when they are kids. Th ey go through a long ritual and training process (Bassi 2005, 171–3). When they reach the gadaa stage, the fi rst three become the three abbaa gadaa (literally ‘the father’ of the eight-year gadaa period). Th ey lead three diff erent villages that together form the yaa’a gadaa. Th e yaa’a arboraa is the senior one, led by the abbaa gadaa arboraa. Th e other two are the yaa’a kontomaa, led by the abbaa gadaa kontomaa. Th e yaa’a gadaa is also formed by other offi cers, including several hayyuu garbaa and hayyuu meedichaa, plus several other assis- tants and ritual offi cers (Asmarom Legesse 1973; Baxter 1978). Th e Borana also have fi ve recognised qaalluu. Two of them are of greater relevance, as they are associated with each of the moieties. Borana social and economic life is regulated by a wide range of diff erent types of meetings, each implemented according to specifi c procedures and with reference to highly articulated sets of law (seera) and norms (aadaa). Th e most engaging gatherings are the koraa gosaa (assembly of the clan), organised annually by each clan, and the Gumii Gaayoo, the general assembly organised every eight years by the yaa’a arbooraa. Decisions are formally made by general consensus during meetings and assemblies, with the retired gadaa offi cers acting as competent facilitators. In fact, they retain political authority even aft er they have completed their service in the yaa’a (Bassi 2005). 234 marco bassi

To the north of the Borana live the Guji, whose southern sections are engaged in agro-pastoralism. While among the Borana the gadaa system has remained fully operative throughout their history, among the Guji it has seen a revival since the fall of the Derg government in 1991. Structurally speaking, the Guji diff er because they had a separate gadaa centre and a diff erent set of gadaa leaders for each territorial section, and a single qaalluu (Hinnant 1978). Th e Gabra Malbee are based in the Kenyan lowlands to the west and south-west of the Borana, to the east of Lake Turkana. Like the Borana, they have preserved a fully active gadaa system, but are internally divided into fi ve fratries, each with its own gadaa centre and qaalluu. Each fra- try is associated with a separate territory and has a main ritual site along the escarpment on the border with Ethiopia (Torry 1978; Schlee 1998; Tablino 1999, 34; Aneesa Kassam 2006, Watson 2010, 205). Sev- eral of these ritual sites are located in what is normally considered the territory of the Borana. Indeed Aneesa Kassam (2006) has clearly outlined the strong inter-dependence of the two systems.17 Th e relations between the two groups used to be excellent until the recent confl ict in 2005. A separate group of Gabra live among the Borana in Ethiopia, sharing natural resources. During the 2004 and 2005 fi eld interviews I was told that the Gabra Miigo used to have their own yaa’a in Dirree, but it was abandoned aft er their conversion to Islam.18 Many Gabra Miigo were forced into becoming refugees in Somalia aft er the irredentist Somali war of 1977–78. With the collapse of the Somali state, they were re-integrated as returnees and later re-established good relations with the Borana by reconstituting their yaa’a in Weebi. Th e senior leaders of the reconstituted yaa’a Gabraa said that they are still struggling to fi gure out the mechanism of luba affi liation and the timing of the transitional ceremony. Th e customary institutions of the Oromo groups respond to their own internal logic, in the sense that they did not take shape in relation to the colonial or modern state, or as a response to trade. Indeed,

17 Th e mechanisms of ritual coordination between the generational class systems of the Gabra and the Borana have been described by Günther Schlee (1998). At the cultural level, the basic values of the Gabra outlined by Paolo Tablino ([1980] 1999, 245– 61) – aadaa (custom), luba (generation set), jila (ceremony) nagaya (peace) rooba (rain) and Waaqa (God) – correspond to the pivotal values of the Borana described by Paul Baxter (1965; 1978; 1990). 18 As in the case of the Gabra Malbe, in the ya’aa of the Gabra Miigo there was no abbaa gadaa. contemporary politics in borana zone, oromia, ethiopia 235 among the Borana, the overlapping of customary and governmental offi ces by a same person was carefully avoided. Th e two domains were perceived to be sharply separated and to contradict each other. Th e Amhara conquerors tried to co-opt the two main qaalluu by appoint- ing them as balabat or imperial intermediary chiefs. Th e qaalluu, however, transferred the offi ce to other members of their family (Donham 1986, 44–5). At the time of my doctoral fi eldwork (1989–90), when relations between the Ethiopian government and the Borana were considered excellent and a fair number of Borana were in the local administration (including at district level), I was still unable to identify a single customary leader involved in the administration, even at the lowest level of peasant association. Th e reason given was always the same – the need to protect the internal processes and promote the well- being of the people. Despite the separation of personnel and the lack of offi cial recognition, the customary institutions of the Borana continued to play a key role in the governance of natural resources and in family and interpersonal relations in rural areas. Th e division of responsibilities between the state and the customary sector was well defi ned and reciprocally acknowledged (Bassi 2005). In the late phase of the Derg, this customary system used to sustain the highest levels of livestock production for export in Ethiopia.

Violence and elections

Several scholars have observed how the administrative space in federal Ethiopia came to be too closely identifi ed with ethnic affi liation, a phenomenon that has generated various localised, but violent, ethnic confl icts across the country. Th is trend was particularly acute in the pastoral areas (Markakis 2003; Asnake Kefale 2004; Bruchhaus 2008; Hagmann and Alemmaya Mulugeta 2008). Th e case discussed here of the Borana and their Muslim neighbours provides a good illustration of this point. Th e Borana were in fact totally displaced from districts that the federal government entrusted to the Somali Regional State administration. Th ey were dispossessed of their wells – including those in Eel Goof and Eel Laee, two important tulaa localities, and in Udat – and from the rangelands served by them.19 Herders and well-owners

19 Th e lists of the lost wells in these two tulaa localities with the record of their legitimate owners were collected by Gufu Oba (1996, 125) before the outbreak of the 236 marco bassi were actively prevented from re-entering their customary territory by the army and the local militia, and the Borana were reported to have been exposed to extrajudicial killings, arbitrary detention, and tor- ture in military camps, especially during the period 1992–96. Th e displaced communities from both Liiban and Dirree found themselves in the condition of internally displaced persons, albeit hosted by their Borana neighbours and unrecognized by the national and international author ities. Th e concentration of population and livestock in the remaining lands of the Borana produced a high environmental impact, increasing poverty and exposure to drought (Boku Tache and Gufu Oba 2009, 420). During the 1990s the Borana tried to stop the territorial expansion of the Muslim groups by engaging in several armed confl icts. In 1991– 92 they clashed with the Gabra, the Garre, and the Mareexaan. Later, the Gabra and the Mareexaan rebuilt good relations with the Borana by recognising their customary pastoral rights. Th e Degodia – who had earlier preserved good relations with the Borana, both in Ethiopia and Kenya – in the early 1990s joined the Garre in the demographic politics of space. Serious clashes between the Degodia and the Borana took place in Ethiopia in 1997 and 2001, inside the Borana’s customary territory (Bassi 1997; Fekadu Adugna 2004, 79–91, 98–9, 103–7, 124; Schlee 2007; Boku Tache and Gufu Oba 2009). Th e confl ict also extended across the Kenyan border, as shown by the ‘Bagalla’ massacre that occurred in Wajir District in 1998, this time in the Degodia’s customary territory (Schlee 2007, 420–2). Before, during and aft er these clashes, the Borana elders tried to draw the attention of the competent state institutions to the problems they were facing. For instance, they appealed orally to the President of Oromiya, Kumaa Dammaqsaa, and to the President of Ethiopia, Nagaso Gidada, during the 1996 Gumii Gaayoo assembly (Hukka 1997, 27–8, quoted in Gufu Oba 1998, 35, 63), and again to the new president of Oromiya, Juneydin Sado, and to several other regional and local level governmental offi cers during the 2004 Gumii Gaayoo assembly

current territorial dispute. Similar lists from these and other localities from which the Borana have been displaced were independently gathered by myself in 1993 and by other researchers. Th e complex customary system of rights over permanent water points and the customary interdependence of water and land rights were addressed by Helland (1980), Gufu Oba (1998), Boku Tache (2000) and myself (Bassi 2005, chapter 8, 261–3). contemporary politics in borana zone, oromia, ethiopia 237

(Boku Tache and Gufu Oba 2009, 420).20 During PCI-facilitated local, national and international gatherings, elders and customary leaders also complained about their shrinking territory due to both external factors and the expansion of agriculture into key pastoral lands. In addition, they have submitted a number of written appeals to various governmental offi ces at federal, regional and zone levels with attached documentation concerning the territorial complaint and human rights abuses (Elders 1996; 1997; 2004; Boorana Oromo Elders 2001; IDPs 2004; Liiban Jaldeessaa, undated; Oromo Community, undated).21 Th e territorial threat posed by the demographic politics of space had drawn the customary leaders of the Borana out of the dichotomist model of interrelation between state and customary institutions. Th is is a statement I recorded in 2005 from a highly esteemed Borana elder: Concerning the involvement of the customary leadership, it was very clearly felt that they had been extremely active regarding the land dispute from 1992 onwards by leading delegations at woreda and regional state level. Th ey went to Addis Ababa and raised the issue again at every Gumii Gaayoo from 1992 onwards in the presence of top offi cials from the OPDO (Oromo People’s Democratic Organisation) at federal and regional levels. Th ey specifi cally complained about Eel Goof, Eel Laee, Udat, and a vast area beyond that includes Chilanko. Already during the 1991–92 inter-ethnic crisis, the abbaa gadaa arbooraa Boruu Guyyoo Boruu engaged in the inter-ethnic peace negotiations arbitrated by the TPLF. He was assassinated as a result of this activity, in 1992. Th is event marked a turning point in the deterioration of relations between the Borana customary leaders and the TPLF, right at the time when the politicised elites and the customary leaders of the Muslim groups of the region were aligning themselves with the TPLF on pro-government positions. Th e customary leaders’ involvement in state politics scaled up to full electoral activism on the occasion of the 2004 referendum organised by the federal government to address the border issue between the Oromiya Regional State (Region 4) and the Somali Regional State (Region 5). As Boku Tache and Gufu Oba (2009, 421) have explained, the Borana feared that the referendum ‘was held as a means of giving

20 Th e participation of both the federal and regional state presidents shows the high reputation of this customary assembly, although it is not legally recognized in Ethiopia. 21 Despite repeated eff orts, I was unable to access the documentation that was presented by the Somali side to the governmental institutions. 238 marco bassi legitimacy to the claims of the Somali in what has always been their customary territory’. Indeed the referendum was the constitutional instrument to address regional border issues, but persons who had been displaced before 2000 did not have the possibility to return to their homes. A local human rights organisation reports that this was a deliberate choice jointly made by the presidents of the Somali and Oromo regions, due to ‘absence of suffi cient documents for justifi cation and categorization of earlier evacuation’ (Dawit Guteta 2004, 3–4). Th is means that the referendum was not organised in the areas from which the Borana had been totally displaced since 1992, but only in localities still contested in 2004. Th ese localities were either kebele (the lower administrative level, here taken to include both urban and rural areas) where only a few Somali resided, or small localities purposely cut out in a way to assure that there was a Somali or Garre majority, including pockets of refugees within the Borana territory (Fekadu Adugna 2004, 61, 124–6; Boku Tache and Gufu Oba 2009, 420–3). Th e pro-Somali front was counting on the strong federal support it had enjoyed since 1992 and on the alignment on the Somali side of groups living among the Borana such as the Gabra and the Mareexaan. During the referendum, the threat of losing most of their territory pushed the Borana customary leaders into a new phase of active engage ment with the governmental offi cers of Oromiya – and hence into negotiations with the Oromo People’s Democratic Organisation (OPDO), the Oromo party affi liated to the ruling Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF). Th e same elder explained:

Th e gadaa leaders have been extremely active on occasion of the referendum, leading appeals. Th ey tried to go to Moyyaale to report about the cheating that was taking place in the registration phase. His car [the car in which abbaa gadaa arbooraa Liiban Jaldeessaa was travelling] was smashed, as was the car of an administrator of Borana Zone. Th e abbaa gadaa Liiban Jaldeesaa not only led delegations, negotiated with governmental offi cers and actively campaigned for the vote; he also fi led a formal letter of complaint about the abuse of customary grazing rights, abuses of human rights including illegal detention, disappeared persons and violence against women, and various perceived violations in the preparations for the referendum (Liiban Jaldeessaa, undated). Disengagement from state politics from 1991 to 2004 had produced the deepest crisis in modern times for the Borana, jeopardising their contemporary politics in borana zone, oromia, ethiopia 239 survival as a primary group. Th e referendum had re-opened the dialogue between the OPDO offi cers and the customary leaders of the Borana. Th ese were the pre-conditions that – together with a perceived possibility of a relatively fair electoral competition – roused the Borana from their usual ‘political apathy’ in the 2005 federal elections (Tronvoll and Aadland 1995, 42–4; Pausewang, Tronvoll and Aalen 2002, 38; Bassi 2010, 237–8). Th e OPDO tried to gain the trust of the Oromo customary leaders in an attempt to mobilise them on their side in an open electoral campaign. Lacking any institutional mechanism for co- opting elders, the OPDO offi cers negotiated with the various leaders on a personal basis. Among the possible rewards for their electoral support were the establishment of a legal mechanism similar to the one in the Somali Regional State, and the option for the customary leaders to be direct candidates in the forthcoming local elections. Th e OPDO offi cers also used the possibility to raise lower administrative divisions to the level of district and to create new districts for their electoral campaign. Th e reforms introduced since 2002 had reduced the functions of the zones and favoured the direct transfer of budget from the Regional State to the districts (Vaughan 2006; 188–9). Th e establishment of a new district was therefore a good opportunity for the urbanised elites, but also threatened other primary groups with exclusion, as had been the case with the Somali Regional State. Th e various Oromo groups became mutually suspicious about the existence of secret agreements between OPDO offi cers and the customary leaders of the other groups. One of the abbaa gadaa of the Guji and the customary leaders of the Gabra Miigo gave their open support to the OPDO. On the other hand, the Borana abbaa gadaa arboora was fairly ambivalent, in a ‘being and not being’, ‘coming and going’, ‘attending and retrieving’, attitude, similar to the way he regarded advocacy eff orts. He did not take any public position on the vote. Th e overall participation in the 2005 federal elections by Oromo pastoralists in the Borana and Guji zones emerges from an analysis of the results of the ballot, as summarised in Tables 1 and 2 below. Th e parties that managed to present candidates were the OPDO component of the EPRDF (present in all constituencies), the Oromo National Congress (ONC) component of the United Ethiopian Democratic Forces (UEDF), the Oromo Federalist Democratic Movement (OFDM), and the Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD). Of these parties, all but the CUD expressed a federal ideology. Despite fl aws and claims 240 marco bassi Other registered candidates Other registered 39.16% 3.82% CUD, Ermiyas Lende Hribo, 2.67% OFDM, Gelede, Biru Mona 22.90% 4.62 % CUD, Getachew Bekele Ayele, Dida Duba Unoko, CUD, 9.13% CUD, Dida Duba Unoko, (3.34%, 1.04%) candidates 2 indipendent Tsegaye G/Hiywet Kasa, CUD, 16.74% CUD, Kasa, G/Hiywet Tsegaye Kute Safay Kolobo, UEDF, 44.12% UEDF, Kolobo, Safay Kute 6.03% Beriso, CUD, Edema Mijene 1.32% OFDM, Amado, Halake Siyum Candidate elected Candidate Representatives Peoples’ of the House to Dembela Halakie, UEDF, 54.35% UEDF, Dembela Halakie, (OPDO), EPRDF Haleke Kebede Yenenesh Oda Muda, UEDF, 72.48% UEDF, Oda Muda, (OPDO), EPRDF Adem, Sano Abidulkadr Tuke Liban Duke, UEDF, 49.81% UEDF, Duke, Liban Tuke (OPDO), 36.68% EPRDF Torbi, Alaka Senbiro Tadese Bahiru Beyene, EPRDF Tadese 83.26% (OPDO), Tadese Galgalo Jalido, EPRDF EPRDF Galgalo Jalido, Tadese 48.54% (OPDO), Zone in Borana Election results Table 8.1 Table Constituency voters) registered of (percentage Hagaramaram Hagaramaram (48%) Melkasoda under itself by (a constituency Hagaramaram) (60%) Mooyyale (including Dirree) Dirree) (including Mooyyale (66%) Yabelo (including Teltelle) Teltelle) (including Yabelo (83%) Kercha Hagaramarm of (a division District) (72%) Source: National Election Board of Ethiopia (2005) Ethiopia of Board Election National Source: contemporary politics in borana zone, oromia, ethiopia 241 of abuse, the candidates from the federal opposition parties managed to win, or to seriously challenge the OPDO candidates, in all the constituencies in which they were present.22 At national level, the CUD seriously challenged the EPRDF, but in Borana and Guji zones their candidates remained below 17 percent in all constituencies, and below 10 percent in all the constituencies where a candidate of a federal opposition party also competed. Th ese results show that, from the available choices, people expressed a clear preference for federalism.23

Table 8.2 Election results in Guji Zone Constituency Candidate elected to Other registered (percentage of the House of Peoples’ candidates registered voters) Representatives Bore Ato Damboba Boku, Wako Jarso Godana, (78%) OFDM, 62.44% EPRDF (OPDO), 30.03% Ashebir Tuta Demekisa, GSAP, 7.53% Kibre Mengist Meseret Abebe, EPRDF Tirfe Tadesse Sifan, UEDF, (Adoola) (OPDO), 49.02% 42.70% (76%) 3 independent candidates (4%, 2.66%, 1.63%) Nagelle (Liiban) Woldemariam Getu Hailemikael Wache (85%) Wako, EPRDF Shege, CUD, 17% (OPDO) – 70.34% Ahmed Mohammed Haro, OLUF (4.84%) Mehammed Hasen Jara, OALF (4.31%) Mehamed Hasen Dokele, GSAP (2.00%) 2 independent candidates (below 1%) Uraga (also spelt Bedo Jiso Tukolu, None Oraga) EPRDF (OPDO), (71%) 100% Source: National Election Board of Ethiopia (2005)

22 Further details on the 2005 federal elections are given in Bassi (2005). 23 Th is election, like all the previous ones, was aff ected by the absence of the OLF. 242 marco bassi

Th e ballot was peacefully held on May 15, but given the recent experience with the Somali Region and the aforementioned tendency to identify the administrative space with specifi c ethnic groups and sub- groups, the mistrust about ethnic favouritism by the ruling party grew into open warfare. Aft er the referendum had temporary frozen the regional boundary,24 the Oromo-Somali confl ict turned into an intra- Oromo confl ict in concomitance with the defi nition of the internal administrative space of Oromiya. Th e confl ict initially broke out between the Guji and the Gabra Miigo, with large scale and protracted attacks by the Guji on the two small towns of Surupa and Finchawa, and some other rural localities, starting in April 2005. Rumours had been circulating about the establishment of a Gabra district extending between the Borana and the Guji. As I have noted elsewhere, these attacks did not fi t in with the normal pattern of pastoral raiding. Th e number of raiders involved, the coordination, the armament and logistics used, the attack on urbanised settlements, the deliberate attempts to kill women and children, and the burning of houses instead recalled the symbolism of ethnic cleansing (Bassi 2010, 239).25 Indeed, it was reported that 43,000 people had been displaced. In July 2005 a similar attack was launched on Turbi – a small town in Northern Kenya mainly inhabited by the Gabra Malbee – with the likely involvement of the Borana from Ethiopia. 70 people were reportedly killed, of which 22 were children.26 In Ethiopia, rumours had been spreading about an alliance between the Gabra Malbee and the Gabra Miigoo to enhance a demographic strategy similar to the one adopted by the Somali, with cross- border population movements so as to change the demographic balance.

24 With the exception of some areas where the ballot was planned but did not take place (Bassi 2010). 25 Th is method, which had been recorded in Ethiopia during several previous violent episodes, occurred during the referendum along an Oromo/Somali divide, in other border areas than the Borana Zone. 26 Watson (2010, 206) notes the new nature of this confl ict, for which ‘new explanations must be found’. I agree about the transformations in the relations to space suggested in the article, but I would also consider the transnational component of the demographic politics of space alongside the religious dimension mentioned by Watson. Th e Turbi massacre shows cross-border dynamics similar to those of the 1998 ‘Bagalla’ massacre of the Degodia. contemporary politics in borana zone, oromia, ethiopia 243

In Ethiopia the Borana customary leaders took on responsibility for mediating – in coordination with the government – between the Gabra Miigoo and the Guji.27 Th is is in line with the overall customary responsibility of the Borana on the territory at stake. Unfortunately, this attempt developed into a new war between the Borana and the Gabra Miigoo on one side and the Guji on the other, starting in May 2006, when the latter attempted to enter the Borana customary territory without the customary permission. Th e two parts engaged in heavy fi ghting for two weeks, with an estimated 100–150 casualties and 24,000 new displaced. Th e confl ict continued at lower intensity for several months. In 2007 Jaldessa Borbor, the abbaa gadaa kontomaa of the Borana (Konitu clan), was assassinated by a Guji. Violent inter-ethnic clashes connected to the administrative set-up have continued since, involving the Borana in heavy clashes with the Garre in Udat and surroundings in 2008 and again in 2009, as well as with the Konso on the western side of their customary territory in 2008.28

Co-option of elders and customary leaders

Th e engagement with the customary institutions in southern Ethiopia resulted merely in a process of co-option. Th is is true both of the formal structure of the Somali Regional State and of personal relations with customary leaders of the southern Oromo. Lister (2004, 13–14, 26–30) criticises the practice of paying the amakari (the elders nominated in the guurti councils in the Somali Regional State) a salary, noting that in practice they have been extensively utilised to mobilise political and electoral support for the ruling party. She has doubts about their capacity to put forward an independent articulation of interests within their own community, and about the actual incorporation of the elders’ views into offi cial decision-making. Accordingly, she expresses some scepticism about the possibility of building eff ective alternative channels of representation in an unconducive political environment. Hagmann arrives at similar conclusions. He noted that the elections and the need to check the activities of the Ogaden National

27 Interview with Hiddo Galgallo, abbaa gadaa kontooma of the Borana, Hawattu clan, August 2005. 28 Th e confl ict with the Garre has temporarily displaced a large number of people, estimated as high as 100’000. 244 marco bassi

Liberation Front (ONLF), the Somali based insurgent organisation, led to state recognition. Despite the presence in the regional constitution of objective criteria for the nomination of the amakari, their selection was more a matter of opportunistic selection by the government than the outcome of an internal process. Th e result was the establishment of ‘government-controlled system of elders’, used to mobilise political and electoral support, to disseminate the policies of the government, and to assist in matters of security (Hagmann 2007, 37–40; 2005, 529; Hagmann and Mohamud H. Khalif 2006, 31). Among the southern Oromo, the possibilities for choosing which elders to co-opt are far more limited, since the customary leaders are selected in their youth according to internal dynamics. Here the options are restricted to co-opting elders that do not hold formal titles in the customary system – as used to happen with the imperial balabat system –, to negotiating at personal level, or to trying to infl uence the process of internal selection among those groups that do not strictly apply the customary rules. Th e symbolic value and impact of elders other than the customary leaders would of course be quite irrelevant; hence the OPDO based its informal system of co-option on the two remaining options. When involved in state politics, customary leaders act in a fi eld for which they have received no explicit or implicit mandate, and they are not answerable to the customary rules and procedures. Th ey are therefore neither legitimate nor accountable to their community anymore: they act as individuals.29 Th e absence of formal mechanisms of accountability and representation while acting in the modern arena was indeed identifi ed by Boku Tache and Ben Irwin (2003, 42) during an applied experience with SOS Sahel. In the absence of a clear institutional mechanism to regulate the interaction between the customary institutions on the one side and the government and development organisations on the other, any action taken by the customary leaders can be interpreted by the community as being motivated by self-interest. Similar mechanisms of mistrust engage the inter-ethnic arena. I have elsewhere discussed the role of the customary institutions in assuring a regulated access to the natural resources available to the primary group (Bassi 2010, 224). Th is implies that the customary leaders embody the collective responsibility of gaining or maintaining a viable pool of

29 A similar problem of legitimacy has been raised in relation to the guurti elders by Hagmann and Mulugeta (2008, 28). contemporary politics in borana zone, oromia, ethiopia 245 resources. Th is corporate interest used to be mitigated by forms of cross-ethnic solidarity and by obligations for shared use of pastoral resources, an obvious response to mobility and the need to respond fl exibly to environmental hazards (Bassi 2011). Th ese mechanisms were indeed still capable of rebuilding collaborative cross-ethnic relations despite the harsh confl icts that involved the Borana in the early 1990s. As mentioned above, the Gabra Miigoo re-established themselves among the Borana through their revived yaa’a and managed to live in peace among the Borana despite the Borana simultaneous being on bad terms with the Gabra Malbee. Conversely, the abuse of customary rules by some Guji families was indicated as the primary cause of the Borana-Guji confl ict. Disregard for customary resource tenure has been a major complaint in most oral and written appeals made by Borana elders and customary leaders (Elders 1996; 2004; RCCHE 2003). On the Somali side, the pastoral component has to some extent recognised that the returnees and refugees and other political elites have exacerbated the confl ict with their objectives in the state political arena. Th is awareness led to the peace agreement between the Borana and the Mareexaan and to the latter’s re-engagement with pastoralism, despite their recent harsh confl ict with the Borana (Fekadu Adugna 2004, v, 104, 127, 137).

Conclusion

When engaging in state politics, customary leaders may still play their customary role of assuring the well-being of their own community, while actually engaging in the most destructive cross-ethnic practices. Th e ‘bridge’, in fact, builds synergies across the opportunistic motives of the various actors. Co-option takes the shape of an exchange of favours between the ruling party and the co-opted ethnic groups. On the one hand, the ruling party makes the most of the ethnic solidarity implicit in a shared identity – and symbolised by the customary leaders – to bring the entire group into its own camp in electoral politics and for its strategic aims in relation to insurgency. On the other hand, the ethnic group has obtained concessions on its territorial claim, at the expense of their neighbours. It was these overlapping federal, national and local motives in a context of abuses of fundamental human and political rights that led to the enhancement of the demographic politics of space, and ultimately to the ethnic cleansing of the Borana 246 marco bassi from the area administratively entrusted to the Somali Regional State.30 It was the defensive reaction to these politics, and the replication of some of these elements in the process of defi ning the administrative space within Oromiya, that led to the most destructive episodes of ethnic violence in the region, including cross-border violence. Th e mech anisms of formal and informal co-option also ‘bridge’ the interests of various peripheral social components, thereby forming ethnic blocs such as the pastoralists and the urbanised elites of a same ethnic group. As Hagmann and Mohamud H. Khalif (2006, 34) noted, the party and the state offi cials ‘have nurtured these ethno-political confl icts by providing money, weapons, and political support to their respective Somali and Oromo kin groups’. Th e customary mechanisms of accountability and responsibility no longer work in the altered context of the modern arena, while the ‘direct’ democracy theoretical framework, and the discourse on pastoralists’ participation in development, work as a curtain in the international context, giving the impression that an alternative democracy is in place. Under unregulated dynamics of co-option, both the ruling party and the co-opted group are able to pursue their opportunistic interests by bypassing both democratic and customary rules. Th e challenge, then, is to achieve the integration of the state and the customary dimensions of governance while also safeguarding the account ability and balancing mechanisms of both domains. In international discourse, this means guaranteeing fi rst-, second- and third- generation human rights. While the abuse of political rights has been under some scrutiny in Ethiopia, little has been said about the collective rights of the indigenous and tribal peoples. Th e Interna- tional Labour Organization (ILO) Convention No. 169 and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples set the guidelines for the recognition of customary law and procedures, indigenous tenure systems, and self-determination in development.31 Th e provisions contained in international law and the experience of indigenous peoples in Europe, America and Australia aims to defi ne specifi c sectors for which the indigenous institutions are competent within

30 Th is case fi ts with the defi nition of ‘policy of ethnic cleansing’ theorised by Petrovic (1994, 9, 11, 19) with reference Bosnia and Herzegovina. 31 ‘Convention Concerning Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in Independent Countries’, ILO C169, 27 June 1989 and ‘United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples’, A/RES/61/295, 2 October 2007. contemporary politics in borana zone, oromia, ethiopia 247 the overall state jurisdiction, and to establish an agreed procedural interface, thereby ensuring a high degree of autonomy to the indigenous institutional settings. Th ese principles are in line with the practices already in place in Borana before 1991, albeit this reciprocally acknowledged arrangement was taking place at the informal level. More eff orts are required to set up an institutional interface that can take into account the specifi cities of the Ethiopian mobile pastoralists. Th is seems to be the most viable way of avoiding the violence produced by the perverse modalities of the current interaction between customary and state politics.

Bibliography

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THE 2005 ELECTIONS IN MAALE: A REASSERTION OF TRADITIONAL AUTHORITY OR THE EXTENSION OF A NASCENT PUBLIC SPHERE?

Donald L. Donham

Introduction

Th is chapter is based on a short two-week visit to Ethiopia in October 2005 – aft er the fi nal results of the elections had been announced in September but before the government cracked down on opposition parties in early November.1 Most of my time was spent in Jinka, the capital of South Omo Zone, and in three rural kebeles of Maale where I had previously carried out intensive anthropological fi eldwork in the mid-1970s and then again in the mid-1980s. Unlike most of the other scholars in this volume, I had no continuing project in Ethiopia in 2005.2 Th e limitations of what follows will be obvious. Th e analysis off ered here functions more as a hypothesis to be explored rather than a fully realised empirical demonstration. What I do have is knowledge of local history, which allows me, I hope, to see new structural developments as they contrast with the past.3 Th e principal question that I would like to address is why opposition parties were as successful as they were in Maale in 2005. Th ey did not win, at least offi cially, but they made surprising and signifi cant inroads. Th e ruling party-state of the Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Demo- cratic Front (EPRDF) had every advantage in rural areas like Maale. It controlled the coercive apparatus. It could both off er and withhold economic benefi ts. Every previous election in Maale aft er the EPRDF came

1 I thank the Norwegian Centre for Human Rights and Kjetil Tronvoll for sponsor- ship and Lovise Aalen for her expert assistance in Addis Ababa. 2 Since the early 1990s, I have been working in South Africa (see Donham 2011). 3 It goes without saying that I cannot assess the ‘fairness’ of the 2005 elections in Maale. I did not observe the voting in May, and given the context of my visit fi ve months later, I did not have the time or resources to collect information from as many diff erent points of view as I would have liked. 252 donald l. donham to power had been a predictable, even ritualised aff air. Th e 2005 election was diff erent. Campaigning took place locally for the fi rst time. And peasants were genuinely mobilised to participate. Why? Part of the answer is that the EPRDF, pushed by foreign donors, seems to have miscalculated. Th e party assumed that a relatively free election would show solid support, particularly from the rural areas. But the other side of the coin refl ects what I take to be a qualitatively new relationship between rural cultivators in Maale and the populations of surrounding towns and cities, up to and including Addis Ababa. By 2005, there seems to have existed something like a nascent ‘public sphere’ that extended into the heartland of Maaleland – a communicative network for the exchange of opinion, however fragile, and of debate, however limited. Th e notion of a public sphere was coined by the German philosopher Jürgen Habermas (1989) to call attention to the invention of the very notion of the ‘public’ in European history, fi rst in bourgeois salons and in newspaper-reading coff ee shops, later through radio and television, and now in email and cell phone communication. European forms of the state both cultivated these mediated forms of ‘public opinion’ and in turn, at times, had to respond to them. In positing a public sphere in Ethiopia, I would like to dissociate my use of the term at the outset from any particular substantive content, any special normative point of view, and especially, any assumption of rationality or progress. Nor does my notion of a public sphere depend upon peasants with Twitter or Facebook accounts. Th e channels of communication were evidently much more indirect. I cannot document these links, but positing them seems to me the only way to account for the swift ness with which oppositional commitments found a ground among Maale peasants in 2005. In a study of peasant voting in Amhara kebeles near Debra Sina in 2005, René Lefort (2007, 264–65) emphasised similar themes: (…) an unprecedented political confrontation took place through the media. Th e impact was decisive. For the fi rst time, the media broadcast about a dozen long debates between top personalities of the regime and the opposition. Th ese had a tiny impact in rural communities. Th e few farmers who owned a radio with charged batteries confessed that they didn’t follow the debates, because ‘they were too complicated for us.’ Th ey said they had ‘forgotten it all’ except for one revelation: ‘Th is government is so weak that it must sit with its enemies.’ Th is defi ed the implacable hierarchy that had always cut across the whole socio-political structure the 2005 elections in maale 253

of Ethiopia. Th e opponents not only dared criticise the most eminent representatives of the ruling power, but even mocked and ridiculed them. In committing what appeared a sacrilege that went unpunished, they demystifi ed the ruling power at the highest level (…).4 In Lefort’s example, the approximately ten percent of peasants known locally as the birokrasi, former offi cials during the regime of the Derg, generally wealthier and more educated than others, but now excluded from local governmental positions because of their past, was a key actor in spreading oppositional points of view to other peasants. In Maale, as we shall see, no similar group appeared to crystallise out quite so clearly, but the role of education was crucial. Th e educated not only had access to wider conversations through the ability to communicate in Amharic, but also their economic and social trajectories oft en took them to surrounding towns and cities – where, as Daniel Mains shows in his analysis of Jimma in this volume, they typically faced the frustrations of unemployment.5 By 2005, there evidently was a network of social, cultural, and communicative ties between peasants in the rural areas of Maale and their kin and acquaintances in surrounding towns and cities that had not existed in, say, 1975. Th e second question I would like to pose is why both of the principal two oppositional coalitions seem to have concentrated on fi elding local candidates in Maale with strong ties to traditional authorities. Th e United Ethiopian Democratic Forces’ (EUDF) two candidates included a brother of the Maale king and a brother of one of the richest Maale chiefs. One of the Coalition for Unity and Democracy’s (CUD) two candidates was from the family of the Baaka king. As I shall show, these families had been systemically suppressed during the period of the Derg. Aft er 1991, the EPRDF government, consistent with its policy of ethnically ‘decentralising’ government, opened a space in which traditional authorities were once again aff orded a certain respect. Aft er many years, for example, a king had been ritually reinstalled in Maale, with all of the attendant celebration.

4 See also Aalen and Tronvoll (2009, 200) who observed: ‘Th e power of the media – particularly in the 2005 pre-election phase – appeared to have come as a surprise to EPRDF. Th e TV/ radio broadcasts of political debates prior to the elections were probably the factor [authors’ emphasis] which made the population aware of possible alternatives to EPRDF in government.’ 5 Arriola (2007) usefully reminds us of the eff ects of economic conditions on Ethiopian voters in 2005. 254 donald l. donham

As many have argued, the defi nition of administrative boundaries on the basis of supposed shared ethnicity aft er 1991, appears to have been designed to preserve the power of the minority Tigray in the EPRDF government. At the local level, ‘ethnic voting’ would be mini- mised. By defi nition, most of the candidates would come from the same ethnic group. Th is served to preserve Tigrayan domination because, as Clapham (2005) has argued, there was little genuine decentralisation. Th e EPRDF centre recruited ethnic collaborators in the peripheries but when these local ethnic representatives showed any substantive independence, they were quickly replaced. Th is meant that the state was built on an exceptionally thin base at the local level, in the south at least. Even local representatives of the party-state in Maale hardly believed in the cultural project of the state even if they profi ted from it. Th e nature of the EPRDF state was contradictory then. On the one hand, it appeared ‘strong.’ Th at is, unlike some other African states, it appeared to exercise eff ective coercive control in most realms. On the other hand, it was intrinsically unstable and constituted a potential house of cards since it exercised no cultural hegemony in the countryside where it assumed its base lay. At the end of 2004 when it became clear that the state would allow an unprecedented openness in the upcoming elections, two political groupings emerged. Th e CUD contested the regime’s policy of ethnici- sation, calling for a revival of all-Ethiopian nationalism. In contrast, the EUDF supported the regime’s policy of ethnic decentralisation in the south but called for it to be put into actual practice. Neither of these political movements had any organisation whatsoever in the Maale countryside. Both, on the spur of the moment, fi elded local candidates, and both chose men from the families of traditional Maale and Baaka chiefs and kings. Why? Did this choice refl ect somehow the kind of resurgence of traditional authority that some analysts have recently detected across the African continent (Oomen 2005) and associated with a supposed retreat of the state, mandated by ‘neoliberal’ policy? Or, was something else going on? My suggestion is that the apparent tilt toward tradition was motivated primarily by the issue of name recognition in the new public sphere. Like movie stars in the United States, members of the chiefl y families began the competition with a head start. As I shall show, the particular history of traditional authorities in Maale meant that both the EUDF and CUD could see in the Maale traditional elite its own principles (even if that elite was actually motivated by other concerns). the 2005 elections in maale 255

Traditional authorities in Maale

In the 19th century, the south of what is now Ethiopia consisted of a mosaic of independent tribes, chiefdoms, and empires. Maale was one such group, less powerful than the Kefa or Welaita empires for example, but more centralised than the Gamo or the Konso (Donham 1994; 1999). At the centre of the country, both spatially and symbolically, was the Maale kati. A fi gure not unlike Sir James Frazer’s divine king, the kati maintained the fertility and prosperity of the country in all its aspects – the ripening of crops, the fecundity of women, the reproduc- tion of cattle and goats – through sacrifi ces and invocations to his ancestors, the past kings. One step below the king was thirteen chiefs or goda, who presided over each of the thirteen districts of Maaleland. Finally, a variable number of sub-chiefs or gatta served each chief. Tribute went up the social system from ordinary households to gatta to goda to kati, and blessing and fertility fl owed downwards. When new crops ripened, no one in Maaleland could partake of them until the king had fi rst presented fi rst fruits to his ancestors and then eaten of them himself. Each of the thirteen chiefs then did the same, followed by the sub-chiefs. Only aft erwards could local lineages commence their fi rst-fruits rites – in the order specifi ed by lineage seniority. In this social system, hierarchy was an obsession, and ritual and politics were virtually the same thing. Th e 19th century defi nition of authority was both maintained and eventually transformed as the south was conquered and incorporated into the expanding Ethiopian empire. When Ras Wolde Giorgis’s army reached the area in the mid-1890s, the Maale had recently been defeated and part of their territory occupied by the neighbouring Baaka. In that context, the Maale did not oppose the northern army; instead, they allied themselves with the invaders – against the Baaka, who chose to resist. In the ensuing battle of spears against guns, the Baaka were cru- elly defeated. A military garrison of northern soldiers, along with a resident governor, was established in Baaka territory, just to the west of Maaleland, and from that point onwards – through a system of what might be called indirect rule – the kings, chiefs, and sub-chiefs of Maale became the lowest-level functionaries of the Ethiopian empire. Incorporation into Ethiopia eventually aff ected the cultural defi nition of local authority. Maale chiefs and the king would become in essence Amhara landlords. Unlike the Maale who thought in terms of essential forms of ritual hierarchy, Orthodox Christian northerners 256 donald l. donham defi ned themselves as more or less similar before God. What allocated persons to diff erent roles were individual ties of clientage to powerful persons who inevitably owned land. With a little luck, any particular defi nition of hierarchy might be reversed. But to Orthodox Christians, someone had to play the role of lord, otherwise the inherently sinful nature of mankind meant that only chaos and the Devil would reign. Where the Maale notion of hierarchy drove its adherents to ritual invo- lution, the northern one encouraged an explicit, rough-and-ready real- politik. Lords were said to ‘eat’ their country (Hoben 1970). On the eve of the revolution in 1974, then, traditional authority in Maaleland had a dual aspect. When the Maale kati of the early 1970s went to the administrative centre of Jinka, for example, he took off his sacred necklace. Traditionalists in Maale were scandalized by such behaviour, but in the largely Orthodox Christian town, the necklace identifi ed the king only as pagan, not as a leader. In contexts such as this one, the king and the most important chiefs took on more and more of Amhara culture. Th ey sent their children to be educated in government schools in Amharic (and English), and they began to see themselves as Ethiopians, not just Maale. To jump ahead to the elections in 2005, it is perhaps not surprising that the CUD and the UEDF could both see their political projects in traditional Maale authorities. Th e CUD saw Amharizing families in the south focused on the nation as a whole. Th e UEDF saw the embodiment of local tradition extending back to the 19th century. In an important sense, both were correct.

Th e Ethiopian revolution of 1974

Th e revolution of 1974 upended the Maale system of traditional authority, but as I have argued in past work, this process took place unevenly across space (Donham 1993). Th ose areas of Maale closest to administrative centres like Jinka experienced the most social upheaval at the beginning of the revolution and were most thoroughly penetrated by the socialist state later. Peripheral areas of Maaleland, in contrast, were able to maintain old imperial-era social arrangements and even the de facto power of chiefs, even if these had to be disguised in the 1980s. For most of the twentieth century, Maale chiefs and the king had provided the hinge between the Ethiopian state and local Maale society. By 1975, not only were such men deposed from offi ce, but the way that the state articulated with local society was fundamentally changed. In place of a the 2005 elections in maale 257 traditional elite, newly organised peasant associations, or mahabers, now constituted the lowest level of the state, each with nominally elected chairmen, committees charged with diff erentiated tasks, women’s and youth groups, and so forth. Aft er the fall of the socialist state in 1991 and the ensuing formation of the EPRDF government, peasant associations, now called kebeles, continued to provide the fundamental link between the state and local rural society. Rural land has not become a commodity, and its administration is presided over, just as in the socialist period, by rural association offi cials. With the freeing of other controls, however, the economic gulf between rural areas and Ethiopian cities expanded, sometimes dramatically so (even while the intensity of communicative interaction increased). Th ese intensifi ed contrasts presently extend from the mega city of Addis Ababa – with its demolition of slums to make way for large new developments like the Sheraton Hotel – to much smaller towns like Jinka – where the most privileged residents now own television sets and have access to email. Th e continuities between the EPRDF and the Derg are clear, then, at the local level. In many ways, the party at the core of the EPRDF, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), resembled the one it replaced: Leninist-inspired and formed in war, its supposed commitment to democracy never included much dedication to an independent public sphere. However, given realignments aft er the end of the Cold War and especially aft er the US war on terrorism made Ethiopia a seemingly necessary ally, the level of foreign aid to the country increased. In this context, the ERPDF could not aff ord to be seen as exercising coercion like the previous regime. It had to try to tolerate its opponents in some controlled way rather than simply eliminating them. Beginning in 1992, elections were part of a ritually elaborated façade that the new government presented both to the outside world and to its own citizens. In its early days, the ruling party basically used the state apparatus, down to the level of rural kebeles, to foreclose any possibility that an opponent could get close to winning an election. As we have seen, this changed in 2005. As a result, as virtually all commentators have noted and as described in the introduction to this volume, the Ethiopian public was mobilised by the politics of the 2005 elections. Th e outcome was dramatic. Towns and cities, the social sites that tend to dominate the public sphere, went decisively for the opposition. Th ese included the national capital, Addis Ababa, the capital of the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples’ Region, Awasa, and other southern 258 donald l. donham cities such as Soddo and Arba Minch. Th e EPRDF was able to claim victory in the elections only because of the strength of the offi cial count in the rural countryside. Given the peculiar salience of towns and cities in the formation of public opinion and given the overwhelming urban bias in past Ethiopian politics (the revolution of 1974 was, for example, an almost entirely urban aff air in the beginning, one that eventually extended itself into the countryside), this pattern would seem to presage a period of political instability in Ethiopia. But such a conclusion would be unwarranted without a consideration of the countryside. In particular, it is crucial to attempt to understand how the EPRDF has grounded its power in rural institutions, on the one hand, and how, on the other, the nascent public sphere centred on cities has penetrated rural areas.

Maale Voting Patterns in 2005

According to the National Election Board website, 16,550 voters were registered in Maale out of a total population estimated to be 44,227 in the 1994 census (CSA 1994). Of those registered, 10,336 were counted as voting. Th e winner for the national parliament, the EPRDF candidate, received 3,490 votes, or according to the National Election Board’s website, 77 percent, while the CUD candidate received 1,029 or 23 percent. Th e UEDF candidate was registered as receiving no votes. A quick tally shows that these numbers do not add up. What the National Election Board’s website does not explain is that the candidate of by far the most popular opposition party in Maale, the UEDF, pulled out of the elections just before the voting (amid inevitable rumours that he, the king’s brother, had been bribed to do so by the ruling party). Th e UEDF candidate’s name remained on the ballot and, as we shall see, many Maale voted for him. Th e National Election Board’s count did not include these votes. Besides not refl ecting such last-minute changes, the Board’s aggregated results also off er few insights into local political processes. What can a fi eld-based study of voting patterns reveal in addition? According to the National Election Board, there were thirteen polling stations in Maale in the 2005 elections, one each for the 13 rural kebeles of Maale. Th e catchments of these kebele stations corresponded almost exactly to the chiefdoms of the Maale kingdom as it existed in the nineteenth century. In all of the administrative changes of the twentieth the 2005 elections in maale 259 century and aft erward, these local-level units, based upon previous chiefl y boundaries, have proven remarkably stable (even when two have been combined, as they sometimes have, into a single unit). In October 2005, I visited three kebeles. In order of closeness to Jinka, they were Bunata, Koibe, and Bala. Th ese were the most accessible of the thirteen polling stations in Maale, each connected with the Jinka- Arba Minch motor road by a dry-season track maintained by local kebele labour. All the other kebeles in Maale involved a walk from this or other tracks. I interviewed kebele offi cials and others who had been involved in the election in these three kebeles. As counted and recorded at the kebele level, the results of the election were as follows:

Table 9.1 Election results in Bunata, Koibe and Bala kebeles Bunata Koibe Bala EPRDF 120 379 445 UEDF 311 320 437 CUD 95 73 125 Source: National Election Board of Ethiopia (2005) Th ese results obtained from informants in Maale paint a diff erent picture than the composite off ered by the website of the National Election Board.6 Th ere, the EPRDF won a resounding victory. Here, the opposition is strong, and the closer one gets to the city of Jinka, the greater that strength becomes. Th e UEDF (even if its top candidate had recently withdrawn from the election) won overwhelmingly in Bunata, closest to the administrative centre of Jinka, and had opposition parties not split the vote, the EPRDF candidate would not have succeeded in any of these ‘core’ areas of rural Maale. Apparently, the public sphere centred on Ethiopian cities, with its commitment to critical evaluation of the EPRDF government, had extended far into the rural areas of Maale – if

6 I thank Lovise Aalen for obtaining the offi cial version of the Maale vote, disaggre- gated to the level of the kebele, which was not available on the website. Th e nationally recorded results were the same as reported above for Koibe and Bala, but diff ered for Bunata in that the EPRDF candidate is recorded as receiving 59 more votes than recorded by my informants: Bunata Koibe Bala EPRDF 158 379 445 UEDF 311 320 437 CUD 36 73 125 260 donald l. donham not into the very peripheries, where EPRDF strength, as refl ected in the offi cial results, overwhelmed the results presented above. In each of the three ‘core’ kebeles I visited, I was impressed by how seriously both offi cials and others had taken the procedural details of the election. Guidelines had been read and digested. Local boards of observers set up. And there was an evident understanding and commitment to the process. It was not unusual, for example, for private citizens engaged in the elections to record details of the vote in their diaries. In Bunata, the kebele chairman’s own wife was placed in detention on election day by the local election board aft er she attempted to hand out pictures of the EPRDF candidate too close to the polling station. Th e tenor of these details is in dramatic contrast to the conduct of the Maale elections in 1992 when I served as an election observer in these same kebeles. In 1992, the elections in Maale were little more than a façade. In contrast, by 2005, many Maale peasants, in these core areas at least, had responded to the rhetoric of democracy. Th ey had begun to see themselves as rights-bearing agents who could reject the party that had created the state.

Th e extension of a public sphere into rural Maale

How did some Maale peasants begin to see themselves as more or less individually empowered to vote on their political future? Clearly, nothing either in the traditional Maale past or in the imperial Ethiopian system or in the local experience of socialism quite prepared peasants for this transformation. Th e answer I would sketch involves three broad transformations in Maale over the past thirty years: the profound experience of the 1974 revolution itself, the continuing spread of evangelical Christianity (that had began in the early 1960s but that consolidated itself during the socialist period, blossoming during the EPRDF period), and fi nally, the extension of public education to the peasantry with its spread of literacy in Amharic and the notion of the nation. Let me take up each in turn. As Clapham (1988) argued, the revolution of 1974 eventually consolidated itself as a hierarchical regime that appropriated and reworked many of the cultural codes of Imperial Ethiopia. By the 1980s, Lt Colo- nel Mengistu Haile Mariam had become only another Emperor, perhaps an especially murderous one. But this result came only aft er a period in the mid- to late 1970s when all forms of political hierarchy, the 2005 elections in maale 261 both local and national, were questioned and attacked. Maale chiefs were removed from political offi ce and their property confi scated. And the mummifi ed body of the king was removed from the sacred grove of Dufa and desecrated. Th is turning-upside-down reached its apogee with the zemecha, the student red guard from the cities who brought the revolution to the countryside in 1975. In this upheaval what was most forcefully being asserted was the de-naturalization of all past forms of hierarchical subjecthood. New citizens were being created. Now, peasants, all of whom counted as juridical equals, were asked to elect their own representatives and to take care of their own aff airs in the associations (mahabers, later kebeles) that replaced the chiefs and king as the lowest level representative of the state. To drive home the point of equalisation, the zemecha required that peasants in Bala elect one woman and one low-caste craft sman to the leadership committee of the fi rst peasant association. As I have said, this period of free-for-all came to a close, as the revolutionary regime cracked down on the zemecha and began to eliminate anyone who questioned its rule. But political life in Maale and elsewhere was never the same again. Th e memory of such radical rejection and the resultant expansion of the political imagination remained. And even if the substance of social technologies such as local elections never came close to matching their expressed aims, peasants began to be familiar with such ideals and with the arrangements designed to produce them. Let me turn to the process of evangelisation by Protestant Christians. From the beginning, there had been a close relationship between the revolution and evangelical Christianity, for the principal local supporters of the upheaval, its most iconoclastic leaders, were, to a person, evangelical Christians. Before 1974, small knots of evangelical Chris- tians had already rejected the Maale ritual hierarchy that culminated in the kingship, and put the emphasis of their new faith on each believer’s being able to read and interpret the Bible for him- or herself. Literate Christians had already adopted a kind of egalitarianism. It could be said that the structure of their beliefs pre-adapted evangelical Christians to the revolutionary order, to new notions of citizenship, to social organisations such as peasant associations, and to multi-party elections.7

7 As far as I could determine, evangelical Christianity did not map onto or signifi - cantly intertwine with party political concerns in 2005. It is true, for example, that 262 donald l. donham

Both the revolutionary attack on hierarchy and the expansion of evangelical Christianity intertwined with the third and most crucial process in the creation of a public sphere in Maale: namely, the expansion of public education. On the eve of the revolution, there were only a handful of educated Maale with, for example, as much as a seventh- or eighth-grade education. A few were evangelical Christians, while most others were the sons of the Maale political elite, the chiefs and the king who had become local representatives of the empire. Th e Christians studied in order to be able to read the Bible in Amharic, the sons of the traditional elite in order to master the culture and language of the imperial state. All of these young men had pursued their educa- tions outside Maale itself, in the local towns of Bako and then Jinka. In 1974, there was only one government school of only three or four grades in all of Maaleland, one located in the market town of Bushkoro, on the western side of the country, nearest to Baaka territory and Jinka. It was the revolution that extended education into the countryside. Each peasant association began to organise its own primary school, with its government-appointed teachers and so forth. Literacy in Amharic, the national language, dramatically expanded. Th ese processes continued aft er the socialist regime fell in 1991, as the new EPRDF government kept the organisational form of the peasant association as the local arm of the state. By 2005, the kebeles of Bunata, Koibe and Bala had had a history of approximately 30 years of local peasant schooling. All of these transformations – the 1974 revolution, the spread of evangelical Christianity, and the growth of public schooling – took place in patterned ways across space. All three emanated and were directed from the provincial capital of Jinka. By the time of the 2005 elections, the ‘public sphere’ that had been created, populated with citizens with some ability to access media, with views of their rights vis- à-vis the state, was confi ned largely to those areas closest to roads and tracks and closest to Jinka – what I have been calling the core. In those areas, there was no dearth of literate, educated peasants, able to read for themselves, able to interpret election law without meditation, and able to sense the change in expectations when the government allowed opposition parties to begin to campaign on government media.

Bunata, a stronghold for the opposition, was heavily evangelical. But opposition in Bunata was not based upon religion. It had, as I shall explain, much more to do with developmental issues. In fact, the local EPRDF attempted to appeal to evangelical Christians by saying that only the EPRDF would guarantee religious freedoms, but this argument did not seem to make much headway. the 2005 elections in maale 263

Such peasants did not have access to the television debates, but they heard about them. And they listened to their radios and read the dribble of opposition publications that found their way into the countryside. Th e situation in the Maale periphery – from Goddo to Jato to Gollo to Irbo and Gero – was diff erent. Some of those areas were just beginning to see public education. Many fewer peasants spoke and read Amharic. Th ere was no ‘public,’ then, who stood watch over the process of the elections. According to one informant, it was one kebele offi cial who alone voted for the entire population of Gollo on May 15, 2005. Th at irregularity, like the two others in Gudo-Ashkere and Bio-Lemo that led to a successful protest and eventually a revote, occurred outside the core. Also, in the periphery, there was little campaigning by the opposition. As we shall see in the next section, opposition parties, like virtually all other social actors, were based in Jinka, and they penetrated local Maale politics along the spatial gradients that have been described. Th ey found it easiest, obviously, to travel to core areas and hardest to reach the peripheries. Without a real presence of an opposition, the very meaning of the election was apparently diff erent compared to core areas. As in previous elections, the process of voting in the periphery may have been experienced not so much as a choice but as an expected ritual reaffi rmation of extant power. It was in the social setting of the Maale periphery that the EPRDF won locally.

Th e local character of politics

By 2005, the EPRDF had had almost a decade and a half to penetrate local politics and to recruit Maale into the party. My impression, based upon limited information, is that they, like the previous socialist government, have been successful in recruiting some of the most capable Maale leaders. Aft er all, the party-state has much to off er; it was and is the only source of well-paid employment in the area. Th is meant, however, that Maale members of the EPRDF (like members of the Workers’ Party of Ethiopia before) could join for reasons other than political commitment. Th e son of one Maale EPRDF middle-level functionary told me that his father liked the money, not necessarily the party. Th e most senior Maale member of the party was a man from an evangelical Christian background who had begun his education before the 264 donald l. donham

1974 revolution. During the socialist period, he graduated from high school and aft erwards completed teacher’s training college. For the remainder of the socialist period, he was a schoolteacher in an area adjacent to Maale. But aft er the EPRDF government was installed, he found opportunity in Jinka in the government and in the party (these two being synonymous, as they were in the previous socialist period). Given the EPRDF’s rhetoric of ethnic decentralisation, it had to recruit representatives from local ethnic groups. Th oughtful, sea- soned in the ways of the world, Turunih as I shall call him, was an impressive man. Opposition parties, on the other hand, were confi ned to Jinka before late 2004, at least as far as the Maale countryside was concerned. As it suddenly dawned upon opposition fi gures in the cities that the government would tolerate a relatively open campaign, they scrambled to fi nd rural candidates who were willing to stand against the EPRDF. Given the shortness of time and the lack of prior organisation, both opposition parties in Maale, as I have shown, settled upon similar strategies. Th ey sought out members of the chiefl y and kingly families. In other words, the electoral process itself, as it quickly unfolded, began to create in the countryside a (partly organised) opposition where none had existed before. What was the nature of this opposition? As far as I could tell, there was little congruence between the opposition parties’ campaign positions and the views of their local candidates. Opposition candidates – all educated to some degree, but somewhat less so than EPRDF candidates – did not call for a ‘return to the past’. Th ey did not celebrate Maale identity. Rather, as it will be clear below, they emphasised local developmental issues like road building and taxation. In response to such opposition, the EPRDF in Maale attempted to make a political issue out of the family ties represented by opposition candidates, UEDF candidates in particular. Th e EPRDF supporters charged that the UEDF was attempting to restore the exploitations of the imperial past. Th e symbols associated with the political parties – the bee for the EPRDF, the two-fi ngered V for the CUD, and the horse, chair, and harvesting knife for the UEDF – became the foci for political charges and counter-charges. Th e bee could make honey, but it could also sting. Th e horse, chair, and harvesting knife provided EPRDF supporters with a means of tying the UEDF candidates to the imperial past in which peasants had to work for lords, including the Maale chiefs and king. ‘If you vote for the UEDF,’ EPRDF members charged: the 2005 elections in maale 265

You will be picking up the shit of the master’s horse. Your wife will be grinding, while the master’s wife sits on the chair, and you’ll be cutting grass with the knife for the horse. Th is humorous assertion – repeated to me in October 2005 by a number of Maale – was meant to call forth memories of the imperial period, when in fact Maale peasants had to provide such services for lords. Th e UEDF, of course, rejected this characterisation. What, then, did they stand for? I was able to interview one of the two UEDF candidates. He was brought into the campaign almost haphazardly: ‘I didn’t know anything. Th ey called me to Jinka. I was being called from Jinka. Th ey wanted me to come.’ When he arrived at the Jinka offi ce of the UEDF, he was met by a local high-school teacher who convinced him to stand as an opposition candidate. But he had not known the teacher before, and he did not know who had given his name to the teacher. ‘Th ey took my photograph, and I gave them my signature.’ Why did Arbu, as I shall call him, agree to stand as an opposition candidate? Given the history of the revolution in Maale, standing for election may have seemed a way of vindicating his family. His father had been jailed in the revolution of 1974. But there were more immediate reasons. Arbu emphasised two of the current policies of the EPRDF government. Th e fi rst involved the demand by local kebeles that peasants maintain the dirt track that connected Jinka to Bala. Th is involved heavy labour by hand – digging and smoothing roadbeds aft er rains that inevitably destroyed them. Arbu said that such work should be done by bulldozers provided by the government. And the second issue – widely mentioned in Maale – involved taxation. Several years before, the kebele had elected a committee of local peasants to classify their neighbours’ relative wealth and therefore tax obligation. In the past year or so, the EPRDF government had attempted to send its own agricultural extension agents into Maale to measure peasants’ fi elds and, on the basis of those measurements, to calculate taxes. Th is was extremely unpopular and had already precipitated threats. Arbu cited the EPRDF’s tax policy as one of the principal reasons he ran in the elections of 2005. As the saying goes, all politics is local. Arbu’s reasons for running as an opposition candidate in 2005 was only loosely related to stated UEDF policy. To provide bulldozers and roads – not to mention any number of other services like schools and health services – the state needed tax revenues. But those revenues had to come, to some signifi - cant degree, from peasants like Arbu. Foreign aid to the EPRDF state 266 donald l. donham could mitigate that requirement (and indeed did much to do so), but it could not cancel it. As I have related, the UEDF won outright in the kebele closest to Jinka, Bunata. To some degree, this represented only the ease of links with national political processes. Only an hour off a major road, Bunata was the only section of Maale to be visited by a national opposition politician, in this case, UEDF leader Beyene Petros. But, again, the rejection of the EPRDF in Banata was tied up with distinctly local concerns. Th e local peasant association in Banata had a school with six grades. For a number of years, Banata people had attempted to increase the grades taught to eight, so that local children could stay home and continue their schooling. Offi cials in Jinka had promised to do so under a formula in which the government would provide 75 percent of the costs and Banata inhabitants 25 percent. Banata peasants responded by assembling their part – building materials like sand and stone, as well as money. When they requested the promised help from the government in Jinka, Maale in the EPRDF, from Ashkere and Koibe respectively, opposed the Bunata plan. Th ey proposed, instead, to add the seventh and eighth grades in Ashkere and Koibe (the latter, an hour and a half’s walk from Banata). Banata peasants were told that their school would be decreased from six to four grades and that they should take their assembled building materials to Koibe. Th is so enraged Bunata opinion that a confrontation ensued between prominent Maale in the EPRDF and local peasants. Th e peasants backed down only aft er an armed show of force. One Banata man claimed, ‘If the head of the EPRDF comes through here now, we’ll swarm him like angry bees.’ Here, the bee – the offi cial insignia of the EPRDF – became a symbol for the opposition.

Conclusion

One can imagine, as philosopher Habermas (1989) has done, an ideal world in which men like Arbu and his neighbours could debate the complexities of their situation and decide through give-and-take exactly where the balance of costs and benefi ts should lie. Th at ideal world has existed in no class-divided democracy, certainly not in the United States. And of course it does not exist in Bunata, Koibe, and Bala. Th irty years of peasant education has begun, however, for the fi rst time in local history, to produce a rural ‘public,’ one capable of engaging with democratic processes. the 2005 elections in maale 267

A debate, such as the one Habermas imagined, requires of course a certain institutional setting, one with agreed-upon rules in which opinion can be aggregated. Such a party political framework was entirely missing in the rural areas of Maale during the 1990s. It barely existed in the cities of the south. In the opening that suddenly appeared in 2005, virtually the only way that opposition parties had to appeal to peasant opinion was, ironically, via the old political elites. Both opposition parties attempted this route, and the EPRDF itself, toward the end of the campaign, sought out Maale chiefs in an attempt to secure their support and infl uence upon others. But these manoeuvres did not index any desire to reinstitute ‘tradition’ or to return to the past or to celebrate local identity – at least not on the part of local Maale actors. Far from it, local peasant demands of all varieties were thoroughly modernist. Th ey had everything to do with progress and development, roads and schools. And in this process, illustrated in other papers in this volume, sections of Maale inevitably came into collision with one another, as Banata, for example, saw itself eclipsed by Koibe with regard to school building. Th is process of splintering worked against whatever unity was created by appeals to ethnic solidarity. By 2005, Maale existed as its own liyu, or special woreda, whereas in the previous socialist period it had been divided between administration from Jinka and Saula. Once local administrative boundaries had been redrawn along ethnic lines, Maale began to compete among themselves for the resources provided by the state.8 One thoughtful, educated young man in Koibe, an evangelical Christian, explained why he had voted for EPRDF candidates in May. It was not so much that he supported the present government. He did not. But he did not see any opposition fi gure whom he could trust to make things better. Th is man’s quandary captures perhaps much of the complexity of the 2005 elections at the grassroots.

Bibliography

Aalen, Lovise, and Kjetil Tronvoll. 2009a. ‘Th e End of Democracy? Curtailing Political and Civil Rights in Ethiopia.’ Review of African Political Economy 36 (120): 193–207. Arriola, Leonardo R. 2007. ‘Th e Ethiopian Voter: Assessing Economic and Ethnic Infl uences with Survey Data.’ International Journal of Ethiopian Studies 3 (1): 73–90.

8 For a comparable example, see Watson (2006). 268 donald l. donham

Central Statistical Authority (CSA). 1994. Th e 1994 Population and Housing Census of Ethiopia. Addis Ababa: Central Statistical Authority. Clapham, Christopher. 1988. Transformation and Continuity in Revolutionary Ethiopia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. —— . 2005. ‘Comments on the Ethiopian Crisis.’ Ethiomedia, November 14, 2005, http://www.ethiomedia.com/fastpress/clapham_on_ethiopian_crisis.html (accessed: December 26, 2005). Donham, Donald L. 1993. ‘A Note on Space in the Ethiopian Revolution.’ Africa 63 (4): 583–90. —— . 1994. Work and Power in Maale, Ethiopia. New York: Columbia University Press. —— . 1999. Marxist Modern: An Ethnographic History of the Ethiopian Revolution. Berkeley: University of California Press. —— . 2011. Violence in a Time of Liberation: Murder and Ethnicity in a South African Gold Mine, 1994. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Habermas, Jürgen. 1989 [1962]. Th e Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Hoben, Allan. 1970. ‘Social Stratifi cation in Traditional Amhara Society.’ In Social Stratifi cation in Africa, edited by Arthur Tuden and Leonard Plotnicov, 187–224. New York: Th e Free Press. Lefort, René. 2007. ‘Powers – mengist – and Peasants in Rural Ethiopia: Th e May 2005 Elections.’ Journal of Modern African Studies 45 (2): 253–73. Oomen, Barbera. 2005. Chiefs in South Africa: Law, Power, and Culture in the Post- Apartheid Era. Oxford: James Currey. Watson, Elizabeth E. 2006. ‘Making a Living in the Postsocialist Periphery: Struggles Between Farmers and Traders in Konso, Ethiopia.’ Africa 76 (1): 70–87. EPILOGUE

THE ‘NEW’ ETHIOPIA: CHANGING DISCOURSES OF DEMOCRACY

Kjetil Tronvoll

Democracy is a new experience for our old nation. Our institutions of democratic governance need further consolidation. Our culture of democratic discourse needs further refi ning. Prime Minister Meles Zenawi (2010)

Th e 2005 federal and regional elections represent the peak of public political pluralism in modern Ethiopia.1 At no other time in history has the country witnessed such broad-based civil participation in a political process, represented not only by political parties but also civil society organisations, media outlets, intellectuals, and traditional and religious authorities. Th e 2005 elections also manifested the stiff est electoral challenge so far to the ruling Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) (Tronvoll 2009a). Aft er a controversial recount and re-election in several constituencies, the joint opposition managed to win about one-third of the seats in the House of Peoples’ Representatives (Abbink 2006). Post-election events, however, radically reversed the hitherto democratic trajectory of Ethiopia, to such a degree that the huge democratic gains experienced in 2005 were in vain. By ratifying new restrictive legislation and adopt- ing new policies aimed at curbing civil society, private media and opposition activity, the government consciously developed a complex and multi-layered strategy to prevent the political opposition from consolidating and making further political and electoral advances (Aalen and Tronvoll 2009a). Th is trend fi rst became apparent in the 2008 local and district elections, where the severely restricted political space led to a total collapse of the democratic opposition campaign,

1 I thank Tobias Hagmann for his very constructive comments on earlier draft s of this epilogue, highlighting the overall themes of the EPRDF’s discourses on democracy. 270 epilogue resulting in a non-competitive election where the EPRDF took more or less all the approximately 3.5 million local assembly seats up for election (Aalen and Tronvoll 2009b). Th e constrained political context was sustained till the May 2010 regional and federal elections. Additional concerns about an un-level playing fi eld during the campaign and voting tilted the electoral outcome of the parliamentary elections in favour of the incumbent party (European Union 2010). Consequently, the 2010 election outcome resembled old Soviet-style elections, since the EPRDF obtained 99.6 percent of the seats in the House of Peoples’ Representatives – whereas the opposition obtained only one seat (Tronvoll 2011). Th is epilogue briefl y presents some recurrent patterns in Ethiopian politics during the 2005–2010 period in order to cast light on the 2005 elections’ formative impact on the notion of democracy and pluralism in the country. Th e epilogue aims to present the disparity between democratic principles, as prescribed by international standards, against the ‘Ethiopian model’, as rationalised through statements given by the government’s chief ideologist and executive, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi.2 By a set of deliberately craft ed policies, the EPRDF has seemingly monopolised ‘democracy’ in all its aspects in contemporary Ethiopia. Th is forceful appropriation of democracy as political practice as well as discursive register has occurred through three interlinked processes: fi rstly, by labelling and disqualifying the legal opposition and civil society critics as ‘anti-democratic’; secondly, by restricting the operational space for democratic opposition activities and independent civil society initiatives in a manner that tended to ‘criminalise’ opposition politics; and thirdly, by expanding the party-state apparatus to the most local level in order to comprise all grassroots activity under the party- state’s oversight and guidance. On this basis, the epilogue provides a snapshot of what happened to the ‘democratisation process’ in Ethiopia aft er the formative 2005

2 Th e Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the key party within the EPRDF coalition, has defi ned the parameters of the ideological development of the government. Th e TPLF used to be governed by a collective leadership, where several members of the Central Committee and the Politburo of the party provided ideological insights and leadership. However, most of these key ideologists were expelled from the party in 2001 aft er dissenters almost managed to topple the Premier from within. Since then, Meles Zenawi has been increasingly powerful and single-handed in defi ning the ideological orientation of the TPLF and the EPRDF. the ‘new’ ethiopia 271 elections. It will not address the role of traditional authorities in the post-2005 process, as it has been minuscule. Furthermore, it will present neither opposition voices nor civil society statements commenting on the process.3 Due to restrictions on civil society in the country, combined with the fact that Ethiopia is one of the world’s largest recipients of development aid (amounting to over 3 billion USD per year),4 the Ethiopian government mainly engages in arguments about ‘democracy’ with outsiders such as diplomats and development actors, human rights organisations and scholars, and not the domestic political opposition – who are generally marginalised, ignored or ridiculed by the ruling party. As the appropriation of ‘democracy’ and the re- institutionalisation of the ‘democratisation process’ are driven by the EPRDF alone, it seems appropriate that this epilogue focuses on statements given by the Prime Minister in order to present the rationale behind his government’s action.

Arresting ‘anti-democratic’ forces

On the eve of election day in May 2005 – when preliminary results from the urban centres indicated an overwhelming victory for the CUD opposition block – Prime Minister Meles Zenawi partly sus- pended the count and declared a month-long ban on demonstrations and outdoor meetings. Th enceforth, the opposition accused the National Election Board and the authorities of manipulating both the count and the subsequent complaints and re-election process in favour of the EPRDF. Initial urban protest in June was quickly curbed by security forces, resulting in three dozen demonstrators killed and several thousands being placed in detention (European Union 2005; Abbink 2006). Th e government blamed the protest on the main opposition block, the Coalition of Unity and Democracy (CUD), and justifi ed the use of force by the need to contain ‘anti-peace and anti-democratic elements.’5 Th e fi nal election results, which were released in September

3 For civil society perspectives and political opposition voices, see Aalen and Tronvoll (2009b) and Tronvoll (2011). 4 See OECD’s Development Co-operation Directorate, ‘Aid Statistics, Recipient Aid Charts,’ broken down to country level for Ethiopia, http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/ 21/7/1880804.gif (accessed: February 16, 2011). 5 Th ere were two main opposition alliances contesting during the 2005 elections, the other being the United Ethiopian Democratic Forces (UEDF), which also protested and participated in the demonstrations. 272 epilogue

2005, clarifi ed two issues: fi rst, the opposition had obtained its best ever election results in Ethiopia’s short history of competitive multi- party democracy; and second, opposition complaints and grievances about intimidation, rigging and manipulation in favour of the incumbent party were generally over-ruled by the National Election Board’s complaints committees. Consequently, intense dissatisfaction with the handling of the counting and complaints process, in addition to protests against changes of parliamentary procedures introduced by the EPRDF in June 2005 to curb the forthcoming parliamentary opposition activities, made the majority of CUD members decide not to take up their seats in the House of Peoples’ Representatives.6 New protests and pro-CUD demonstrations arose in Addis Ababa in early November and spread quickly to urban centres in Amhara and Oromiya regions. In order to stop the protests, security forces shot into the crowds, killing scores of demonstrators. A subsequent offi cial investigation confi rmed that close to 200 people were killed by security forces during post-election demonstrations, a fact that was condemned by domestic and international observers as undue and excessive use of force against civilian demonstrators (see Abbink 2006). To contain post-election protests the authorities detained tens of thousands of demonstrators and opposition sympathisers, civil society leaders and journalists, in addition to the CUD leadership at large. Th e top-level CUD leadership together with certain civil society leaders were subsequently charged with treason, inciting violence and plan- ning to commit genocide. Th ese charges were all in line with the EPRDF’s earlier depictions of the opposition as protagonists of an Interahamwe type of ethnic radicalism in Ethiopia. Apparently, some key TPLF leaders feared that a CUD takeover of power would lead to ethnic cleansing of Tigrayans from Addis Ababa and other urban centres around the country. Whether this fear was justifi ed or not is diffi - cult to assess: opposition representatives have dismissed them as unfounded. Th e court rejected the genocide charges later on, but the CUD leadership was sentenced to lengthy terms of imprisonment. Aft er international pressure, in particular from the USA, the CUD leaders were released in July 2007 under a negotiated presidential par- don. However, one of the key leaders, Birtikan Mideksa, who later

6 Representatives from the UEDF, the second largest opposition party, all took up their seats in parliament. the ‘new’ ethiopia 273 became the leader of the new opposition alliance, the Union for Democracy and Justice (UDJ), was rearrested in December 2008, thus neutralising her as a well-known and popular opposition leader ahead of the May 2010 elections. Birtukan Mideksa was pardoned again aft er the 2010 elections and later withdrew from political life in Ethiopia. Th e post-election clampdown on the opposition and civil society in Ethiopia took donor countries and international observers by surprise. Several donors issued statements of concern and demands for dialogue between government and opposition during the summer demonstrations. In December 2005, the Development Assistance Group (DAG) – comprising Ethiopia’s bilateral and multilateral development partners – decided to temporarily suspend direct budgetary support to the government, as a repercussion of the crackdown on civil society and the mass detention of opposition sympathisers and of the CUD leadership. Th e Ethiopian government viewed the suspension of development aid as undue interference in Ethiopia’s internal aff airs, and rejected any ‘dialogue’ with international partners on this issue. Later, Meles Zenawi explained his view of the international pressure put upon him aft er the 2005 crackdown as follows: ‘We believe democracy cannot be imposed from outside in any society. Democracy is the expression of a sovereign people. To impose it from outside is inherently undemocratic. Each sovereign nation has to make its own decisions and have its own criteria as to how they govern themselves.7 In Meles Zenawi’s conception of it, ‘democracy’ is stripped of universal standards and liberal principles and left as a malleable particularistic concept to be shaped at the interest and whims of the ruling clique. Post-election discourse in Ethiopia was polarised and hostile, and from the point of view of the government was cast in increasingly nationalist rhetoric of regime survival and sovereignty. Th e opposition’s call for demonstrations made reference to international liberal democratic standards, and building on the rights of freedom of expression and assembly enshrined in the Ethiopian constitution. However, the EPRDF accused the opposition of undermining stability and plotting to topple the government. Concomitantly, development partners and international actors were blamed with interfering and breaching Ethiopia’s

7 Simon Tisdall, ‘To Impose Democracy from Outside is Inherently Undemocratic’, Th e Guardian, January 25, 2008. 274 epilogue sovereignty when they addressed human rights concerns. Th e EPRDF’s strong and unfl inching stance during this period towards the opposition and members of the donor group alike was a forewarning of the new domestic policies to come and their international relations strategy from 2006 onwards. Aft er a few months, the development partners surrendered their conditionality principle in early spring 2006 and resumed direct budgetary support. However, certain adjustments were made, as a substantial part of the money was redirected from the federal to the local (woreda) level,8 as a means of justifying to their European constituencies their continued and increased level of support despite the political repercussions for the opposition. Although super- fi cially politically weakened by the 2005 election result, the EPRDF emerged at the end of the election period stronger and more politically determined than ever before, both domestically and internationally.

Legislating new ‘democratic’ principles

Th e opposition’s electoral gains of 2005 intensifi ed the EPRDF’s long- term strategy to consolidate its revised version of ‘democracy’, building on diff erent political principles than those of competitive political pluralism in a liberal representative democracy. Key to this strategy was the adoption of a set of new laws restricting the fi nancial and public operations of political parties, civil society, media and international NGOs in the country. Immediately aft er the election, and before the new parliament was established in the fall of 2005, the EPRDF passed a new parliamentary code of conduct and set out regulations that restricted minority parties from speaking and tabling proposals in the House of Peoples’ Representatives. Th e amendment implied that an absolute majority was required to put forward an agenda, and the opposition parties were thereby deprived of their original right to submit a bill or proposal. Subsequently, new laws regulating media,9 political parties10, and

8 Th rough programmes such as the Protection of Basic Services (PBS) and the Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP). 9 ‘Freedom of the Mass Media and Access to Information Proclamation,’ Proclamation No. 590/2008, 4 December 2008. 10 ‘Th e Revised Political Parties Registration Proclamation,’ Proclamation No. 573/2008, 24 September 2008. the ‘new’ ethiopia 275 civil society11 were introduced, in addition to a draconian new anti- terrorism proclamation.12 Common to all these laws were increased governmental oversight and control of non-governmental initiatives that restricted their operational elbow room, curbed their funding and, to a certain degree, crim- inalised criticism of government activity and policies. Moreover, new legislation had a negative impact on international relations, as foreign funding to domestic media and civil society organisations were severely restricted or banned altogether, and international NGOs operating in the country were prohibited from funding or working inter alia in the areas of human rights, election observation and democracy support, confl ict resolution, and women’s and children’s rights. In particular, the media and civil society organisation laws came in for widespread criticism from international observers, human rights agencies, freedom of expression and media associations, and development partner governments. Th e pressure put upon Ethiopia to modify the restrictive framework of the laws was however defl ected, and the Ethiopian government stood fi rm on its new policies curbing foreign fi nancial and operational infl uence on the development of ‘democracy’ in the country. From the point of view of Meles Zenawi, this made sense, as he explained the rationale behind the new civil society organisation law to international media: Th e civil society law, some people would say this is clamping down, we would say this is an empowering law. Th e odd thing about our legislation from the African perspective is that we separate foreign NGOs and local civil society. Local civil society would be free to participate in any political activity. Foreign NGOs and foreign funded entities would not participate in political activities. Some people say this is clamping down on civil society. We would say this is empowering civil society because civil society has to be an expression of the membership [i.e. domestic population] (…)13 Th ere are several interesting aspects of how Meles Zenawi rationalised the introduction of the new legislations. Th e most important one is the apparent reinterpretation of human rights and democratic values away from being universal standards promoting and defending individual

11 ‘Charities and Societies Proclamation,’ Proclamation No. 621/2009, 13 February 2009. 12 ‘Anti-terrorism Proclamation,’ Proclamation No. 652/2009, 7 July 2009. 13 William Wallis, ‘FT Interview with Meles Zenawi’, Financial Times, June 17, 2009. 276 epilogue rights in relation to the state, independent of political context and cultural values. Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, on the other hand, negates this fundamental principle of human rights and restricts the operationality of these rights to the state, in the name of nationalism and sovereignty. Simultaneously, he categorises human rights promotion as opposition political activity, to justify the infringement of human rights advocacy in the country. Th e laws have had a radical impact upon civil society in Ethiopia; consequently one has seen a sharp decline in the number of organisations working to promote democratisation and human rights in the country. Th is was particularly noteworthy in the run-up to the 2010 elections, when the vibrant civil society activism observed in 2005 was lacking. Paradoxically, however, the volume of donor funding to Ethiopia has not been reduced as a result of these developments. On the contrary: donor countries have increased overall bilateral development aid to Ethiopia since 2005, although funding for civil society activities has suff ered.14 Even though diplomats and development workers criticise political development and human rights in Ethiopia in private conversations and off the record, the international development apparatus continues to support the EPRDF government’s development agenda through frequent reference to the country’s macro-economic growth and infrastructural and social development achievements in recent years.

‘Democratising’ the grassroots

Th e EPRDF has always stressed its rural origins and its reliance on the peasant constituency, from which it derived its support during the armed struggle against the Derg military junta. Consequently, they have always given priority to rural development policy. Both ideologically and socially, the ‘rural masses’ constitute the backbone of the Front, from the inception of the weyane revolution in 1975 until the present day (Young 1997; Vaughan 2003). Th e urban population and milieu have been distrusted by the EPRDF for a variety of reasons. Th e enemies of the ethno-national revolution were cast in economic and

14 See OECD development statistics referenced in footnote 4. Th is situation spurred Human Rights Watch (2010) to undertake a separate study into the interconnectedness between political suppression and development aid in Ethiopia. the ‘new’ ethiopia 277 politico-cultural terms, generally stigmatising the ruling urban elite; the particularities of the urban groups did not fi t the revolutionary framework of a struggle over (un)equal access to land; the mixed and nationally oriented urban population defi ed the EPRDF’s simplistic ethnic classifi cation model of the Ethiopian people into fi xed ethno- national categories of ‘nations, nationalities and peoples’; and the cities were the sites of economic and intellectual elites that looked down on the EPRDF as a ragtag, uneducated peasant movement and, later on, government. Th e broad-based support for the opposition in the 2005 election in large parts of rural Amhara, Oromiya and Southern Region thus took the EPRDF and its constituent parties by surprise. Starting in 2006, the EPRDF gave special attention to developing strategies that could re-ideologise and remobilise the peasantry in its favour (Lefort 2007; 2010). Key to this strategy was the radical expansion of local administrative structures (kebele), in order to co-opt local elites into the governing structures of the state, as well as to provide employment opportunities for a vast number of rural inhabitants, who thus became dependent on the EPRDF for their daily bread. For instance, the elected kebele councils increased their numbers from 15 members to about 300 members ahead of the 2008 local elections. Th is was formally done in the name of expanding representative democratic institutions at local level. Beyond the kebele level – which comprises around 500 to 2,000 households – new levels of party administrative control were instituted that include around 90 households, 30 to 40 households and, fi nally, the lowest entity of between fi ve and 10 households.15 Th is radical expansion of the party-state has been developed in parallel with a massive party membership recruitment campaign, enrolling several million new members into the fold of the EPRDF. Th is has created a vast reservoir of several million complacent party cadres that may be mobilised and utilised against any rural-based local activity and initiative (such as opposition politics or grassroots human rights monitoring) not accepted or controlled by the central government. Prime Minister Meles Zenawi justifi es this extension of the party- state into Ethiopian society by emphasising the rural roots and importance of Ethiopian democracy:

15 Th e Amharic terms for these bodies are respectively got, mengistawi budin, and lemmat budin. 278 epilogue

While all democratic systems are works in progress, ours started rather late and therefore has a longer distance to cover. But democratic transformation for us is not mimicking some facets of Western governance. Th e focus has been on building institutions of democratic governance. And to do so all the way to the grassroots. Democracy cannot be a plaything for the capital cities. It has to infi ltrate every nook and cranny in the country, including the village.16 Th e notion that democracy shall ‘infi ltrate’ every corner of society captures well the EPRDF’s understanding of what they term ‘revolutionary democracy’: a tool to incorporate the whole population under the political guidance of the vanguard ruling-party elite. Paradoxically, the radical expansion of the party-state in Ethiopia was made possible by the reorientation of development aid in the aft ermath of the 2005 elections. To justify their return to ‘business as usual’ aft er lift ing the suspension of direct budget support, the donor group (DAG) prioritised channelling huge amounts to so-called woreda or district development programmes, in order to strengthen rural capacity and service delivery through the PBS and PSNP. Th is was done to sanction the federal government for its repressive actions against the opposition in the aft ermath of the elections; without however making an issue of the lack of transparency and control over disbursement of local funds and in continued ignorance of the pervasiveness of the EPRDF’s party-state and control structure.17 For the EPRDF government, the redirection of donor funds was a blessing in disguise; it gave them the means to expand and develop a politico-administrative cadre structure penetrating all villages in the country and embracing more or less each and every household into a top-down, controlled party structure.

Economic growth and ‘democratic’ development

Soon aft er assuming power aft er the fall of the Derg military junta in 1991, Meles Zenawi stated that poverty is no excuse for not proceeding towards democracy.18 Over the last decade, Ethiopia has experienced

16 Alex Perry, ‘Interview: Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’, TIME Magazine, September 6, 2007. 17 For instance, the federal government’s Auditor General has repeatedly been denied access to monitor the disbursement of funds at the regional and local levels. 18 Donatella Lorch, ‘Ethiopia Deals with Legacy of Kings and Colonels’, New York Times, May 26, 1995. the ‘new’ ethiopia 279 high economic growth driven partly by a post-war economic surge, in addition to vast foreign-funded development investment. Huge development-funded programmes in infrastructure and the education, health and agriculture sectors have had a notable positive impact on the livelihoods of large segments of the population, and most certainly on economic statistics. Concomitantly, infl ation has led to a massive increase in the prices of foodstuff s and forced the government to devalue the Ethiopian birr at the end of 2009 and again in September 2010, in addition to imposing price caps on a dozen essential livelihood commodities in early 2011. Consequently, rural inequality has been growing in recent years (Lefort 2010). Still, the Ethiopian government prides itself on its successful economic policy that has been delivering double-digit macro-economic growth year aft er year,19 and claim that this is the reason why the Ethiopian people voted en masse for the EPRDF in the 2010 elections.20 Prime Minister Meles Zenawi apparently has a conscious strategy to develop the private sector in order to consolidate the democratisation process: What we in Ethiopia hope to do – have started to do – is to separate wealth creation from management of the process of politics and try to create a vibrant private sector, opportunities for business advancement. So that those who want to accumulate wealth, do not go through the indirect way of accumulating political power fi rst. Until we have done that, we will not have a stable democracy anywhere in the continent, and we are unlikely to have stable democracies in a decade or two.21 His view of the development of democracy in the above quotation mir- rors the Western understanding of liberal democracy. Paradoxically, and contrary to the sentiment of the Prime Minister’s statement, the EPRDF and its affi liates are however the single largest private-sector owner in Ethiopia, on par with the owner of the Midroc conglomerate, Sheikh Alamoudi. Th e government party – mostly through its TPLF

19 Ethiopia’s economic statistical data are controversial, and the offi cial numbers are contested by several scholars. For an overview of economic trends see Index Mundi’s Ethiopia page, http://www.indexmundi.com/ethiopia/gdp_real_growth_rate.html (accessed: February 16, 2011). 20 Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Aff airs, ‘A Week in the Horn’, June 18, 2010, http:// www.mfa.gov.et/ Press_Section/Week_Horn_Africa_June_18_2010.htm (accessed: February 16, 2011). 21 Awate Team, ‘Awate Interviews Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’, Awate, May 26, 2008, http://www.awate.com/portal/content/view/4857/11/ (accessed: January 25, 2011). 280 epilogue component – controls directly (or indirectly via specifi c party-owned endowment funds) dozens of Ethiopian business enterprises. Key companies within every business sector – including transport and communication, construction, and trade – are owned by or related to leading EPRDF members. Th ese companies reportedly enjoy preferential treatment in terms of access to contracts and capital, physical infrastructure, and administrative services rendered by the state. Th e party-owned or affi liated enterprises generate a multi-million dollar annual profi t for the party – money which again may be used to sustain the infl uence of the party over politics as well as business development in the country. In addition to its own enterprises, the EPRDF also benefi ts from large donations from the country’s business sector as a whole. In the run-up to the 2010 elections, for instance, the Ethiopian business sector donated 32 million birr to the EPRDF’s election campaign, reportedly more than the concrete expenses incurred during the campaign.22 Without speculating on the motives for these donations, it seems evident that the EPRDF party benefi ts economically from its dominant political position in the country. Hence, as things currently operate in Ethiopia, it seems to be the case that the party in power is exactly accumulating political as well as economic wealth, in direct contrast to the Prime Minister’s warnings; how this will impinge on the development of ‘stable democracy’ in the long run, to use Meles Zenawi’s phrase, remains to be seen.

From ‘revolutionary democracy’ to ‘dominant party democracy’

No doubt, the 2005 elections altered the EPRDF’s perception of what type of democracy is suitable for Ethiopia. Since then, the government’s rhetoric on democracy has been partially contradictory, self-centred and particularistic, opportunistic and fl exible. In a recent interview, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi exposed his ambivalence about the concept of democracy: So the question is not whether democracy is advisable for us or not. I think it is a forgone conclusion: we have no other option. Th ere is no other option of accommodating diversity that can work. Th e question, therefore, should be how best do we achieve that. Recognizing that this is

22 Desalegn Sisay, ‘Ethiopia: Ruling Party Gets Huge Boost from Business Community’, AfrikNews, May 9, 2010, http://www.afrik-news.com/article17610.html (accessed: February 1, 2011). the ‘new’ ethiopia 281

a process, how do we avoid attempted short cuts that take us to dead- ends, on the one hand; and using the slogan of processes as an excuse to indefi nitely postpone the exercise of democracy.23 What exactly is implied by ‘short cuts’ or ‘dead-ends’ is not elaborated. May be Meles Zenawi is referring to his party’s own experiences of ‘revolutionary democracy’? Prior to 2005, the EPRDF stressed the ideological underpinnings of its variant of democracy, labelling it ‘revolutionary democracy’. Th e latter is in contradiction to the liberal democracy variety, which is based on individual participation, a diversity of interests and views, and plural representation. On the contrary, revolutionary democracy is based on communal collective participation and consensual representation led by a vanguard front, namely the leadership of the governing party (Paulos Milkias 2001; Vaughan and Tronvoll 2003). Th is model is of course not indigenous to Ethiopia, but echoes the Marxist-Leninist ideological designs, going back to the liberation struggle of the 1970s.24 Th e reinvigoration of revolutionary ideology was a response to a threatening process of internal dissent within the party, which grew out of the renewed Eritrean-Ethiopian war of 1998–2000 (Medhane Tadesse and Young 2003). In order for Meles Zenawi to fi ght off the dissenters within the TPLF central committee who almost managed to topple him from within, he had to reach back into history and redefi ne the original ideological underpinnings of the party, as it was articulated during the 17-year struggle against the Derg military regime. By among other things distancing himself from the rhetoric of liberal democracy, Meles Zenawi managed to convince the TPLF leadership to continue supporting him against the supposedly hard-line dissenters. Th e slogan of revolutionary democracy may have helped to pacify internal dissent, but was not a selling point to urban, educated and cosmopolitan segments of the Ethiopian electorate, as became apparent during the 2005 elections when the opposition won a majority in most cities throughout the country (Tronvoll 2009a). Th e revolutionary democracy rhetoric was primarily used for domestic consumption, although it was never kept secret from an international audience. It is observable, however, that the ‘revolutionary democracy lingua’ has been muted aft er the May 2010 elections,

23 Awate Team, ‘Awate Interviews Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’, Awate, May 26, 2008, http://www.awate.com/portal/content/view/4857/11/ (accessed: January 25, 2011). 24 See EPRDF (1992 E.C.). 282 epilogue and instead Meles Zenawi has described the Ethiopian model as a ‘dominant party democracy’.25 Th is time the rhetoric is geared towards an international audience, as there is no longer any ‘dissent’ capable of threatening the power of the EPRDF within Ethiopia, but only criticism from certain international actors. Hence, instead of anchoring the reformulated concept of ‘democracy’ within revolutionary roots to tackle inner dissent, Meles Zenawi uses well-known international cases as role models for Ethiopia in order to win over an international diplomatic audience. In order to give legitimacy to, and justify, the retarded democratisation process and the EPRDF’s 99.6 percent control of the seats in parliament, Meles Zenawi compares Ethiopia with the historical political trajectories of well-established democracies such as Sweden, Mexico and Japan – where the state-bearing parties kept power for several decades under liberal democratic constitutions. At the same time, any international criticism of the 2010 elections is bluntly rejected by Meles Zenawi, as the European Union’s election observer mission learnt when they were denied re-entry visas to present their balanced, but critical, fi nal report on the 2010 elections: Th e [EU election] report is not about our election. It is just the view of some Western neo-liberals who are unhappy about the strength of the ruling party.26 Clearly, and as correctly observed by Meles Zenawi, from a liberal democracy perspective, Ethiopia has reached a dead end. Since the formative 2005 elections, the EPRDF has worked diligently to counter the political eff ects of the liberal ‘awakening’ Ethiopia experienced during the spring of 2005. Most importantly, through the brutal crackdowns on the peaceful post-election demonstrations and the mass arrest of up to 30,000 opposition sympathisers, a ‘culture of fear’ was reinstalled in the populace – which is essential for a non-democratic regime to maintain control.27 As shown above, these crackdowns and

25 Peter Heinlein, ‘Ethiopia Faces Era of One-party Rule’, Voice of America, August 18, 2010, http://www.voanews.com/english/news/Ethiopia-Faces-Era-Of-One-Party -Rule-101007229.html (accessed: February 1, 2011). 26 Barry Malone, ‘Ethiopian PM Says EU Election Report is Trash’, Reuters, November 15, 2010. 27 Th e pattern of social interaction in highland Ethiopia is traditionally a strictly hierarchical stratifi cation of society, where one is constrained by a largely invisible but rigid system of collective sanctions, to obey ‘orders from above’ (in Amharic yebalal akal) (Vaughan and Tronvoll 2003, 32–5). Th is cultural context in combination with deliberate and long-term experiences with political purges of opposition and the ‘new’ ethiopia 283 the criminalisation of dissent were integral components of the EPRDF’s discursive repertoire on democracy. In this vein, two issues can be drawn from the EPRDF’s posture on democracy. Firstly, and paradoxically given the obvious absence of public political pluralism aft er 2005, ‘democracy’ remains an important rhetorical resource, mainly vis-à-vis international interlocutors; secondly, and as this epilogue has shown, one observes that – in diff erent situations and when serving its particular interests – the EPRDF employs the concept of ‘democracy’ in very diff erent, and at times contradictory, ways. In this brief text, and based on a handful of quotations by Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, one can identify at least three distinct notions or models of ‘democracy’. Th e fi rst one is ‘democracy as sovereignty’. Under this model, the EPRDF is basically promoting a policy of non- interference in the domestic aff airs of sovereign states, claiming, so to say, that ‘democracy means respecting other countries so leave us alone. We are fed up of Western patronizing, so stop interfering because that is undemocratic.’ Th is is an outdated but oft en-used strategy of authoritarian regimes against Western human rights and democracy ‘imposition’ and development conditionality; but due to China’s growing infl uence in the region and disregard of democracy and human rights, the sovereignty card has regained its value in recent years. Th e second democracy variant used by the EPRDF is ‘democracy as modernisation’. Th is is a discourse that plays to modernisation theory and rather strategically presents Ethiopia as ‘lagging behind’ the rest of the world, but if given time ‘we will also reach the El Dorado of liberal democracy’. Th is projection of democracy is the antithesis of the above sovereignty model, but is still opportunistically used by the EPRDF against uninformed or naïve development partners. Th is model is most commonly expressed through explanations such as ‘democratisation is a long-term process’ (i.e. ‘we are not there yet’); ‘we are the fi rst to admit that we have shortcomings in terms of democracy and human rights we need to address’; or most primitively but eff ectively communicated (as it resonates with the white man’s burden and reconfi rms Western feelings of superiority): ‘We are a poor African country and do

dissent – in particular during the notorious and bloody Red Terror campaign in 1977– 78 and a succession of wars and confl icts where civilian population has been targeted for revenged and repercussions due to wrong political or ethnic allegiances (see Tronvoll 2009b) – has installed a more or less permanent condition of collective fear among large shares of the Ethiopian populace. 284 epilogue not have a lots of experiences with democracy, so please be patient with us.’ Th e third variant found in Meles Zenawi’s statements above is ‘democracy as participation’, stressing the importance of broad-based (rural) participation in political processes orchestrated by the party- state. Th is notion emphasises collective rights over individual ones, and that the Ethiopian citizens needs to look beyond their own individual needs and desires, in politics as well as socially and economically, in order for the masses of the nation to reach a higher level of development as defi ned by the vanguard ruling clique. From an outside analytical perspective, the fascinating observation is how these discourses (and possibly others too) manage to partly reconcile very dif- ferent meanings in regard to their target audience (diplomats and international development partners), which are generally far removed from the original intention and meaning of democracy as the very same audience understands it. In the current globalised political context, with several authoritarian regimes collapsing in the Arab world at the time of writing, the question is whether the EPRDF and Ethiopia will be aff orded another three to four decades in power before they are ‘ready’ for transition to the liberal multi-party democracy model prescribed in the country’s constitution, but which the EPRDF government is currently suppressing. Paradoxically, Meles Zenawi is apparently himself keenly aware of this contradiction: Over the years I’ve come to recognize that democratization in Ethiopia is not just a matter of choice. It’s a matter of national survival. I am deeply convinced that we either democratize and have a good chance of surviv- ing, or if we fail to do so, we disintegrate.28

Looking back into the future

Finally, let us briefl y revisit the overall theme of this volume. What do the changes that have taken place in Ethiopia since the 2005 elections tell us about the role of traditional authorities in future elections and multi-party politics? Certainly, the roles played by traditional authorities in the 2005 elections, as identifi ed in the introduction to this

28 Stephanie McCrummen, ‘Interview with Meles Zenawi’, Th e Washington Post, December 14, 2006. the ‘new’ ethiopia 285 volume, will evolve. Based on the development trajectories experienced over the past fi ve years, one can imagine the following scenarios concerning traditional authorities’ role in future electoral politics in Ethiopia. First, as state control and supervision of the population has been further expanded and developed, even less room for traditional authorities to act as political brokers at the local level between the party-state and the electorate exists. Second, partly as a consequence of the former and partly by design, traditional authorities are most likely to be continuously co-opted into party politics in order to provide local political legitimacy for the ruling EPRDF. Conversely, customary leaders may also use electoral processes under the aegis of the EPRDF as a deliberate strategy to reclaim some of the ‘powers’ and elbow room that had been curbed by the EPRDF’s dominant position – working for their own objectives but within the umbrella of the ruling party. Th ird, as the plural and competitive nature of the 2005 election was reversed in 2010 and indeed for the foreseeable future, there will be far less opportunity for traditional authorities to negotiate for political positions between the EPRDF and the legal democratic opposition. In regions where the armed opposition operates (notably in parts of Somali, Oromiya and Amhara regions) one may see traditional authorities negotiating a position between these resistance fronts and the government, off ering legitimacy to either one of them. Lastly, the factor, which is most uncertain, will be the role played by the youth in Ethiopian politics. As experienced in 2005, the generational shift became apparent during election time, where traditional mechanisms of social and political control withered as a temporarily new public sphere of politics emerged in which government dominant power was contested. Th e 2005 post-election demonstrations, when tens of thousands of unemployed youths took to the streets in urban centres throughout Ethiopia in protest at what they perceived as election rigging, may be compared to the massive popular protests that led to the downfall of several Arab regimes in early 2011. Th e withering of a culture of fear, in combination with unaddressed widespread social and economic grievances and perceived political subjugation, inspires the masses to take to the streets to confront power and demand political change. Th e Ethiopian regime survived in 2005 only due to the re- instatement of a culture of fear in the country, as noted above. How long they will manage to sustain it is another question. Th e many grievances held by large segments of the Ethiopian population will, somehow or another, fi nd means and ways to be articulated, either through 286 epilogue peaceful multi-party elections or through mass demonstrations against perceived unjust and illegitimate power. Th e Ethiopian people are well aware of the substance of liberal democracy – as expressed through free and transparent multiparty elections, freedom of expression, organisation and assembly, and the realisation and protection of individual civil and political rights. EPRDF, however, has seemingly diverted from its original promises of establishing electoral democracy and securing the full realisation of universal human rights. Instead they adopt an opportunistic stand and are imputing a series of diff erent meanings to ‘democracy’ as response to internal and external pressure and processes; positions which post- 2005 are all geared towards securing external legitimacy, while the core reason for electoral democracy – allowing the populace a direct say in how they are represented politically – remains largely unresolved.

Bibliography

Following local usage, Ethiopian authors are referenced by their fi rst name. Aalen, Lovise, and Kjetil Tronvoll. 2009a. ‘Th e End of Democracy? Curtailing Political and Civil Rights in Ethiopia.’ Review of African Political Economy 36 (120): 193–207. —— . 2009b. ‘Th e 2008 Ethiopian Local Elections: Th e Return of Electoral Authoritarianism.’ African Aff airs 108 (430): 111–20. Abbink, Jon. 2006. ‘Discomfi ture of Democracy? Th e 2005 Election Crisis in Ethiopia and its Aft ermath.’ African Aff airs 105 (419): 173–99. Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF). 1992 E.C. Th e Development Lines of Revolutionary Democracy. Unoffi cial translation from Amharic. Addis Ababa: EPRDF. European Union. 2006. Ethiopia Legislative Elections 2005: European Union Election Observation Mission Final Report. Addis Ababa: European Union. —— . 2010. Final Report. House of Peoples’ Representatives and State Council Elections May 2010. European Union Election Observation Mission. Addis Ababa: European Union. Human Rights Watch (HRW). 2010. Development without Freedom. How Aid Underwrites Repression in Ethiopia. New York: Human Rights Watch. Lefort, René. 2007. ‘Powers – mengist – and Peasants in Rural Ethiopia: Th e May 2005 Elections.’ Journal of Modern African Studies 45 (2): 253–73. —— . 2010. ‘Powers – mengist – and Peasants in Rural Ethiopia: Th e Post-2005 Interlude.’ Journal of Modern African Studies 48 (3): 435–60. Medhane Tadesse, and John Young. 2003. ‘TPLF: Reform or Decline?’ Review of African Political Economy 30 (97): 389–403. Meles Zenawi. 2010. Keynote address by Prime Minister Meles Zenawi at the 5th International Conference on Federalism, Addis Ababa, December 13, http://www .ethiopianfederalism.org/index.php?id=97&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=22&cHash=60b1c 377719fb 21926b69241b7933803 (accessed: February 19, 2011). the ‘new’ ethiopia 287

Paulos Milkias. 2001. ‘Ethiopia, TPLF and Roots of the 2001 Political Tremor.’ Paper presented at the International Conference on Contemporary Development Issues in Ethiopia, Kalamazoo, MI, August 18. Tronvoll, Kjetil. 2009a. ‘Ambiguous Elections: Th e Infl uence of Non-electoral Politics in Ethiopian Democratisation.’ Journal of Modern African Studies 47 (3): 449–74. —— . 2009b. War and the Politics of Identity in Ethiopia: Th e Making of Enemies and Allies in the Horn of Africa. Woodbridge: James Currey. —— . 2011. ‘Briefi ng: Th e Ethiopian 2010 Federal and Regional Elections: Re-establishing the One-party State.’ African Aff airs 110 (438): 121–36. Vaughan, Sarah. 2003. ‘Ethnicity and Power in Ethiopia.’ PhD thesis, University of Edinburgh. Vaughan, Sarah, and Kjetil Tronvoll. 2003. Th e Culture of Power in Contemporary Ethiopian Political Life. Stockholm: Sida. Young, John. 1997. Peasant Revolution in Ethiopia: Th e Tigray People’s Liberation Front, 1975–1991. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

INDEX

Aalen, Lovise 21, 111 EIASC in 175–6, 183, 184–5 AAPO (All Amhara People’s electoral results (2005) 165–7, 166 Organisation Party) 15 intimidation and harassment of Abay Tsehaye 73, 74, 76, 80 electorate and opposition Abba Duula Gamada 179, 205 candidates 167 Abbink, Jon 105 involvement of government in Islamic Abdi Jibril 67, 72, 73 shrines 179–80, 186–8 Abdirahman Bade, Sultan 75 Nur mosque 177–8, 182 Abdurahman Dulane Rafl e, Sultan 79 political transition in 1991 and Addis Ababa 14, 16, 139, 144, 257 politics 173–4 opposition rallies 158 regime’s approach towards post-election demonstrations 137, ulama 178–9 149, 272 relationship between ethnicity and Addis Ababa University 207 religion 188–90 Afar region 8, 222 resistance against government in Afrobarometer surveys 2, 8 1960s/70s 182–3, 184 Ahmed ‘Gragn’ 170, 180, 181n Salafi yya Madrassa 177, 178, 181 al-Anwar mosque (Addis Ababa) 175 Salafi sm movement 167–8, 170, Ali Yusuf Isse ‘Dhada’ 84 172–3, 189 All Amhara People’s Organisation Party shari’a courts 177 (AAPO) 15 support of OLF by religious Amhara 23, 32, 117–18, 140, 143, 167, authorities 188 173, 182, 252–3, 256 support of OPDO by EIASC during Aneesa Kassam 234 elections 176 Anywaa 32, 33–6, 52, 53 tensions between Arsi and Shoa APDO (Anywaa People’s Democratic Oromo 189–90 Organisation) 34 traditional authorities in 169 Areero Province 227, 228, 229 villagisation programme 183 Arsi Oromo 167, 170, 173, 182, 188, 189 Banata 266, 267 Awasa 257 Bashir Abdillahi Aydarus 67 ayle (slaves) 113, 114, 115, 117, 121–2, Bassi, Marco 22, 221 124, 130, 133 B.C. 101–2 Benishangul-Gumuz 8 Baaka 253, 254, 255 Bereket Simon 149 ‘Bagalla’ massacre (1998) 236 Berhanu Tessema, Col. 196 Bahru Zewde 141 Bethel Evangelical Secondary School baira (village elder) 92–3 (BESS) 208 Bakalu 113, 122 Beyene Petros, Professor 127, 266 Bale 165–92 Bierschenk, Th omas 11 alleged presence of Islamic fundamen- Birtikan Mideksa 272–3 talism amongst ulama 182, 185 Boku Tache 237, 244 Amhara-Oromo relations 182 Bol Keat 43–4, 45, 46, 47, 48, 55 attitude towards politics by Borana zone (Oromiya) 22, 221–47 ulama 185–6 administrative demarcation until curbing of Islamism by regime 1991 227 aft er 9/11 181–2, 186 clashes between Borana and Muslim description 170 neighbours 235–6 290 index

co-option of elders and customary Coalition for Unity and Democracy leaders 239, 243–6 see CUD demographic politics of space from colonialism 4, 7, 8, 10, 63, 64, 226, 227, 1991 228–30, 245–6 231 displaced communities 235–6 Congo 8 and elections (2005) 239–41, 240 Constantin, François 184 gatherings 233 constitutions inter-ethnic violence 235–6, 237, (1931) 12 242–3, 245, 246 (1957) 12 involvement of customary leaders in (1967) 12–13 politics 236–7, 238–9 (1995) 14, 122, 168–9 maps 230, 238 Council of Ministers 14 pre-colonial settlement 224–6 Council of Representatives 13 and referendum on border issue CUD (Coalition for Unity and between Oromiya Regional State Democracy) 66, 215 and Somali Regional State 223, arrest of leadership aft er elections 18, 237–8, 242 272–3 relations between customary leaders in Bale 165, 167 and TPLF 237 in Borana zone 239, 241 role of customary institutions 235 in Dawro zone 97, 98–9, 99, 101 and Somali 225–6 decision not to take up their seats in types of customary institutions 230–5 House of Peoples’ Representatives Boruu Guyyoo Boruu 237 aft er 2005 elections 272 Bòttego, Vittorio 224, 225, 226 and elections (2005) 17–18, 271 Bratton, Michael 105 in Maale 253, 254, 258, 259 Bulcha Demeksa 210 in Somali region 66, 73, 79, 84, 86–7 support of by youth 147, 148, 158–9 Carter Center 61 in Wallega 196, 200 census (2007) 195–6 in Wolayta 124, 126, 127, 129–30, 133 Central Statistical Agency (CSA) 32 customary institutions 8, 221–47 Chamber of Deputies 12, 103 co-option of 243–6 chewata 156 formal/informal divide 221 Chiatti, Remo 128 and Oromo 232–3 Chuol Pech 41 and the pastoral sector 222–3 cieng 21, 31, 38, 39, 40–1, 42, 43, 44, 50 role in assuring regulated access to Citerni, Carlo 226 natural resources 244–5 Civil Code (1960) 176–7 and Somali 230–2 civil society passing of new laws DAG (Development Assistant to regulate 274–6 Group) 273 clans (qomo) 90, 92–3 Data Dea Barata 21, 89 Oromo 232 Dawro 89–107, 118 Somali 231 allying of EPRDF with locally Wolayta 111–33 prestigious families 99–100 Clapham, Christopher 20, 204, 228, contested governance and 254, 260 legitimacy 103–6 clientalism 23, 138, 143–5, 146, 153, description 91 155, 157, 160–1, 180, 184, 186, 256 electoral results 97–9, 98 co-option institutions 90 of Islamic institutions 174–5, 178, keble structures 93–5 180, 183 mobilisation of idir during of traditional leaders/institutions 4, 8, elections 100, 101–2, 106 19, 20, 53, 64, 85, 204–5, 206, 207, mobilisation of yara during elections 212, 239, 243–6, 277, 285 by government 89, 90, 99–100, 106 index 291

and neo-patrimonialism 105–6 donor funding 273, 276, 278 rediscovering social and cultural DWPDM (Dil Wabi People’s Democratic capital 99–103, 106 Movement) 66, 78 revival of discriminatory practices under ethnic federalism 118 economic growth role of traditional authorities during and ‘democratic’ development 278–80 elections 99–103, 106–7 education 22 role of traditional authorities in expansion of in Maale 260, 262 post-election crisis 105, 107 and youth 141, 142 social background of candi- EIASC (Ethiopian Islamic Aff airs dates 99–100, 106 Supreme Council) 174, 175–7, 183, social organisation of the 184–5 elections 95–9 election rigging 17, 272, 285 state in 93–5 elections 11–19, 103–4, 257 structure of traditional authority (1961) 12 in 90–3 (1965) 12 yara practice 89, 90–2, 100, (1969) 12 106, 107 (1992) 15 decentralisation 6, 7, 9, 10, 50, 66, 253, (1994) 15–16 254, 264 (1995) 16 degegna (highlanders) 32–3, 34, (2000) 16–17 35–6 (2008) 216, 269–70 Degodia 226, 227, 231–2, 236 (2010) 132, 206, 209, 210, 211, 214, democracy 217 216, 217, 270, 276, 282 changing discourses of 269–86 common trends under the and economic growth 278–80 EPRDF 14–15 and EPRDF 216, 270, 271, 273–84 elections (2005) 3–4, 17–19, 257–8 and grassroots 276–8 contesting of results by opposition 18 legislating new ‘democratic’ crackdown aft er 18, 23, 269, 272–3, principles 274–6 282–3 models of 283–4 intergenerational confl ict 22–3 post-election crackdown and arrest of role of youth in 22–3 ‘anti-democratic’ forces 272–4, and traditional authorities 19–24 282–3 see also individual regions shift from revolutionary democracy to encadrement 20, 195, 204 dominant party 280–4 ENDF (Ethiopian National Defence ‘democracy as modernisation’ 283–4 Force) 36, 66 ‘democracy as participation’ 284 EPLF (Eritrean People’s Liberation ‘democracy as sovereignty’ 283 Front) 13, 194 democratic transitions 5, 14 EPRDF (Ethiopian Peoples’ democratisation 5, 14 Revolutionary Democratic scholarly work approaches to 1–3 Front) 10, 13, 14, 17, 50, 99–100, demography 212 144, 254 Derg regime 10, 12, 20, 93, 104, 115, business enterprises controlled 141, 144, 152, 170, 174, 179, 213 by 279–80 Dessalegn Rahmato 120 challenging of by Ogaadeen Development Assistance Group elders 70–4 (DAG) 273 in Dawro region 97, 98, 99–100 diel 40 and democracy 216, 270, 271, 273–84 Dil Wabi People’s Democratic election history 15–19 Movement (DWPDM) 66, 78 and elections (2005) 17–18, 257–8, direct democracy 223, 246 269 Diw Gatwech 45–6 and elections (2008) 270 Donham, Donald L. 21, 59, 251 and elections (2010) 270 292 index

and ethnic decentralisation 253, 354 revival of discriminatory practices and ethnic federalism 4, 10, 111–12, under 119–24 119, 157–8 ethnicity expansion of kebele strategy 277 and religion 168, 188–9, 191 in GPNRS 32 evangelical Christianity 260, 261 imposition of gott and garee Evans-Pritchard, Edward 38, 40 system 198–9, 203, 206, 212 and Islamic organisations 175 Federal Juridical Administration and Maale elections 251–2, 258, Commission 177 259–60, 259 Fekadu Adugna 231–2 and Muslim community 190 fertility rate 212 negotiations with ONLF 78–80, 87 Feyissa, Dereje 21, 31 new laws passed to regulate media, Fowsi Mohamed Ali, Sultan 79 political parties and civil Frazer, Sir James 255 society 274–6 functionalist anthropology 221 and OLF 194 philosophy of ethnic politics 10 Gababa Mohammed Guracha 231 political reforms 13 Gabra 227, 229, 236, 238 priority given to rural development Gabra Malbee 234, 245 policy 276–7 Gabra Miigo 234, 239, 242, 243, 245 religious policy 174 Gac Reth 41 restrictions placed on opposition gadaa system 9, 141, 173, 184, 206, 232, parties aft er 2005 elections 274–5 233, 234 and Somali elders 64, 87 Gambella Liberation Front see GLF and TPLF 13 Gambella People’s Democratic and urban population 276–7 Movement see GPDM in Wolayta 124–7 Gambella People’s National Regional and women’s rights 159 State see GPNRS and youth 145 garee see gott and garee system EPRDF-SPDP cooperation agreement Garra-Ganana 225, 226 (2008) 87 Garra-Lìvin 225, 226 Eritrean People’s Liberation Front Garra-Marra 225 see EPLF Garre 225, 226, 227, 229, 231, 236 ESDL (Ethiopian Somali Democratic generational class system see gadaa League) 65, 71 system Ethio-Somali war (1977–78) 64 GLF (Gambella Liberation Front) 35, 36 Ethiopia - Th e Challenge of Democracy gott and garee system 198–9, 203, 206, from Below 4 215 Ethiopia-Eritrea war GPDM (Gambella People’s Democratic (1998–2000) 176 Movement) 32, 34, 50 Ethiopian Human Right Councils GPNRS (Gambella People’s National (EHRCO) 200–1 Regional State) 4, 8, 21, 31–60 Ethiopian Islamic Aff airs Supreme boundary between indigenous peoples Council see EIASC and highlanders 33 Ethiopian National Defence Force confl ict between Anywaa and (ENDF) 36, 66 highlanders/EPRDF 34, 35–6, 53 Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary increase in political signifi cance 53 Democratic Front see EPRDF lack of political competition in Ethiopian revolution (1974) 256–7, election and reasons for 35–7 260–1 land scarcity in 51 Ethiopian Somali Democratic League Nuer perspective on 2005 see ESDL election 38–44 ethnic federalism 4, 10, 111–12, oil exploration 53 157–8 political stakes in election 34 index 293

politically recognised ethnic groups relationship with Christianity 191 in 32–3 see also Bale regional perspective on 2005 Islamic Councils (East Africa) 184 election 31–8 Islamic fundamentalism 181, 185 total population 32 Islamic organisations 20, 174 see also Nuer Islamic shrines 179–80 Gugu Obo 237 see also Hussein, Sheikh, Guji 227, 230, 234, 239, 242, 243, 245 shrine of; Sof Umar, shrine of Guji zone 22, 230 election results (2005) 239, 241 jaang 40, 55 Jaldessa Borbor 243 Habermas, Jürgen 252, 266 Jigoal Bilnyang 57 hadicho 118, 119 Jikany Nuer 54 Hagmann, Tobias 1, 21, 61, 232, 243–4, Jimma 22–3, 138, 140, 144–5, 146, 160, 246 253 Haile Mariam Dessalegn 128, 130 Jinka 251, 256, 257, 259, 262, Haile Selassie, Emperor 7, 12, 64, 103, 263, 264–6 144, 171, 176, 181 Juneydin Sado 179, 236 Hassan Gababa Mohammed 231 highlanders (degegna) 32–3, 34, Kaff a/Sheka zone 118–19 35–7 kati 255, 256 hillancha 113–15, 121 Keat Tuach 41, 43, 44, 46, 47, 49, 50, Hizia clan 114, 128, 130, 133 52, 55 Hoben, Allan 143, 144 kebeles (peasant associations) 12, 14, Hobsbawm, Eric 7 93–5, 115, 198–9, 238, Hoehne, Markus V. 64 257, 277 House of the Federation 14 Keff a 32 House of Peoples’ Representatives 14, Kembatta 32 177 Khalif, Mohamud H. 246 human rights 13, 18, 117, 174, 186, Koibe 259, 25962, 266, 267 275–6 Kolthiang 46–7, 53 Human Rights Watch 35, 174, 199 Komo 32, 34 Hussein, Sheikh, shrine of 170, 171, 171, Konso 243, 255 179, 180, 186, 187 Kumaa Dammaqsaa 236 Kurimoto, Esei 52 identity cards 153 see also youth identity card Laare polling station (Gambella idir 90 Regional State) 31, 41, 44–5, 55 mobilisation of during Dawro land reform (1975) 173 elections 100, 101–2, 106 lataliye elders 68–70, 85–6 revival of in Wolayta 120–1 Lavie, Smadar 85 youth 151n Lefort, René 252–3 inherited status Levine, Donald 141, 143 and elections in Dawro 89–107 Lewis, Ioan 231 International Fund for Agricultural liberal democracy 281 Development (IFAD) 222 Liiban Jaldeesaa 238 International Labour Organization Lister, Sarah 223, 243 (ILO), Convention No. (169) 246 Logan, Carolyn 8 Internet 214 Luling, Virginia 225, 230, 231 Irwin, Ben 244 Islam 165–92 Maale 251–67 fear of 180–1, 190 elections (1992) 260 marginalisation of 179, 181, 190 and Ethiopian revolution politicisation of 167, 181, 190–1 (1974) 256–7, 260–1 294 index

expansion of public education and MPDO (Majangir People’s Democratic increase in literacy 260, 262 Organisation) 34 extension of public sphere into Mubarak, Hosni 175 rural 260–3 Muhammed Tilma Tilmo, Sheikh 187 history of traditional Muhidin Mahmoud, Imam 187 authorities 255–7 multiparty electoral system 49–50 local character of politics 263–6 Muslims see Islam peasant mobilisation and Mzeina Bedouins 85 reasons 251–3, 260–3 recruitment of leaders by EPRDF into National Election Board of Ethiopia party 263–4 (NEBE) 17, 18, 20, 95–6, 97, 165, 216, recruitment of opposition candidates 258, 271, 272 from traditional authorities 253, neft enya 193–4, 195, 198, 205, 214–15 254, 264–6, 267 Negaso Gidada 197, 200, 202, 203, 209 spread of evangelical Christianity 260, neo-patrimonialism 46, 53, 85, 104, 261 105–6 success of opposition parties in 9/11 181 elections 251 North Omo 122–3, 124 voting patterns (2005) 258–60, 259 NPDO (Nuer People’s Democratic mahabers (peasant associations) 150–5, Organisation) 34, 42, 43 257 Nuer 21, 31–60 Mahmoud Dirir 73 and assimilationism 40, 54, 58 Mahmoud Muhammed Sayid, Cany segments 44 Imam 187 cieng politics 50–3, 58 Mains, Daniel 22–3, 137, 253 compromising of competitive nature Majangir 32, 34 of election by cieng quota Majangir People’s Democratic system 48 Organisation (MPDO) 34 confl ict with Anywaa (2002) 34, 35 Mali 8 election results from Laare polling Malla 92, 93, 99, 101, 102 station 48, 49 Mamdani, Mahmood 7 and electoral politics 40–1, 42, 50–1 manja 119 emergence of separate Th iang Mareexaan 227, 236, 238, 245 identity 54–5 marriage genealogy 39 restrictions imposed on by clan impact of electoral politics on system in Wolayta 116–17 primordialisation of Marxism-Leninism 10, 13, 281 identifi cation 54–8 Mecha Tulema Association 207 local ‘modernist’ projects and eff orts Melaku Fenta 80 to ‘catch up’ 52, 59 Meles Zenawi 13, 71, 74–6, 79, perspective on 2005 election 38–44 80, 82, 86, 216, 269, 270, 271, political manoeuvres and strategies 273, 275–6, 277–8, 279, 280–1, during 2005 election 44–9 282, 284 politicisation of diel/rul/jaang melting pot metaphor 54 distinction 55 Menelik, Emperor 114, 173, 193 power struggle between Gaajak and Mengistu Haile Mariam 12, 13, 260 Gaajok 40–1 Merera Gudina 196, 207, 208, 209 seat allocation 42 military coup (1974) 12 segmentary lineage organisation Ministry of Federal Aff airs 66, 67, 68, of 38–9 72, 73, 82 setting up of Laare polling station by Mohamed Ismail Omar 79, 80 Keat Tuach 44–5 Mohamed Serahiye, Dr. 73 social organisation 50–1 Mohamed Siraad Dolaal 81 Th iang divisions 56 Mozambique 9 tradition in electoral politics 50–3 index 295

women’s political participation 42–3, Oromiya region 4, 8, 15, 193–217 50, 53–4, 58 land transfer from Somali to 66 Nuer People’s Democratic Organisation see also Borana zone; Wallega see NPDO Oromo 3, 141, 188–9, 194 Nur mosque (Bale) 177–8, 182 in Bale 173, 188–9 customary institutions of 232–3 occupational groups see hillancha generational class system see gadaa OFDM (Oromo Federalist Democratic system Movement) 165, 167, 195, 196, 202, Islamisation of 170 203, 209–11, 215 percentage of total population 196 Ogaadeen elders 70–6, 78–80 see also and qaalluu 232–3, 235 Somali Regional State Oromo Federalist Democratic Ogaden National Liberation Front see Movement see OFDM ONLF Oromo Liberation Front see OLF Ogaden war (1978) 182 Oromo National Congress see ONC OLF (Oromo Liberation Front) 13, 15, Oromo People’s Democratic 229 Organisation see OPDO in Bale 167, 173, 174, 188, 189, 191 Oromumma 188 and Borona 229 Østebø, Terje 165 in Oromiya 194, 202, 208, 209, 217 Pal Debol 46, 48 schizophrenic nature of 194 Pastoral Community Development withdrawal from Transitional Project (PCDP) 222 Government of Ethiopia 222 pastoralism Omot Obong 49 and customary institutions 222–3 ONC (Oromo National Congress) 165, Pastoralist Communication Initiative 167, 196, 200, 207–8, 207–9, 215 (PCI) 222–3 ONLF (Ogaden National Liberation patrimonialism 104 see also Front) 62, 63, 65, 71, 72–3, 78–80, neo-patrimonialism 243–4 patron/client relationships 23, 138, OPDO (Oromo People’s Democratic 143–4 Organisation) and youth 145–6, 153–4, 155, 157, attempt to co-opt Oromo customary 160, 161 leaders in Borana 239, 244 ‘Peaceful and Democratic in Bale 165, 173, 176, 185, 189 Transitional Conference of issues hampering record of 205–7 Ethiopia’ (1991) 13 looked upon as modern-day Peasant Revolt (1960s) 182 equivalent of Ras Gobana 205 peasantry membership of 197 and EPRDF 276–7 in Oromiya region 193, 195, 197–8, Peter Lual 46–7, 55, 58 203, 204–5, 212 Petronas 53 post-election war of intimidation police and oppression against and youth 138, 146–50, 161 Oromo 193, 206 politics in Wallega 196, 197 erosion of boundaries between Opo 32 state and 169 opposition parties and religion 168–70 and elections (2005) 16, 17–18, 31 Poluha, Eva 144 harassment of candidates during 2005 post-election crackdown (2005) 18, 23, election 14, 15, 17, 19 269, 272–3, 282–3 post-election crackdown on 18–19 power see also individual parties youth and changing relations Oromiya Pastoral Development of 143–6 Commission 223 Protestantism 296 index

challenging of social stratifi cation in Sof Umar, shrine of 170, 179, 186–7 Wolayta 115–16 Somali public sphere, notion of 252 civil war 64 customary institutions of 230–2 qaalluu 232–3, 235 Somali Abbo Liberation Front see SALF qomo see clans Somali Democratic Alliance Forces see SODAF Ranger, Terence 7 Somali People’s Democratic Party see Ras Gobana syndrome 205 SPDP Ras Wolde Giorgis 255 Somali Regional State 4, 8, 10, 21–2, Red Terror 12, 213, 283n 61–87, 229, 230, 232, 239, 243 referendum (2004) 223, 237–8, 242 attempt to initiate dialogue between Regional Culture and Tourism government and ONLF by Bureau 179 Ogaadeen elders 74, 75, 76, Regional Management Institute 43 78–82 religion and Borana 225–6, 235 and elections (2005) 167 candidate list for elections 66–8, 76, and ethnicity 168, 188–9, 191 85 and politics 168–70 challenging of ruling party by revolutionary democracy 278, 281–2 Ogaadeen elders and lobbying for rul 40, 55 more political infl uence 70–6 rumours election irregularities 78 as form of political discourse 127, election results (2005) 78 129, 157 history of titled elders 63–4 meeting of elders with prime Salafi sm (Bale) 167–8, 170, 172–3, 189 minister 74–6 Salafi yya Madrassa (Bale) 177, 178, 181 political challenges encountered by Salam Muslim Association 174 SPDP before elections 65–6 SALF (Somali Abbo Liberation political stereotypes 61 Front) 182, 189 readmission of Ogaadeen elders into Samora Yenus, General 80 regional cabinet aft er Sardan, Olivier de 11 elections 77–8 Schaefer, Charles 193 referendum on border issue between Scott, James C. 100 Oromiya Regional State and 223, self-determination 9, 10, 14, 16, 81, 111, 237–8, 242 117, 122, 132, 179, 221, 246 role of lataliye elders in selection and Senate 12 promotion of SPDP candidates 63, SEPDC (Southern Ethiopian Peoples’ 68–70, 85 Democratic Coalition) 17, 127 role of traditional authorities in 10 Serneels, Pieter 142 success for Ogaadeen clan lineages sharetcho 90 and reasons 84 shari’a courts 20, 176–7 women’s political representation 43n shemageles 204, 205, 212, 217 Somali state, collapse of (1991) 228, Shengo 13 234 shift a 35, 36, 37 Somalia 8, 63–4, 183, 187, 225, 230, Shoa Oromo 167, 173, 189–90 231, 234 Sidama-Hadicho People’s Democratic South Africa 9 Organisation 118 South Omo 21 Sidamo Region 118, 119, 227, 228, 229 Southern Ethiopian Peoples’ Democratic Sierra Leone 9 Coalition (SEPDC) 17, 127 slaves see ayle Southern Nations, Nationalities, and SNNPR (Southern Nations, People’s Region see SNNPR Nationalities, and People’s SPDP (Somali People’s Democratic Region) 4, 8, 17, 21, 93 Party) 62–3, 65–7, 68–9, 71, 76 SODAF (Somali Democratic Alliance sub-kebele structure 20, 94, 125, 198, Forces) 66, 78 203 index 297

Sudan 53 ulama 176, 177, 178–9, 181, 182, 184, Sudan Interior Mission (SIM) 115 185–6, 188 Sunday Gac 47–8, 49, 52, 53 unemployment and youth 141, 142, 143 T.A. 102–3 Union for Democracy and Justice Tefera Feleke 196 (UDJ) 273 TGE (Transitional Government of United Democratic Nationals Ethiopia) 15, 222, 229 (UDN) 207 Th iang 51, 54–5 United Nations Declaration Tigray People’s Liberation Front on the Rights of Indigenous see TPLF Peoples 246 Tigre clan 113, 114, 116, 121, 128, United Nations High 129, 130 Commissioner for Refugees Tigreans 32 (UNHCR) 229, 238 Toggia, Pietro S. 150 United Nations Universal Declaration Tolossa Tesfaye 207, 208 of Human Rights 13 TPLF (Tigray People’s Liberation university students Front) 10, 13, 173, 194, 229, 237, and elections (2005) 157 257, 281 urban population traditional authorities and EPRDF 276–7 as colonial invention view 7 urbanisation 7, 51, 141, 144 dialectics and dynamics of 6–11 enhancement of local democracy ‘Vagrancy Control Proclamation’ 147 view 8–9 van de Waal, Nicolas 105 giving legitimacy to political actors 5, Vannutelli, Lamberto 226 11 Vaughan, Sarah 119 important role of 6, 7–8 villagisation programme 183, 199 instrumental in (pre-)selecting voter turnout 12 candidates 5, 11 mobilisation of voters 4, 11 Wallega 193–217 and multiparty elections in advantages of EPRDF/OPDO in Ethiopia 4, 5, 11, 19–24 elections 203 as original African institution 8 attempts to co-opt traditional leaders resurgence of view 9–10 by EPRDF/OPDO and resistance role of in future elections and to 204–5, 212 multi-party politics 284–5 coordination between opposition understandings of 6 parties in elections 202 see also individual regions decline of Oromo opposition parties Transitional Charter (1991) 13, 15 in 2010 election 210, 211 Transitional Government of Ethiopia elders versus youth 211–14 see TGE EPRDF/OPDO results in 2005 Tronvoll, Kjetil 1, 269 elections 197–8, 199–200 Tut 46, 55 ethnic divide in electoral politics 195–202 UDJ (Union for Democracy and gott and garee system 198–9, 200, Justice) 273 203, 206 UDN (United Democratic holding of self-criticism-type Nationals) 207 meetings by EPRDF/OPDO aft er UEDF (United Ethiopian Democratic elections 204, 212 Forces) 17, 18, 21 and ideal of democracy 216 in Maale 253, 254, 258, 259, 259, 264, identifi cation with polling 265, 266 station 201 in Oromiya 196, 202, 203–4, 215 issues hampering record of in Wolayta 124, 126, 127 OPDO 205–7 Ugas Abdi Ahmed Hashi 71, 79 messianic qualities of OLF 194, Ugas Mohammed Dulane 74 209, 217 298 index

party politics and power constructs exploiting of clan system by EPRDF since 2005 election 203–11 during elections 128 percentage of Oromos to history of social and political non-Oromos 196 stratifi cation 112–14 political ineff ectiveness of ONC and maintaining of social OFDM 201 stratifi cation 116 post-election war of intimidation and Protestant churches and oppression by EPRDF/OPDO 193, elections 129–30 206, 212–13, 216 restriction imposed by clan system on post-election situation of ONC marriage 116–17 in 207–9 revitalisation of old hierarchies by relations between OLF and EPRDF/ educated elite 121, 131 OPDO 195, 202, 209 revival of discriminatory practices relationship between Oromos and under ethnic federalism 111–12, northerners 194 119–24, 133 success of opposition parties in 2005 revival of idir 120–1, 133 elections 195, 196–7, 203–4, 210, traditional hierarchies and the 2005 215 elections 127–32 traditional authority Wogagoda crisis 122–4 structures 195 Wolayta Malla kingdom 112–13 voting against OPDO in elec- women tions 202, 205, 215 EPRDF and rights of 159 weakness of opposition political participation and Nuer 42–3, parties 210–11 50, 53–4, 58 and youth 217 woreda 10, 15, 19, 41, 93, 96, 97, 118, Waqo Gutu 182 132, 169, 170, 175, 189, 274, 278 War on Terror 181 Workers’ Party of Ethiopia (WPE) 13, Watson, Elizabeth 221 104 ‘wax and gold’ 157 W.S. 102 Weber, Max 104 WSDP (Western Somali Wechdeng village 56–7 Democratic Party) 78 Western Somali Democratic Party see WSDP yaa’a 232, 233, 234, 245 Western Somali Liberation Front yara 89, 91–3, 100, 106 (WSLF) 231 Yie Choul 46–7, 55 Weyto 117–18 Yohannes Genda 197 Wogagoda crisis 122–4 youth, urban 22–3, 137–63 Wolayta 111–33 and Amhara culture 140 challenging of social stratifi cation and changing relations of by Protestantism 115–16 power 143–6 challenging of social stratifi cation detaining of by police during and by egalitarianism during Derg aft er election 147–50 regime 114–15 and education 141, 142 clans (qomo) 112–13, 114, 116 emergence of as a distinct social competition between Tigre and Hizia category 139–43, 161 clans 114 and ethnicity 140 criticism of dominating clans by ayle human rights abuses against in and hillancha and fi ght to gain Oromiya by government 195 power and infl uence 130, 133 narratives of cynicism and hope election results 124 surrounding the election 155–60, EPRDF’s victory as a result of its 161 control of kebele and clans 124–7 as object of government policy 137 exclusion and stigmatisation of and patron/client model 145–6, hillancha and ayle 113–14, 153–4, 155, 157, 160, 161 117, 130 and police 138, 146–50, 161 index 299

political engagement and support for CUD 147, 148, 158–9 mahaber 150–5, 161 and unemployment 141, 142, 143 population statistics 212 versus elders in Wallega 211–14 punishment of by EPRDF/OPDO in youth associations 23 Wallega 212–13 youth identity card 147, 151, response to elections 156–8 153, 154 role played in future politics 285 seen as a problem 142–3, 147 zemecha 261