Post Election Syndrome (PES)

The word of the week is “Teremes” (ambiguity) and the highlight of the week was PM Meles’s press conference the evening of the election banning any kind of public gathering and putting all security forces under his command for one month. I am confused as to what his intentions are.

For something that happens every five years the election was pretty disorganized, some polling stations didn’t open till late therefore had to stay open till the morning of the next day, which was a big inconvenience for voters who already had to endure hours of lineup. oh, there were a few polling stations that run out of ballot cards. That being said, the polls went peacefully, nothing major happened besides a few arrests here there, a case of a few thousand pre-marked ballots (someone was kind enuf to help out with the voting) and missing ballot boxes. The military presence in the city has gone down since the election but I still don’t get the need for jeeps with machine guns and rocket launchers mounted on them.

Official national results won’t be released till June 7, 2005, twenty three days after the poll date. For now, stations that have finished counting are releasing their results and everyone seems to be claiming victories. The RP has up-ed the claiming-race by giving a press release the day after the election that they have secured enuf seats they need to establish a government. Officially, CUD (kinijit) has won 100% of the seats in Addis and a few other major cities where most of the cabinet ministers of the RP were running. PM Meles could have won by defacto considering he was the only candiadate for his area but the polls still went as scheduled. The one vote he casted for him self could have also been sufficient. The majority of the RP high ranking officials have lost the election. Even our most respected mayor lost despite the last minute pardon he passed out to taxi drivers with huge amounts of fines. What makes their loss more agonizing is the amount of votes they got compared to the OP candidates. A co-worker put it as “it’s like looking at a very not to bright student’s report card”, in most places they got anywhere from 10% of the votes to ZERO.

Be it EPRDF wins the election fair and square with the votes they get in rural areas, it makes me wonder how they are going to establish a government with out their “cream of the crop” when there is no potential new comers the public is aware of. Even if these people make it to the federal level because their party won just like the previous election, how are they going to cope with the public rejection? Let’s assume they have sold their shame for a lump of coal and they take their previous posts like nothing happened, would the public sit and look when their vote is put down the drain? gonna stop here, my brain hurts, must be a case of PES.