Make PP a single Term Party!

By Samuel Estefanous

Here is the real paradox – by all objective accounts Ethiopia has been consistently registering economic growth albeit the computational variance between the government and that of IMF/WB. The IMF’s projection for the current year is actually between 6% and 7%. I believe that is the reason the Premier echoed the late Bulcha Demeks’ economic growth miracle speech at Parliament. You know to suggest something like ‘we have achieved the impossible’.

Technically inflation is kept below 30% according to the World Bank’s quarterly report for the year 2025. This is the kind of economic boom that had defined the decade before 1974. Back then oil seed export driven economic growth had transformed the face of Addis and major provincial towns. Most landmark buildings still standing in Addis mushroomed in those memorable ten years following the 1953 E.C. Coup. Naturally, millions of subsistence farmers and the urban poor were evicted to make space for mechanized farming and high rise apartment blocks.

1 – The Abba Wakos of Contemporary Ethiopia  

In the decade preceding the 1974 revolution, the traditional humane face of feudalism was dealt a severe blow. The economy was growing in leaps and bounds at a very painful cost.  A glittery phony class of the rich and the glam displaying western consumerism made its ugly appearance in the midst of the society. It couldn’t stand the sight of the poor disfiguring the New Flower hosting beauty pageants and demanded that they be shipped out to the periphery.  You don’t have to be an economist to understand the barbarity of the growth that had impoverished millions.  It was a virtual war of attrition among the greedy nascent venture capitalist, the traditional landlord and the subsistence farmer. 

It was a veritable battle fought between Tafesse and Fiewerari Teka on the one hand and Hadis and Aba Wako on the other as the struggle is beautifully narrated by Be’alu in his epic novel ‘Hadis’. What amuses me most is in the said book when it suites him Tafesse Biru plays the ethnic card while boozing in Addis with his buddies yet he goes back to his root to evict and starve ‘his own kind’.      

I guess we are pretty much familiar with what had followed that sick economic development. In a way, CETU’s press release of 14 July 2025 reminded me of the Abba Wakos of Imperial Ethiopia. The Tafesses of today’s Ethiopia have created a starving army of wage earners sneaking behind hotel backdoors to collect leftovers. God won’t let this humiliation go un-avenged in one way or another- as the ferenjis say what goes around comes around.                

Here is the real deal- the United Nations eventually figured out that crunching numbers wouldn’t bake bread. Economic development indexes care little about hunger, education, health services, etc hence members States made a commitment to eradicate extreme poverty among others before 2015. With all his faults Ato Meles fought off IMF and the WB like a cornered jackal for exactly those reasons. He wouldn’t kowtow to their persistent demand ‘to devalue, to deregulate, to revoke subsidy, to privatize, to liberalize, to blindly widen tax base’…until such time a handful oligarchs and tycoons take over the economy at the expense of the multitude.   

Now, we have submitted hands down to all the demands of the Brent Wood establishments; we have devalued, we have deregulated, we have revoked subsidy, we are privatizing like no government has done in living memory, we are liberalizing like no other even when America is ditching it all slapping tariff left and right. As to the MDG, the government isn’t too eager to release reports. It wouldn’t dwell on the SDG either. The recent third round Voluntary National Review consultation didn’t make us understand anything concrete. 

2 – Land to the Fereneju Gorebete!  

There is this one thing I liked about EPRDF. It declared land in Ethiopia would be traded like a commodity over my stinking dead body. In plain words it was telling us that the day ‘commercializing land’ is sanctioned EPRDF’s relevance and existence would be doomed.  That was being brutally honest. Commercializing land eviscerates the very essence of Dergue and EPRDF. Colonel Berhanu Bayeh writes that as long as the proclamation ‘Land to the Tiller’ was enforced he had believed any government who might come to power was revolutionary. Land to the Tiller is such a sacred hallowed cause which has claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of Ethiopian youth and it remains the one outstanding collective legacy or political “Magnum Opus” of EPRP, AESM, Dergue and EPRDF.

Following suit, the FDRE Constitution while entitling the government to lease or make any other arrangement to develop land by investors, it exclusively bestows ownership of land on Nation, Nationalities and People of Ethiopia. I just don’t understand how ownership of immovable property including land by the ferenjis fit in this constitutional framework.  I am not remotely being xenophobic or something. Of all people, we Ethiopians cannot afford to be one considering the millions of our compatriots being generously hosted by other countries and communities. Yet we cannot deny the fact that by the writ of this piece of legislation all those ‘Ferenju Gorebete’ guests on EBS TV become proud members of any one of the Nations, Nationalities and People of Ethiopia. 

3 – Make ‘em pay till they Croak 

There are three things I like about PP- its quest for a tiny vista into the wide open sea, its ability to implement health insurance schemes to a segment of the society and its commitment not to ditch the GERD unlike other Mega projects. I would be lying if I denied the kudos in all these three endeavors. We also understand the kind of doldrums the government found itself in trying to balance cutting tax and increasing salary. We fairly well know how taxation works. We aren’t that stupid. 

What eludes the overwhelming majority is the never ending soliciting for money by government functionaries especially in Sheger. Day in and day out they aren’t tired of knocking at the doors of families unable to make ends meet. Contribution is required to purchase the Premier’s books, to feed and dress the militia, to maintain roads, to welcome guests from other zones, to celebrate the birth of ‘Sheger’ City, to cover expenses of all sorts of public events etc. If one stays a week with a family in the said locality he could witness even more. How are you managing it all? A retired family head was asked and his reply was gut wrenching ‘thank God they haven’t yet begun demanding contribution to celebrate the chief’s birthday or to maintain the fences of their sprawling private buildings… What beats me is in my wildest dream I didn’t expect the dividend of our happy contribution for GERD would come in terms of paying a quarter of my pension to settle electric bills for three LED light bulbs. ’ 

Lease payment, rates for utilities like water and electricity aren’t doubled, quadrupled or something suddenly it skyrocketed to more than ten times while disposal income of the residents remained constant. Most disheartening of all, hard pressed wage earners who had believed that they have saved a small sum for lean times over a long stretch of service have suddenly found out that their savings are worth nothing- ‘it wouldn’t buy a decent graduation suit for the first born in the family’.  

3 – Bottom line

True, a handful of wily enterprising entrepreneurs in collusion with unscrupulous professional enablers have amassed vast filthy wealth. PP cadres are happy as a pig in mud, no doubt about that; granted PP has made a tiny portion of the society happy while the rest of the society is being consumed by muted black despair. Hence given that in democracy numbers do the magic trick and I am asking- against this bleak backdrop, does PP in good conscious dare conduct and take part in the next election?  Assuming it is going to be fair and square?  Bottom line the only credible factor that has kept PP in office is the radicalism and subsequent alienation of the opposition by the majority of the public.  Thus, to honor this hardy Nation of decent folks, PP should begin exploring other alternatives, bargaining its way out being one. Besides, there is no shame in being a one term party. There is always another time.  

God Bless.    

The writer could be reached at : estefanoussamuel@yahoo.com

Editor’s Note : Views in the article do not necessarily reflect the views of borkena.com      

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