You are said to be part of the United Front of opposition parties established not long ago in America. And you have at the same time come up with the idea of merging with EDP (Ethiopian Democrats’ Party). Don’t you think this is a self-contradictory duplication of effort?

This is a very good question because people always fail to differentiate between coalitions and full integration of parties. Coalitions always have a limited time span and a limited program within which to operate with specific objectives. For example, the distant short-term objectives of this coalition (UEDF) is the 2005 election. After that the issue is moot, and it’ll have to be re-negotiated and re-discussed. And a coalition also does not require policy and program coordination. For example, some of us in the coalition believe in the private ownership of land-both rural and urban. There are others in the same coalition who believe that land has to stay with the state. And there are others who have different outlooks on land. There’s also a difference in our economic development programs. There are parties which are from the extreme left to the extreme right on the issue. They keep their own agendas for the Ethiopian people.

There’s also an agreement within the coalition that if there are parties whose programs are very close, both their short- and long-term objectives also, somehow, coalesce. It’s better to form single parties out of them. It’s not a contradiction with the coalition; but it is an objective of the coalition that unification of parties should also come. In the future, the Ethiopian people don’t need more than three or four parties in this country. If that is the case then, a coalition would not help in that because it is a gathering of parties. But if you come up and create what EDP and us are trying to create, we will end up as one party. All policy issues, all future development of Ethiopia and today’s action for change will be exactly the same. So an integration creates a strong party which can go to the election as a strong body, as a strong force so that people don’t look at each other as foes. In Ethiopia, especially, different parties have always been interpreted as foes, which, of course, is wrong.

You said that the coalition is oriented towards the upcoming elections. Don’t you think that the merger is also part of a strategy for the upcoming elections?

Yes, of course. It is one of the major issues. We don’t want to waste resources by running around in two groups. We want all resources to be channelled towards winning as many seats as possible in parliament so that we could be the next government. That’s the aim. Even with the coalition, the same aim holds true. But the coalition is of parties which field different candidates. We have to come to an agreement between members of a coalition so that we don’t compete with each other. But if we are one party, we field only one candidate and there’s no competition there. And the people in the rural areas get confused with names of parties. But if we come together, I think that confusion will end immediately.

Don’t you think that you are compromising too much by merging with EDP for the simple reason that you want to be strong and win the next elections?

We gain; and we don’t lose. They don’t lose; we don’t lose. It’s a win-win relationship because we are going to be ending up as one party. Becoming two is giving the ruling party an advantage over us because then we will be trying to convince the people to come to two different parties with different outlooks. But if we are one, the competition will only be with the government party. There are areas where there will be no other party but the two of us. So in that case then it will be the competition between this combined party - whose name we will let you know in the future - and the ruling party. That’s all. There’s no competition.

Does that mean you agree fully, completely with the political stance of the EDP as it is now?

No, we are negotiating on that. In fact, we have completed our negotiations on the political program. It’s finalized. We are almost the same even from the beginning; but now we are one; we have one program; we have one internal administrative system which in many countries is called that party’s constitution. We also have almost finalized that. So only minor issues remain. These minor issues, I hope, will be resolved in a few days’ time.

Can you tell us what these minor issues may be?

I think I will tell you when we come to a conclusion. But the major issues, issues like land, economic policy, educational policy, we have agreed on them. So these policy issues will not separate the two parties any more.

Do you think that these mergers and coalitions you have been creating will give you a reasonable chance of winning or at least being strong in the next elections?

Not only a reasonable chance, but, I think, a strong chance. If there’s a free and fair election, we firmly believe that we will be winning. The governing party will be out of power if even a semblance of democracy is practiced at these elections. But I don’t think this government has shown its democratic face yet. It’s always been subjugating people by force, wants to rule by coercion, by economic sabotage, by whatever means in its power. But this time I think they can’t play games of pitting one opposition party against another. We’ve prevented that.

So you agree with the conditions that were forwarded by the chairman of the United Front, Dr. Beyene Petros, in an interview with this newspaper some time ago, to negotiate the election process as a condition to participating in it?

Very much so. We have prepared a review of the election proclamation. We believe that it has too many holes in it which allows the government to walk through. We believe also that the Electoral Board should be neutral and not on the side of the government, and all opposition parties have to take part in its formation. Even if independent individuals, senior people are elected to run the Board, we also have to have a say to determine whether these people are really independent or not. That is the first and central issue. Number two, all election posts should have independent observers, should have each competing party’s representative; and it should be free from all manipulation by the government.

Now if that is done and if the count is completed in one day, without putting it overnight, and posted there, that’s a minimum requirement. But if you really go further, you’ll even have to change some of the legal provisions because they are eschewed in favour of the government. What they do here is they send government officials to run election posts and to be observers at these posts. But in Ethiopia, the situation is that every employee who wants to get his salary should better be a sympathizer, a supporter, or a member of the ruling party. Therefore, it is not like a democratic country that every employee keeps whatever political line he has and continue with that. But as in a socialits system, only supporters are allowed to be government employees who have critical decision-making power like in the election process. So we don’t accept them as independent observers. We even don’t accept them as registrars for voter registration because they have a tendency to eschew that also. They have eschewed it so many times before, and we don’t see any reason why they won’t do it this time round.

This government has signed agreements like NEPAD, so we expect them to abide by them. And we also request that those organizations which ensure independence of elections should monitor this. They have monitored them in many other countres - African, Asian and even in some developed countries.

Do you mean external observers?

Yes, because they are the only ones who are independent at the moment, they would not be harassed like every Ethiopian would be. He will be harassed either by economic means or by threats to be evicted from government housing or to be denied the land which he has been farming, or his company being closed down if he is a businessman or a manufacturer. So these people can’t be independent under present circumstances. The independence should come from those people who don’t have to rely on this government for their livelihood and for their survival. So that is the only way we should do it.

Do you think that donors should get involved in making sure that the next elections are free and fair?

I think if they have requested a condition to give Ethiopia support in its development program, they should ensure that that promise given by the government is kept, that it is honored. So it is incumbent on them to ask the government to conduct free and fair elections because these are the basic building blocks of a democratic society. Otherwise, dictatorships have been getting money from all these lending agencies to continue to impoverish the people. Where is the money going?

What is being created? The only thing we see in this country are roads which are being built, very good roads. That is externally borrowed money. But what we say is: What are we going to do with these roads? Are they going to be weathered down continuously without contributing to growth? The economic policy that the government has will not allow the development of private initiatives. Without private initiatives, there will be no development. All those communist countries in the past have failed because they had stifled private initiative. Now, what we say is: Why are you giving money? You build roads which contribute nothing to the Ethiopian people except for those with nice cars like us to drive throughout Ethiopia and to look around. That should not be the purpose of those roads. They were supposed to create economic development.

What all these donors should talk about is whether this money they are putting into the country is hurting the Ethiopian people or helping them. In the past, foreign governments fed 8 million of our people. Now they are feeding 15million of our people. So things are going down, not up. How much longer are we going to beg to feed our people? Wouldn’t anybody be fed up with us for doing this? So what we are saying is: Let’s have the proper economic policies and democratic governance which allows these people to come out of their hiding and start exercising their initiatives. That’s what we’re saying.

The donors are said to be moving towards what is called direct budgetary support, which will mean channeling money directly to the budget of the government. Don’t you think this too should be put on condition that the next elections are free and fair?

Not only that, you know budgetary input requires a very clear and thorough checking system. To my knowledge, this doesn’t exist in Ethiopia. The government can direct that money in any direction it wants. Direct budgetary support could also mean paying salaries from external income, which means you are spending hard currency for local currency expenses. And then we should ask: what happenes to that hard currency? We don’t print more money, we don’t create inflation, yes. But why do we have to do that? If there’s a deficit, it should be locally taken care of.

Secondly you can’t monitor a budgetary support. You can monitor project related funding. The deficit is tied to the project. The project is done, you look at the progress and the project itself. You’d say, ‘’Is this beneficial to the Ethiopian people?’’ Not strengthening a corrupt government but helping the people to get out of poverty should be the aim of foreign support. If you give the money just like that then the ruling party decides what to do with that money and it often thinks only of political survival, and projects will be related to that. And that is money down the drain, a debt which we will again request in another four or five years to be written off. This government is known for signing any papers. If the donors say, ‘’Sign this agreement, the next elections will be free and fair’’, they will sign, but the delivery has been zero, and I hope it will not be zero the next time a round because the Ethiopian people are fed up. I don’t think they’ll wait for another election any more.

You have been calling loudly for a government of national unity for some time in the past but are not now, don’t you think this is inconsistent?

Maybe you are addressing the whole opposition system. For me, as far as All Ethiopian Unity Party is concerned, we have never asked for a government of national unity or a government in exile and so on and so forth. Never. Legally or illegally, fairly or unfairly, there’s a government in power. What we work towards is to unseat that government by democratic means. It has taken us a long time to come to a stage where we can say, ‘’Now, yes, if there is a free and fair election, this government will be out of power in 2005.’’ So we have never said reconciliation. What do you reconcile? We never wanted it and never thought it will work. Now if it comes, we don’t want it because this government deserves to be kicked out for it had more than twelve years to mess up this economy. They cannot handle it. They are not competent enough to do the job. So if they want to resign, good. Even if they don’t resign, just let the democratic process take its course and this governemnt will be out.

One of the mess in which Ethiopia finds itself is with regard to the Eritrea - Ethiopia Boundary Commission’s decision. What do you think of the problem as a whole?

You know, honestly this issue is so confusing even to us who are trying to understand it. This government told us at the time of the Algiers Agreement that a miracle has taken place, that the Ethiopian people have to come out to the streets and celebrate. You have heard the radio, the television, you have read the newspapers of the government all ululating every day. Do I understand that these people don’t know what the decision will be? What they agreed to? And even after the Commission’s decision, they told us to be happy, to be merry, to go and jump up in Maskal Square because the best decision for Ethiopia has been made. Are they that ignorant? Or is it done on purpose? It is such a confusing issue. I don’t think there are that dumb bunch of people there who can’t read a map that after the map has been drawn to say this is good for Ethiopia. Do peasants from Adigrat area have to tell us that we were wrong? That’s what they did. They said, ‘’We have been Ethiopians forever. Now you come and tell us we are Eritreans. What do you mean?’’ We’re not going to be Eritreans’’

But the issue for Ethiopia is not that, to be honest with you. As far as our party is concerned, the whole system from the beginning, from the time the so-called Eritrean referendum was carried out, was illegal. This is because Eritrea was federated with Ethiopia by legal means. The UN sponsored the legal elections, the plebiscite the people voted for and fought for and gained. Now, two illegal bunch of gun-toters came and they legitimized each other. An illegitimate government cannot decide on the legitimate right of the Ethiopian and Eritrean people. So the process is flawed, in fact downright wrong. It has to be looked at in totality again.

Let’s come to the issue of the opposition as a whole. It doesn’t seem to be able to size up to the country like Ethiopia, to its various problems and the widespread nature of these problems. Why is that? Do you say you are a viable opposition to the ruling party?

I can tell you we are more than viable but the problem is we can’t communicate with the people except by going directly to them. We don’t have the mass media; we have no radio, no television. Even the free press newspapers do not get out of Addis; they are not allowed. Sometimes we sneak them out of Addis to distribute them to our members. So we are viable but the environment is not. Starting a year and a half ago we have started to go from village to village on horseback, on rented trucks, some of us even walking. We have started communicating with the people directly, that’s the only way that we can get to them. As a viable opposition, we are viable now. All we have to do is convert that to an election process where the people can show what they understand from our stand. If you look at Addis, everything is quiet because I don’t think we worked enough here. We concentrated on the people outside because Meles was always telling us, ‘’Ah, the rural people (85%) are with me, so the others can jump around but I’m going to win.’’ Now, have you heard him say that in the last eight months? Not once because he knows what we have done. He doesn’t have the rural people with him any more. Even in Tigray, we are making such inroads that give us another year. I don’t think Meles will have any chance even there. We will come to Addis because it is a very importnt place, even the secondary cities are very important. We are not strong there either. But one thing we have to realize is the peasants’ vote is as good as a doctor’s or a professor’s in a ‘’one person, one vote’’ system. So looking at the numbers out there and those in the cities, we are not worried.

Somebody may say that you’re finding it hard to convince the urban people, which are often educated, with your programs and polices for they find them to be suspect.

Our program is much more clearer than EPRDF’s. This is the most clearly written program. You look at the AEUP program, and it’s so clearly enunciated. Even our internal process of operation is so democratic that some people are surprised. If there’s a need, they can dislodge me tomorrow from my post here without any complication. That’s a democratic internal operation. If we want to bring democracy to the country, we have to be democratic internally.

We haven’t failed. You will be surprised that in the last one year of our operation so many educated and very perceptive people have joined our party. Really, I would like to see any other party which can claim people of this caliber like ours. There aren’t many. Previously we had a problem because we used to be a more ethnically-oriented party. That gave many of the educated people a repugnance that they don’t want to go in and create the same problems that EPRDF is creating. Now as an all Ethiopian party, we have people of high caliber from all ethnic groups, surprisingly. So I think a failure is not the word to use I think we are not successful as we would like to be obviously. But it takes time. One year is not long enough to convince people who we are.

You are talking about the last a year-and-a-half. What about the legacy of the past that is still with you? The group which still calls itself AAPO?

That group is not with us. That is a splinter group, which formed...

Is it really the splinter group? I think they call you the same.

We are here. We have been here. Over 95% of our party members from AAPO are here. Then, we had pushed out through the process many extremists, people who have misuesed funds and people who don’t even understand what politics is all about. So before the change we have cleaned out these people. Now the instant they got the chance that we are no more AAPO, they got together, went and asked the Election Board to stop the process of change. Of course, we have a legal right to change our name any time, which we did. But with the help of the EPRDF, they got new signatures of about 1500 people, which is the precondition to establishing a national party. They established a party and an office somewhere in Addis. To be honest with you, I don’t even know where they are located. They say it is there, but it is never open except on Saturdays. So we don’t consider them as a threat or a competition. They have disappeared completely from the rural areas. All they are doing is print papers because there’s one newspaperman who is now supporting them, and that newspaperman, we know, is supported by something else. So that man is supporting them and distributing papers. If distributing papers is a political work, let them distribute papers. But AAPO has no more positive linkage with this party, AEUP.

Isn’t it ironic to be divided in a sense to merge with another?

Look, there’s a clear-cut divide. Are you going through the ethnic line? Or are you going to work for Ethiopia? These are two different directions. There’s a bunch who say they work only for one ethnic group, they want to stay that way. And there’s another bigger group, which says, ‘’we will work for a united Ethiopia.’’ And there’s another party here which says exactly the same thing as we say. We have no ethnic difference, we are working together as Ethiopians. We include all ethnic groups in our midst. We don’t talk about the Amhara, the Oromo, the Guraghe, ... We talk about our country as equals. This is the way we operate. In Ethiopia at the moment we are working starting from Benishangul to Harar, from Tigray to Yabelo. And if you want to dislodge a government, the whole of Ethiopia has to be organized. It’s a tough job, but surprisingly the rate of success is unbelievable. Many people had real reservations when we started going on this road. ‘’And I can tell you, we are surprised to find that everywhere we’ve gone, the people didn’t want to drive us out. So when we went to Tigray only three months ago, when we started the Mekelle Office, every one said, ‘’Are you crazy?’’ I said, ‘’We are not crazy. These people are as Ethiopian as any of us. Just because TPLF misused their goodwill to separate them from the Ethiopian people, we are not going to give up on them.’’ And they have surprised us. They really accepted us, came with us, they are organizing their own people to be part of our party. So I’m really glad we started it.

Can you give us some statistics to substantiate your point?

Previously we didn’t even have all over Ethiopia more than two thousand members. We now have all over Ethiopia over three hundred thousand members.

Members as in registered members?

Registered and paying members, except in the drought-hit areas where we didn’t ask the peasants to pay. But they have promised to pay when the crop comes for the whole year. These three hundred thousand are made up of all ethnic groups. Of course, the majority are from the north. But that’s where we started, you see. We said let’s clear our backyard before we start going to other areas because we don’t want organizations like AAPO to steal them from our hands.

We’re talking about paying party members. And there’s no party, including the ruling party, that has three hundred thousand paying members. None. So it is big by any standards. But by election day, we believe this will be doubled because it is going like a bushfire everywhere. If you give one member the chance of raising ten votes, the above number becomes 3 million and by the election day it will be 6 million. I don’t think more than ten million have ever voted in Ethiopia, so I do believe this is astronomical.

Finally, opposition parties have not been doing well so far in Ethiopia during EPRDF’s reign. Do you think you have now discarded all your problems to feel optimistic about your chances in the next elections?

There are two types of problems: one of our own making, within our control, and the other of the governing party’s creation. As far as those of our own are concerned we are making a real, serious headway.

Can you mention some of these problems?

We have been weak in organizing people. We didn’t train democratic individuals to go out and create democratic institutions. We have had internal strifes and problems which at this moment we have already rectified. And EPRDF has also been infiltrating into leadership positions and creating havoc within the party so that people don’t look out to the people outside but look into their own problems. Most of them we have rectified, but there are always new ones which they create. That is part of our political struggle.

The other one is mainly of the making of the government. Number one, it is not allowing private radio and television to be established in this country. So we cannot get across our views to the public. It is not allowing the opposition parties to use government facilities even though there are regulations requiring that all parties get equal treatment. But at the moment the EPRDF has got the government radio which it controls fully, has got its own radio stations, and has got its own media centers.

Secondly, all our demonstrations or meetings are controlled by the government through what they call getting permits in advance. How do you get permits in advance to rally, to go and talk to people, to walk about, to send your musical troupe to go and get people drummed up to come to our meetings? You got to get a permit for everything.

Thirdly, it is antagonizing our members everywhere. They have gun-toters in every farmers association, and those guns are aimed at our leaders and members. They take land, property and everything you can think of. So it is using every means in its power to isolate our people. Even the Orthodox Church is used for this purpose through a leadership which the government apparently controls. So it is against all these odds that we are fighting. It is not a level field by any definition. It is a steep hill that we are climbing, and EPRDF is standing near the top and laughing at us and often it is pushing the boulders down the hill to destroy us. But I think we have learned now how to maneuver through. It is slow and hard going, the sacrifices heavy, especially by the people in the rural areas, but the success is coming.

So you believe that you will reach the top of the hill?

Not yet. We will reach it in 2005.