Features

[This talk was delivered at the Afrikan Liberation Day symposium, at the Drill Hall, Gauteng, South Africa, 25 May 2015.">

OPENING REMARKS AND DEDICATION

To no one’s surprise, Ethiopia’s ruling party, the Ethiopian People’s Ruling Democratic Front (EPRDF), swept the country’s recent national elections.

The May 24, 2015 Ethiopian election is an archetypical political process where authoritarian developmentalism went to the poll seeking procedural democratic legitimacy for its less inclusive economic growth and severely restricted civil and political rights of citizens.

According to the National Election Board of Ethiopia, the result of last week’s national election is that the EPRDF (Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front) has achieved a complete victory by grabbing all the parliamentary seats.

Many observers believe that the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have been a resounding success in Africa: secondary-school enrolment grew by 48% between 2000 and 2008, malaria deaths in some of the worst-affected countries have declined by 30% and HIV infections by up to 74% (August, 2013).

We live in a world of paradoxes. On the one hand, the world has never been wealthier: In spite of the global financial and economic crisis of 2008, global wealth grew to US$120 trillion in 2010 – an increase of 20 percent since 2007. Yet, on the other hand, the world has never been more unequal.

It was President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf of Liberia who said at the opening of the International Institute of Democracy and Electoral Assistance [IDEA"> Seminar on ‘Women and Parliament’, 26 September 2006, in Accra, Ghana, that, “We are aware as a result of our fortitude and struggle that there

THE JOURNEY

INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION