Reflections on Elections

Some significant events in our lives have taken place at or around election time, not least Aaron’s birth, the 28th anniversary of which was celebrated last week. I had helped bring Mrs Thatcher to power in 1979 – something I had begun to regret by the time she was up for her third term on 11th June 1987. Having sat up until 3am watching the results I sullenly slid into bed knowing the “Iron Lady” was going to win again only to be woken up by Chris 30 minutes later to be told her waters had broken (Chris's, not Mrs Thatcher's). Later that day we had met Aaron for the first time and Mrs Thatcher was in power for the last time .

I’ve always enjoyed elections and watching the results show this time, which I managed to see live, was all good fun and not a little surprising. it was an interesting opportunity to compare and contrast the parliamentary elections here in Ethiopia which took place on Sunday 24th May 2015. While UK elections are tinged with fun, the voting here was tinged with fear – fear of a repeat of the violence experienced in 2005 when a lot of seats were won by the opposition parties. This happened as the results were revealed, which takes several weeks after the actual voting. So no election night TV fun here!

Finding out hard and fast information about what to expect during the elections was almost impossible – rumour and misinformation were rife. The only campaigning we ever saw was from the ruling party (the EPRDF) including everywhere huge posters always featuring an image of a bee. None of the medical students in my mentoring group at the medical school intended to vote because they thought it was a waste of time – the outcome was inevitable. Haile thought it was all a storm in a coffee cup, and that come what may the EPRDF would manoeuvre themselves back into power. Various things happened in the days running up to the voting that prevented the opposition parties profile being anything other than rather low.

On election day embassies were issuing warnings to take great care and many people stayed in, just in case. Seble was very worried that we might venture out and implored us not to. But as it was a Sunday and I was supposed to be doing a bible study at church between the two morning services we carried on as normal. Lines of mostly men were queued up outside polling stations as we drove to church around 8:30am. Everything went off peacefully, but the results won’t be formally released until 22nd June when we will be safely in the UK for our “rainy season” break.

On Monday morning I asked Tigist if she had voted. With her usual enormous smile she replied “of course!” and showed me her thumbnail. On it was some purple ink that proved she had voted and prevented her from doing it more than once.

As I watched a new government develop peacefully in the UK and take up the reins of power I was left wondering what would happen here when the results are released. Safe to say you will hear little about it from the British media, and I expect little will change. Ethiopia’s nascent democracy has yet to fully shake off the shackles of the past.

Car Wars

Take 100,000 people who have never been taught to drive. Teach them how to mechanically operate a car. Tell them there’s one traffic law – drive on the right. Then set them free in a city with little meaningful traffic control and practically no road signs. What have you got? The roads of Addis Ababa. I’m sure that’s not too far from the truth. I know roads in some Asian settings are far worse than here, but driving is a constant challenge that needs a chunky vehicle. Our little Toyota Corolla did us proud, but every time we’ve wanted to venture out of Addis we’ve needed something tougher . By one of those amazing life coincidences Dave Harris, a fellow student at UCL in the 70s and an usher at our wedding, has been working in Addis for a few years and on moving out west decided he needed to sell his vehicle. So our little Corolla has turned into a tough, chunky  4x4 Ford Ranger truck. When I advised the UK SIM finance director of how much money I needed to transfer to pay a substantial donation to the Ethiopian government’s coffers, his only response was “Phil those figures are ridiculous!” And indeed they are. I have never and will never fork out this much money on a vehicle in the UK. The car market here is incomprehensible, inflated by the unaffordability of new vehicles to anyone other than the nauseatingly rich, NGOs, the “Corps Diplomatique” and the Government. Dave’s car is only 3 years old and therefore attracts an eye-watering tax bill. To pay no tax you have to buy a vehicle over 10 years old. Even then some Toyota Land Cruisers attract prices of over $60,000 when 25 years old with enough miles on the clock to have circumnavigated the globe 10 times. Ah well, it’s only money…

Holidays…

I doubt we will be writing much in the next few weeks. Next Saturday 20th June we arrive in the UK for six weeks of R&R while it rains cats and dogs here. We will get to see all our kids, their spouses and children as well as mum, sister Lizzy and her family, and several friends. I’m also squashing in some education on tropical medicine. We will be in St Albans, Chelmsford, Norfolk, Silverstone (guess why…) the Lake District and Pembrokeshire. It’s a year’s worth of holidays squashed into one and we can’t wait - we’ve not had a proper holiday since Christmas and we’re both feeling the need of a break. We’ll be back here on 2nd August ready to move into new (literally) accommodation in a new build on the Bingham compound.