By Fesseha Nair
According to this article writer’s understanding, the objective of the Eritrean National conference held in 2010 and the Eritrean national congress held in 2011 were to provide a forum to all opposition forces for democratic change to discuss and negotiate political issues in a peaceful, structured environment focusing on conflict management and conflict resolution under consensus building and structured framework. In this article I will delve on how the Eritrean national conferences of 2010 and respectively the congress of 2011 failures and successes.
The failures of the 2010 conference
– The national conferences held in 2010 failed on forming a new political culture based on negotiations and compromise by persuading groups to participate more actively in the struggle against the dictator in Eritrea.
– It has failed to gain greater popular support and legitimacy and instil public confidence.
– Failed to ease tensions among the various political organizations and civil society organizations.
– Failed to be more representative and transparent so that it increases the perception of inclusiveness that would in turn bolster citizens’ support for democratic change.
– It has failed to attract the youth and the women.
– It has led to more divisions and contending groups for power among the political organizations and the so called civil society organizations.
The success of the 2010 conference
– It was a forum for all participants to express their views.
– It has provided an opportunity to build national dialogue for democratic change.
– It has helped efforts towards preparing a national congress of 2011.
– It has raised exaggerated expectations for uniting the forces for democratic change.
The failures of the 2011 congress for democratic change
– Lack of effective coordination of the activities of the commission with its grass-roots.
– Lack of cooperation between the political organizations and civic associations.
– Power struggle inside the commission tasked with the preparation of the congress.
– Power struggle between the political organizations and the commission.
– Power struggle between the EDA and non-EDA political organizations.
– Lack of clearly defined agenda.
– Lack of skills and experience of organizing conferences.
– Twisted process to the advantage of some political organizations and not for the benefit of the Eritrean people.
– Lacked to be more representative and inclusive.
– Lacked broad and inclusive national platform but become party politics contending.
The success of the 2011 congress
– Brought a huge group ( 540) participants.
– A positive initiative towards uniting the forces but not completed.
– Introduced to debate on the current and future Eritrea.
– Provided an opening to find out the weaknesses of the opposition forces.
– National council for democratic change created.
– Realizing that we still live on suspicion and blame games.
– Lessons learned that we are still in contending politics not on converging but diverging.
Evaluation of the congress will continue for our readership by this writer.
Note: The views expressed in this article are my own and have no connection with the policies of my organization.
Comments