He was talking from the United States through a video conference last week at the US Embassy in Addis Abeba, in the attendance of political party representatives and the media.
There surely have been big changes over the last two decades. The biggest change undoubtedly was the fall of the Derg and its replacement by the Revolutionary Democrats. It is no fairytale, of course, and although the "evil king was slain," that was far from a happily ever after ending.
The prince won the gun battle, and in the ensuing 19 years it would wage a mind battle with all the resources in its hands and fall far short of achieving its objective of being voluntarily elected into power, at least not overwhelmingly.
In the beginning, the Ethiopian Peoples' Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) seemed to accommodate opposition forces in the post-Derg government. But then it intensified its commitment to redraw Ethiopian geopolitics on regions whose demarcation was based on linguistic cultural-identities. The Coalition of Ethiopian Democratic Forces (CEDF) would find itself out of favour and out of the game, and the OLF was rapidly expelled in favour of the Oromo People's Democratic Organisation (OPDO) and was then militarily crushed. Lyons argues in an article he wrote in 1996 that the EPRDF's politics were bolstered by "an experienced and battle hardened military that could act decisively when necessary."
The June 1992 election, which followed exactly a year after the optimistic July 1991 national conference, held at Africa Hall in Addis Abeba, started with a positive tone, but eventually the opposition camp would withdraw complaining of various forms of harassment, and the EPRDF would proclaim a 96.6pc victory and call the election. From then on, the EPRDF would continue getting stronger and the opposition weaker.
In March 1993, opposition leaders, including some that were represented in the Council of Representatives (CoR), gathered in Paris and condemned the political conduct of the transitional government of Ethiopia. That led to those representatives from opposition parties losing their seats in the transitional council.
In December of the same year, the opposition held a conference they described as standing for peace and reconciliation, at the Ghion Hotel, in Addis Abeba. They perhaps naively expected leaders of the EPRDF to take part in it. They not only boycotted it but also arrested some of the opposition leaders who had been a part of it and come from exile, including Genenew Assefa, who now is a staunch supporter of the Revolutionary Democrats. Abera Yemaneab remains to this date behind bars, charged and convicted of involvement during the period of what is known as "the Red Terror."
During the first national elections in 1995, the EPRDF was virtually unchallenged. It won 484 of the 547 parliamentary seats.
"The major opposition movements failed to find a strategy that would force change," argues Lyons, although support for the EPRDF had diminished.
Over the following years, the Revolutionary Democrats insisted that the opposition parties play by the rules they set. They also continued resisting foreign interference in internal politics, including attempts by opposition parties to bring Jimmy Carter into Ethiopia as an arbitrator.
For a long time to come, the opposition kept trying to score points with their calls for reconciliation, and the EPRDF repeatedly turned them down claiming there was nothing to reconcile. Ethiopia would continue holding elections that were largely discounted by the local private media, opposition parties, and international observers.
A turning point, or a false promise of it, came in 2005, largely due to the sudden success of the Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD). A success Bereket once dubbed as a "windfall." Nonetheless, the CUD's multiple weaknesses were masked by the powerful debate skills of Brehanu Nega (PhD) and his friends. That success, like a shooting star, came fast and disappeared just as quickly.
Hailemariam and Bereket were right when they listed that the media, antiterrorism and civil society laws were among the many changes the EPRDF led government had achieved since 2005. Where I disagree with them is that those laws actually made life harder. For instance, as Lyons argued following the civil society organisation (CSO) law, we did not see a flourish of civil society organisations, but rather, their mass disappearance. Journalists now do not only have to look at the media law but also at the antiterrorism law. And of course, for one reason or another, the great majority of the private press disappeared after the 2005 election.
Today, as in before the 2005 elections, the voters hardly have a proper choice that promises change in the country. The last national election was a rarity when voters turned out en mass, not just because of negative feelings about the EPRDF, but because able leaders were on the horizon. That feeling, like a comet with a very long orbit, will take a long time before it visits our share of planet earth again.
Surely, it is difficult to argue that voters have much of a choice this time around. And seeing how proud Bereket and Hailemariam are with the outcomes of the laws and codes they have produced over the past five years, things may not be much better, if not worse, in 2015.
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