Well, well, well, what’s this? Another election in a land thousands of miles away, and who should come galloping over the horizon with a bulging cheque book but Her Majesty’s very own Foreign Office? That’s right, chums. Ethiopia’s electoral farce has been declared ‘flawed’ by the usual body of worthies. So naturally, the UK has pledged a cool £50 million to ‘safeguard voting rights.’ Because nothing says ‘democratic integrity’ quite like a fat envelope of cash, does it?
Let me paint you a picture. Imagine you’re an Ethiopian voter. You’ve queued for hours under a baking sun, your ballot paper is a flimsy thing that looks like it was printed in a pub backroom, and the only thing ‘free and fair’ about the whole affair is the price you paid for it: precisely nothing. But hark, a saviour appears. A pale man in a suit from Whitehall steps off a plane clutching a briefcase. Inside: fifty million reasons why you should feel warm and fuzzy about your democratic process. The trouble is, nobody asked you. They didn’t ask the Opposition, who are currently plotting their next move from exile. They didn’t ask the civil society groups, who have been banned, beaten, or ignored. They just wrote a cheque. Splendid.
This is the same government that can’t get a bloody pothole fixed on the A303 but can find fifty million quid to ‘safeguard’ an election that’s already been rigged, fiddled, and filed under ‘completed’. The logic, if you can call it that, seems to be that if you throw enough money at a problem, it will somehow become a solution. You see, the flaw in Ethiopia’s election, according to the official report, is that it lacked inclusivity, had suspect results, and was marred by violence. Let me check my notes. Yes. Elections that lack inclusivity, have suspect results, and are marred by violence are generally considered ‘flawed’. Thank you for that insight. And the answer, the grand, visionary, globally-significant answer, is to give them fifty million pounds. Because money is the great solvent of all sins. Or at least, it was in the minds of the Foreign Office functionaries who drafted this masterpiece of absurdity.
One wonders how this sum was arrived at. Was there a sale on democracy? A special offer: ‘Buy one flawed election, get a flawed election free’? Or was it a simple best guess, a figure plucked from the air like a pigeon from a park bench? ‘How much should we give, Johnson?’ ‘I dunno, Chatham House said something about fifty million. Make it so.’ And so it was decreed. The money will no doubt be spent on ‘observer missions’ (splendid jolly for retired diplomats), ‘capacity building’ (conferences in nice hotels), and ‘voter education’ (leaflets that nobody reads). Not on the things that might actually help, like fair media access, impartial courts, or a security force that doesn’t shoot at protesters. No, no. That would be silly.
But here’s the real punchline, the gin-soaked cherry on this cake of civic folly. The UK itself has an electoral system that would make a banana republic blush. We have a first-past-the-post system that routinely gives landslides to parties with minority support. We have a House of Lords that makes the Ethiopian parliament look like a model of modernity. And we have a Prime Minister who was famously appointed without anyone actually voting for him. But never mind that. We are the ones handing out lessons in democracy. With a smile. And a cheque.
So, raise your glass, if you have one, to the great Farce of Nations. To the British taxpayer who will, of course, foot the bill for this little adventure. To the Ethiopian people who will see precisely none of this money. And to the glorious, magnificent, unassailable idiocy of the diplomatic mind. Cheers.
