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Mr. Lobober, the Vice-President of the Republic of Lobomewa had just finished meeting the tenth delegation within the last twelve hours. Delegates from various organizations ( students, women, farmers, teachers, labor, etc.) all came to persuade him to become the candidate for the presidency. Although this was expected to be a mere formality, it was not. As the deadline for nomination approached, Mr. Lobober’s failure to declare his candidacy turned into a major political crisis.

“People ‘killed like chickens’ as ethnic tensions continue in Africa’s second most populous country”, the Guardian, June 19, 2022.

I had hoped that Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed will have the courage, wisdom, moral aptitude, and competence to transition Ethiopia from ethnic maladministration to that of representative governance underpinned by the rule of law and buffeted by strong national institutions. 

She was only 26 when she became the Queen of Britain and the British Empire. Today the Commonwealth has replaced Empire, but the Monarchy is still in charge. More or less.  At last year’s annual conference Prince Charles, now King Charles III, flew to Kigali, Rwanda, to open the sessions.

Plato, the great scholar of Ancient Greece, said that the differences between rich and poor should not exceed a ratio of one to four. In the eighteenth century the influential writer, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who gave birth to the notion of the “Social Contract”, argued that the invention of private property and immoderate accumulation are the origins of great discord among peoples. He also was one of the first to advocate a return to democracy, a system of government that had got lost once the Greek empire declined. He saw the modest reforms of his era as “garlands of flowers along the chains of iron”. He died a decade before the French Revolution but was celebrated by its leaders.