Politics & Power Quote by Girma Woldegiorgis

There is a practiced restraint in Girma Woldegiorgis's phrasing that signals just how politically loaded the word "democratic" can be. He doesn’t declare victory, promise inevitability, or even claim progress. He "wish[es] to express [his] hope" - a double-layered caution that reads like a statesman’s way of acknowledging fragile institutions without spooking the people who might pull them apart. In countries emerging from authoritarian rule or civil conflict, certainty can sound like propaganda; humility can sound like credibility.

The line also quietly does coalition work. By stacking "nations, nationalities and peoples", Woldegiorgis invokes Ethiopia’s complex federal mosaic, where identity is not a footnote but the central political question. It’s inclusive language, but not innocent: it implies that the democratic project depends on balancing group recognition with a shared constitutional framework. "Efforts" does more than flatter; it distributes responsibility downward and outward, suggesting democracy isn’t delivered by a capital city but assembled - contested, even - by many constituencies.

Then there’s "our democratic order", a phrase that aims to legitimize the existing system as already belonging to the public. Calling it an "order" hints at stability and rules, a subtle response to anxieties that pluralism equals chaos. The intent is reassurance without triumphalism: democracy as a collective, ongoing construction project, one that could still fail. The subtext is that it has, before.