The Eritrean business of politics

The Eritrean business of politics

A friend of mine, who studied marketing, once noted that an idea or a political organization is like a product. You produce a high quality product based on market needs and analysis, using trained personnel, necessary equipment, financial resourses and capable management. It is not only important to produce a product but you need to market it in an appropriate way so as to make profit (a large constituency). Your product (organization) competes with many other products already in the market and it has to have some unique aspects that it caters to the needs of consumers (a constituency) to succeed. It may take time before the product gains market trust. This may be a simplistic business approach to address our political issues, but there are a number of comparisons.

We have more than 35 political organizations, many of whom are just few-members based (can sell only to less than 10 persons). Thanks to the political market we created at Hawassa Congress for democratic change, a product with even 2 buyers can exist. A man in Keren used to buy soap at 20 cents each and would sell it in Daari for 15 cents and when people asked why would he sell it for less he used to say in Tigrait ‘la Amel le meshi, tu’- meaning the most important thing is just to have a business to conduct. We do not know their political programs but they definitely include words such as democratic change. Some of those programs are just copy & paste type. There are little differences among many of those programs. It is like the traditional Eritrean business culture where when you open a shop in the neighbourhood, 2 or 3 shops pop close by competing for the limited market. It is as people are devoid of creativity. If your product (political organization) is local and caters to consumers in your locality, region or religion though you aim to sell it to the whole country; it si not going to sell beyond that local domain and even within that domain there may be many competitors. You open a Paltalk-room and of course others also open similar rooms that cater for their interests