Global trends now show that nations have, more than ever, been ready to embrace democracy, a system allowing "the market of ideas" thrive.

 People around the world go to the polls periodically to install a new government of their choosing, as an illustration of their will to run their affairs.

 Historic as it was, the May election in Ethiopia, has redefined the political landscape establishing a pluralist society made manifest in the Parliament where the opposition have made their presence felt in significant numbers.

 Against such a backdrop, we still do have people with authoritarian mentality in the form of the hawkish leadership of the Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD).

Democrats they call themselves, but they fail to take as their equals even members of their party.  Dissent in any form will not be tolerated.  Imposition is commonplace.  Right to self-expression has been redefined to mean sick as a parrot.

From the outset, the hardliners in their blatant self-righteousness have relegated to second rate any democratic institution that came into existence without their blessing.  It could be the prosecution, the police, the Electoral Board even the courts of law. 

Discrimination against members of the ruling party and their sympathizers, which they declared in a futile attempt to isolate and thereby unseat the elected government through undemocratic means, had exposed the democratic mask they have been wearing among the unwary and the uninitiated. 

In the run-up to the elections, they were lambasting the judiciary and the legal system as a whole, which they accused, of partisanship and inefficiency.   But, it was to the same judicial system they brought fore charges against the Prime Minister. 

Now, even in the dock, they have this audacity to be defiant to the powers of the court bestowed on it by law. 

In what can be regarded as the climax or rather the denouement, the hardliners have expressed defiance to the rule of law reflecting their unrepenting and undemocratic character, which has proved detrimental to the democratic process in the country. 

Rejecting the powers of the court to look into their pending case, the hardliner CUD leadership have made abundantly clear their disdain and contempt to the court of law, the first and foremost democratic institution upon which the future of democracy hinges.