Despite the deep rooted ethnic based establishment, various political parties are now craving for forming coalition in a bid to promote citizen politics and create competent party that would be elected for its relevant notion than affiliation, experts say.
Following Prime Minister Dr. Abiy Ahmed’s call for having three or four strong competing political parties, recently some parties are showing keen interest in forming coalition and some of them have already become coalition.
Accordingly, the Patriots Ginbot 7 Movement for Democracy and Unity, Semayawi and Ethiopian Democratic parties have been expressing their readiness to form unity with a motive to be competent party with a base of Citizen Politics ideology. On the other hand, some ethnic based parties such as the Oromo Democratic Party and Oromo Democratic Front have also agreed to work together.
Forming a coalition is a significant step in the national endeavor to bring about competent parties that effectively challenge the leading party using notable ideology and this is also supported by the constitution, says Assistant Professor Legesse Tigabu, Law and Federalism Lecturer at the Ethiopian Civil Service University.
As to him, article 30 of the constitution states the establishment, elimination, unison and coalition procedures of political parties. Art. 38 and sub article two note that a member of a certain party can leave to other party regardless of his/her ethnicity with an exception of the person engagement within two parties at once.
Therefore, the constitution allows the political parties to form coalition based on regulations and it is significant to give voters to arrange their choice to the better party, he says. However, the country’s deep rooted ethnic based establishment might affect this good deed. According to Anbese Fura, a Law Lecturer at Hawassa University, ethnic based party has negative impact on other ethnic groups as its main goal is marginalizing others. As it demolishes the culture of tolerance, there would no art of compromising.
In this regard, the government ethnic federalism mainly entertains diversity and disparity which ensures antagonism among the country’s various nationalities, he states. In addition, the government ethnic based federalism has encouraged various groups to establish ethnic based party. Ethnic politics is mainly entertains kinship political gain. The ethnic parties have used the system to personal gain, and our people have suffered a lot from it, he notes. Ethiopia became among the top world countries in internal dislocation accounting 1.4 million displacements in the mid of 2018, the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre report indicated.
There were a total of 1,391,000 new displacements linked to ethnic conflict between January and June 2018. Even today some old guards observed shielding under their ethnic to escape from accountability to their misdeeds during their term, revealed the Federal General Attorney last week. “It is obvious that the TPLF was the mastermind behind the EPRDF coalition. Therefore, we should learn from this, when the contesting political parties form coalition, they should agree at least one thing, to exercise power equally,” as to Anbese.
However, expansion of ethnic based political parties possibly influence other parties organized in citizen politics as the atmosphere brings unfair competition between ideology and kinship, he states. To create a democratic nation, every individual and political organization should play its due role in supporting idea and policy than name and affiliation, he underlines. But as a beginner, the political parties should work together regardless of ethnicity.
Minority ethnics have 20 seats in the Council of House of Peoples Representatives, but even this doesn’t have notable impact on parties to be established representing a certain group, he believes. Although article 31 the constitution grants the rights to every person to form association, most of the country’s political parties including in the leading coalition are ethnic based ones, Assistant Professor Legesse expresses. So what caused the prevalence of ethnic based parties? According to him, the political parties’ registration proclamation allows the establishment of state based parties based on their wishes but they need to engage every interested individual regardless of ethnicity.
The regulation orders the state party to have 750 founding members and at least 60 percent of the members to be hailed from the establishment region with the requirement of knowing the state language. However, even in this case, the parties and their members are mainly from a certain ethnic, he notes. On the other hand, the proclamation also entails the establishment of parties advocating citizen politics and they can be organized at least in five various states with 1,500 founding members and each states would have15 percent members, according to him.
The country’s election recording intends to non proportional voting system. The existence of such proclamation may allow some parties to form a government whenever they face opposition in a certain part of the country, he doubts. Such voting system prevents the participation of various parties in the parliament. Therefore, absence of proportional vote approval system disabled the country to exploit the potential of mass voted parties, he states. There is no dominant population in the ethnicity, the gap is narrow.
For example, if an Oromo party wins the election, it might take 35 to 40 seats in the parliament which doesn’t allow forming a government, Anbese believes. Group rights such as the right of nation and nationalities seem to influence the parties to be ethnic based. The major shortcoming in the constitution is the recognition of citizens as a group than individual item, according to the Ass. Professor Legesse. However, the developed world mainly concerns on individual liberalism than group. US, India and South Africa follows such individual liberalism kind of federal approach in which every citizen can participate either as a candidate or a voter in any place of the country or regardless of ethnicity or other difference.
Furthermore countries such as Ghana strictly prohibits ethnic based establishment of any political party, he discloses. Conversely, in Ethiopia, ethnic based structure has been deeply rooted since the 1980s, he says adding, for the past two decades the country has not led by a single [Citizen Politics advocating] national party.
“I hope such national party would come if the country consistently endeavors to engage various parties democratically through amending the aforementioned voting system and establishment procedures.” The experts believe that working for coalition among various parties despite their establishment difference and dreaming citizen politics in the long run would enable the nation that has suffered a lot from the ethnic based political structure from enjoying miscellaneous thought in its parliament and to be strange for change yet.
The Ethiopian Herald, January 8/2019
BY YOHANES JEMANEH
