Now, the new Pan-Ethiopian Prosperity Party has legally been registered and given certificate of recognition by the National Election Board of Ethiopia (NEBE). As a ruling party, this marks a watershed moment in the country’s political reform process started in earnest about two years ago.
With its objective of correcting the error and misjudgment of the past regime and its inner political working, the newly reorganized party is expected to be in a best position to carry out the political reform, which is duly needed in order to settle down a wide array of challenges the country has been facing.
Although there have been claims made from some corners that the Prosperity party is after building the old unitary government, it is obvious that a certain party reform has nothing to do with changing the country’s constitutional system. The objective reality also doesn’t allow doing that. So, if anything, the party reform can greatly contribute for the creation of genuine federal system.
First is the issue with the affiliate parties, which were in the background of the decision making for most of their existence in the ruling coalition, Ethiopia’s People Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF).
The newly merged party structure allows for these affiliates party to come to the forefront and play a protagonist role in the decision making process of the party. They, and other representatives of nations and nationalities, can now play a critical role in shaping their own destinies.
This is a crucial step indeed in managing a country like Ethiopia with diverse ethnic societies. Such move is likely to foster democracy, political inclusivity and address fragmentation. It goes hand in hand with the political reform that was embarked upon in order to avert the crisis the country was heading into, driven by unfair political representation and wealth distribution as well as widespread injustice and corruption.
Making sure every ethnic community is part of the decision making process means putting a stop to the top-down approach, disguised as democratic centralism championed by the revolutionary democratic principles of the former ruling coalition. That was what actually eroded the federal system the party had claimed to uphold, as decisions used to come down to the respective regions from the party’s top inner-most circle.
Genuine multinational federalism will have a shot now that the newly reorganized party aims to allow regional governments do their thing as a true autonomy of a federal unit.
Lack of democracy and absence of national institutions from the federal setup has been the Achilles Heel of the constitutional system that has led to public demonstrations of three years ago, and making sure those things are corrected is imperative to have a genuine federalism.
If there is anything to go by, that’s what we can learn from the experiences of other multi-ethic countries like Nigeria and India. Their experiment shows that a broad-based, aggregative, and multi-ethnic political parties did well than fragmented and ethnically-based party systems in fostering democratic and economic progress within multi-ethnic societies.
January 2020 The Ethiopian Herald
