ADDIS ABABA- The ongoing multinational political parties’ active engagement in the political arena plays a central role to the country’s federal system, an expert said.
Constantinos Berhe (PhD), Professor of Public Policy at Addis Ababa University (AAU), told The Ethiopian Herald that the active participation of competing multinational political parties is fundamental to the ongoing Ethiopia’s federal system.
However, according to him, since the current Ethiopian federal structure relays on Nations and Nationalities and ethnic groups, accommodating it with multinational sentiment would be a daunting challenge.
Currently, as we have multinational political parties to compete against the ruling Front, the challenge that will come is whether if we can we maintain this kind of federal structure with these parties collectively getting the majority in the parliament, the expert questions.
“I think the Prime Minister has promised to set up commissions on this. But, this is an important issue that needs to be looked into the restructuring of the Ethiopian state.”
According to him, what has happened in 2005 should be taken as a lesson for the current situation.
The multinational nature of parties helped to gain a significant number of seats, especially for Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD), while the then situation hindered them from entertaining their idea.
“When we saw the election finally, the opposition [contending] parties were grouped in to two; Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD) and the Ethiopian Democratic Forces Unity. So, CUD made a very significant show in gaining 172 seats in the parliament.”
However, as to him, the chance for the views of multinational political parties’ to be entertained was missed at that time.
He recommends that successive debate is pivotal to create smooth condition that accommodate the multinational and ethnic based parties views apart from reaching consensus on the importance of federalism.
“The choice we have in Ethiopia is to maintain federalism with different perspective that is useful for economic development and structural transformation.”
The revival of strong multinational parties will pave the way for a strong debate, which, in turn, is expected to instigate ways to deliberate and decide upon future plan for our political structure, he emphasized.
Herald December 12/2018
BY TEWODROS KASSA
