History has it recorded that Ethiopia has been introduced with political parties in the late 1960s, though highly marred by discouraging chronicles as many had to pay the highest price to realize true political landscape.
Thus, multiparty political system is a recent phenomenon to Ethiopia. It was officially introduced when the FDRE Constitution was adopted in 1995. Since the overall goal of a political party is bidding clear alternative ideologies to citizens and thereby assuming power by winning election, any party, right from its inception, functions by rallying people with similar points of view on the ideologies and alternatives it resides on.
Many agree that a “strong” party is a party that presents voters with a coherent policy agenda on both sides. As the wave of democratization has shined in Africa as elsewhere in the world, taking many different shapes and forms, Ethiopia also passed through various political changes: from the iron fists of imperial regime and the so-called Marxist military rule to the revolutionary democracy for decades.
Yet, the progress has still remained to be a meager one. Despite that the constitutional guarantee made to multiparty system has led the nation to the mushrooming of political parties over less than a period of three decades. And one that has been entailed along with and even considered by some as a “problem” is the fact that several parties focus on ethnicity than alternative political ideologies.
Most of the parties rely on ethnicity which adversely affects the emergence of strong political parties with broader national agendas, some analysts say. Other politicians say that having parties with ethnic foundation by itself is not a problem. For them, there is nothing wrong with the parties’ priority to draw membership and acceptance of the specific ethnicity they promote. The problem is their lack of viable policy alternatives and ideology.
On the other hand, multinational parties with the focus of citizenship politics are highly confined to cities, especially to the capital city; whereas the great majority of the population is residing in the rural areas. Prime Minister Dr. Abiy Ahmed called upon all parties to come united with strong and viable ideologies, strategies and policy alternatives.
Taking the conducive political space as a sound opportunity and aiming to come strong, some political parties recently announced readiness to come united. However, the public needs to hear more of that unification news accompanied by national policy frameworks and unity.
The Ethiopian Herald, December 26/2018
BY MENGISTEAB TESHOME
