Ethiopia: The Interplay Between Federalism and Dominant Party Rule and the Sidama’s Quest for Statehood

What is it about?

The structure of party systems and the role played by political parties is a particularly important determinant of the operation of federal systems. The way political parties are organised might reinforce or corrode the federal division of power. Ethiopian federalism is a case in point: although the Ethiopian constitution gives wide rights of autonomy for regional states, including the right of secession, the centralized dominant party rule of the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) has in practice undermined the regional states ability to determine their own affairs since 1991. Throughout EPRDF’s rule, the constitutional right to secession, for instance, has not been tried for larger sub-national groups. In this paper, the Sidama quest for regional statehood will be discussed. This quest has been suppressed until recently, when a split in the ruling party led to political liberalization and a new party leadership. The change in the ruling party enabled mass mobilization, which ultimately made it possible for the Sidama to conduct their constitutional right to referendum for a separate regional state in 2019, resulting in the decision to establish a new regional state in the Ethiopian federation in 2020. The creation of the national Prosperity Party, replacing the old EPRDF, may however lead to a recentralisation, showing how federal structures are vulnerable to changes in national political power.

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