Preface
I was a teenager attending secondary school when armed liberation fronts toppled the socialist government in May 1991, but I was not uninformed about the politics of the day. My uncompromising socialist father had fed me constantly with all sorts of reading materials on socialist ideology and anti-secessionist propaganda at home. Added to this was political indoctrination at school and on the state-controlled media. As a teenager, I absorbed more politics than I should.

As a result, I could not have a different opinion either about the “infallibility” of socialism or the “high treason” of the armed national liberation fighters against the unity of Ethiopia. This perception was the lens through which I looked at the political transformations that took place during the first two years of the Transitional Government of Ethiopia. Towards the end of the transition period, in the immediate post-independence of Eritrea, however, I could refresh my lenses and see beyond the old propaganda. This helped me to let go of my preoccupation that Eritrea must always remain Ethiopia.

By the time the Ethiopian Federation was formed officially in 1995, I was convinced it was Ethiopia's best available choice. I followed keenly the constitution-making process and attended rounds of the local debate on the draft. The draft constitution addressed the fundamental political problems of the country and furnished columns of human and democratic rights. It sounded unique, progressive, and fair. I was persuaded that its implementation would usher in peace, justice, and an equitable sharing of national resources among all the peoples who call modern Ethiopia their motherland.

Gradually, however, I became anxious as the ruling party’s promises of democratic transformation stalled, and the withholding of constitutionally granted human and democratic rights by the government became unexceptional. The avoidable war with Eritrea and the exceedingly high death toll from the brutal battles traumatised me during my undergraduate study years when my involvement in the leadership of the university student union compounded my daily follow-up on the political situation in the country. The continued harassment, intimidation, imprisonment, torture, and extra judiciary killings of people suspected of being members or sympathisers of the Oromo Liberation Front or other opposition parties that were disfavored by the incumbent party (Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF)) became a constant trauma. The authoritarian tendencies of EPRDF and its veteran elites were alarming.

By the time I was in graduate school, both participants of the political elites in the opposition parties and the abuses of human rights by the government security forces had increased. Formal policy debates on the national policies and programs between the incumbent party and the opposition parties had begun. At the same time, selective crackdown, mass incarceration, and widespread human rights abuses had continued, particularly in Oromia State and Addis Ababa City Government. Amid this, the election campaign for the 2005 national election was promising. For the first time, the government allowed live broadcasting of political debates on the only television channel in the country. Ethiopia hoped to have its first free and fair election.

Nonetheless, the hope was dashed soon when the incumbent party resorted to the use of excessive lethal force and mass detentions to manage the post-election crisis of its own making. Government security forces massacred hundreds of citizens on the streets, rounded up thousands of youth and detained them at multiple remote military training camps for months and years, imprisoned opposition political leaders in mass, and forced a face-saving apology from them after long torturous imprisonment. These all took place under the command of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, Chairperson of EPRDF. The incumbent party became an unflinching tyrant: its high-ranking officials became unrepentant and corrupt. Ethiopia entered a very dark and disturbing political state.

After the post-2005 national election, I realised Ethiopia lacks what it needs most: informed grassroots democratic political participation of its citizens. In early 2006, I resigned from my position at the University of Gondar and joined an international non-governmental development organisation based in multiple European countries. This allowed me to focus on development cooperation work. My frequent travels to Europe and other African countries helped me better understand the political and economic disparities between the two continents and Ethiopia and other African countries. In general, Ethiopians are not serious about their politics and harnessing the power of it to improve their lives. They view it as a useless hostile game that only a few would like to play. They rarely participate in political discussions, and community-level political debates are rare. As a result, they miss the opportunity to decide on issues that matter to them at the community and national levels. In the end, I was convinced that the grassroots democratic political participation of citizens could be the key to resolving Ethiopia's political and economic problems and unleashing its enormous economic potential. Yet, when I left the country in 2010 for a lectureship scholarship at the University of Vechta in Germany, I had little hope that a peaceful change of government following a democratic, accessible, and fair national election could be possible in Ethiopia. So far, the last years have proved so, but I keep hope alive that I will be able to see one in my lifetime.

Nonetheless, living through the political transition of Ethiopia to a federation at a young age and maturing during the takeoff of the new political order has been an opportunity. Learning about the Ethiopian Federation and its unique federalism has been an opportunity. It has also been a great opportunity and honour to record important aspects of the political transformation, particularly the background, the process, and the result of the inimitable Ethiopian federalism. The first is regressively recounting the underlying political and legal backgrounds at local and international levels. The second explains how the existing political forces reshaped the old methods and introduced a new one to inaugurate a new political order. The last is an attempt to position the outcome of the first and the second and set out features and challenges of the Ethiopian federation and its federalism. Doing so would require follow-ups and analyses that help ensure presenting balanced accounts of events from the point of view of an independent outsider and helpful analysis that would advance better understanding.

This book results from an independent study to explain the Ethiopian Federation: its making, features, and theoretical and practical challenges. The constitutional pact theory of federalism guided the study. The analysis followed the political and ideological approach to the study of federalism. The constitutional recognition of national diversity, where not only all the nations, nationalities, and peoples of the federation have the right to self-determination but also all are equal, and each is sovereign, was the animating element throughout the study. The book recounts the international and local backgrounds of national self-determination and the political dynamism during the formation of the federation. It explains the conceptual underpinnings of the federalisation process and defines Ethiopian federalism with a new recognition theory of federalism that it suggests. It articulates the features of the federation in detail. Also, it analyses the conceptual and practical challenges of the federation. It is written with reserved judgments to allow general-purpose readers and students of federalism to understand the dissertation well. The work could be a contribution to the study of federalism.

Deribie Mekonnen Demmeksa
November 9, 2018
Horten, Norway