Ethnic Federalism in a Dominant Party State: The Ethiopian Experience 1991-2000 Lovise Aalen r 2002: 2

Powers and functions of the federal and regional state governments
According to the federal constitution, the federal government with a bicameral
parliament and a constitutional president is assigned the responsibility of, inter
alia, national defence, foreign relations, monetary policies and foreign
investment and the establishment and implementation of national standards on
health, education, science and technology (Art.51). The various regional
governments all have equal powers and duties, which indicates that the
Ethiopian system is a constitutionally symmetrical federal system. They are
governed by a state president, who is also the chief executive, and the state
council. The regional states are empowered to establish their own
administration with responsibility for the state’s civil service, law and order
and the state police force. It should formulate and execute state constitutions
and laws, economic, social and developmental policies, strategies and plans
and administer its own budget, and land and natural resources under federal
law (Art.52).
The federal and regional governments share the right to levy taxes and
collect duties on revenue sources, but the major sources of revenues are given
to the federal level (Art. 95-97). The states do also have the “concurrent
powers” that are given to the federal and state governments or the powers that
16
The merger was a result of an initiative from the EPRDF and its southern affiliates
(Interview Taye Amberbir, June 2000) The process behind the merger will be discussed in
chapter 6.

---

C M I
56
are not given expressively to the federal government alone (Art.52,1). But there
is no constitutional list of such powers. The federal government, however, is
given the unspecified authority to delegate some of its power to the states if
necessary (Art.50,9). During a state of emergency, the federal government can
suspend all the important constitutional provisions which are empowering the
regions, except article 39, which assures the right to national self-
determination, up to and including secession 
17
(Art. 93).