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

partner to the Amhara, was economically neglected during the Haile Selassie
and Derg regimes. The Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) was officially
established in 1975. Their manifesto from 1976 called for an independent
republic of Tigray, but this was later modified to cultural and political
autonomy for the region within a united Ethiopia. There were competing
factions within the movement, disagreeing on whether the front should be
exclusively Tigrayan with nationalist aims, or an ideologically based nation-
wide organisation. In 1985, Meles Zenawi and his Marxist-Leninist League of
Tigray emerged as the winner in the internal struggles. From then on, the TPLF
had the aim of building a multi-ethnic Marxist-Leninist party against the Derg,
but only nationally based movements were allowed to be included (Young
1997: 139).
The TPLF operated as a guerrilla movement in alliance with the local
peasantry. It conducted successful hit and run operations and in 1989 it had
liberated the whole of Tigray region. A broader based movement, the Ethiopian
People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) was created by the TPLF
the same year and provided it with allies when it proceeded to Addis Ababa to
topple Mengistu. Initially, the EPRDF included the Ethiopian People’s
Democratic Movement, an Amhara based organisation which later changed its
name to the Amhara National Democratic Movement (ANDM), and Oromo
People’s Democratic Organisation (OPDO), created by the TPLF in 1990 and
largely based on former soldiers of the Derg captured by the TPLF (Young
1997: 166). Apart from being the creator of the new front, the TPLF dominated
its armed forces by providing two thirds of the soldiers (de Waal 1994: 30).
When EPRDF arrived in Addis Ababa it met no resistance. The Mengistu
regime had lost crucial external support when the Soviet Union was dissolved,
and before the EPRDF arrived Mengistu had fled to Zimbabwe, aided by the
United States. Negotiations hosted by the Unites States and the United

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Kingdom started in London and the Americans blessed a new Ethiopian
government led by the TPLF/EPRDF and an independent Eritrea controlled by
the EPLF.
The National Conference on Peace and Reconciliation in July 1991 was
meant to lay the foundations for a transitional period after the regime change.
It included selected individuals and twenty-seven political organisations. A
precondition for the organisations to be allowed to take part was that they
were ethnically based. Some of them were created for the occasion and hence,
small ethnic movements with urban elite as leaders mushroomed (Vaughan
1994: 45). Individuals or movements which had been affiliated with Mengistu’s
WPE or organisations with a violent strategy and a non-ethnic base (like the
EPRP) were excluded. The Transitional charter, which worked as an interim
constitution, adopted EPRDF/TPLF’s ideas largely unmodified, although the
OLF played an important part in the shaping of the document (Leenco Lata
1999). The charter assured the right to self-determination for nations,
nationalities and peoples, the independence of Eritrea and the aim of
establishing elected regional and local administrations based on ethnic lines.
The TPLF-leader Meles Zenawi became President of the Transitional
Government of Ethiopia (TGE) and out of eighty-seven members of the Council
of Representatives thirty-two belonged to the EPRDF. All this leads to the
conclusion of one foreign observer, that “[a]lthough the 1991 conference may
not have resulted in a one party government its convention reflects to a large
degree a one party dynamic” (Vaughan 1994: 60).
Despite the TPLF/EPRDF’s dominance, the TGE had initially a relatively
broad base. Even the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), which was antagonistic
towards the new “Abyssinian rulers” was a part of the TGE, with ministers in
the cabinet and 12 members in the Council of Representatives. The OLF had
been founded in 1974 to fight for an independent Oromia and the rights of the
Oromo people. The strategic co-operation between the OLF and the TPLF
ended in 1986, when the TPLF was trying to get the OLF under its wings. The
relationship between the two movements deteriorated in 1990 when the TPLF
created its own Oromo satellite, the OPDO. The animosity escalated into
armed fights in the south-east of the country started in August 1991, which
also included Somali and Afar factions in 1992. In the wake of the fights
twenty thousand Oromo were imprisoned, suspected of being OLF members
(de Waal 1994: 27).
The first elections in the transitional period were conducted in 1992, to fulfil
the aims of empowering ethnic and national groups by decentralising authority,
federalising governmental structures and providing local government (woreda
and kebele) with a popular mandate (Tronvoll 2000: 22). The three major
groups contending for power were the All Amhara People’s Organisation
(AAPO), the OLF and the EPRDF. Essentially, the AAPO represented the urban
Amhara in Addis Ababa and other larger towns and works for regaining the
Amhara’s lost positions, for the unity of Ethiopia and against Eritrean
independence and ethnic federalism. During the pre-election campaign, the
major parts of the opposition withdrew claiming that it could not participate
on free and equal terms because of harassment and intimidation from the
EPRDF. The OLF also withdrew from the TGE. The EPRDF won 96.6 per cent

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of the vote
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and achieved its goal of gaining a mandate to consolidate its rule
“in the name of peace and stability” (Abbink 2000: 161). At the end of 1993,
however, the governing coalition was further narrowed. The EPRDF threw out
the Southern Ethiopian Peoples’ Democratic Coalition (SEPDC) from the
government because they had been part of a joint opposition statement
condemning the TPLF/EPRDF’s policy of creating puppet parties among the
ethnic groups in the country.
During the election for the constitutional assembly in 1994, the opposition
maintained its boycott, claiming it was better not to participate at all than to
win a few seats here and there in an unfair competition. Several international
observers described the electoral process as unfair because the EPRDF
dominance prevented the free expression of choice (Pausewang 1994). The new
constitution, the main document for legalising and formalising the federal
system, was ratified by a Constitutional Assembly totally controlled by the
ruling party in December 1994, and came into effect in August 1995.