party. They should therefore not be considered as opposition parties. Among
them are the parties in power in Afar, Benishangul-Gumuz, Somali and
Gambella regions.
Through the years, the leaders of the TPLF/EPRDF have continuously
expressed the view that they are the only legitimate rulers because they were the
ones who ousted the Derg: “We [the EPRDF] fought for 20 years, and it is not
fair that any party born yesterday should compete with us. We will fight to
keep the power”
7
. What emerges from this is a strong dominant party system,
like the ones we find in Kenya and Zimbabwe. Regular elections are conducted,
but these are often fraudulent and include severe intimidation of the political
opposition.
The establishment of a federal system along ethnic lines can be seen as a part
of EPRDF’s strategy to consolidate its dominant party rule. A common inter-
pretation of why the EPRDF introduced ethnic federalism is that it was a way
of institutionalising the principle of “divide and rule” and ensuring the ruling
party’s position (Abbink 1997; Mohammed Hassen 1999). The TPLF was
politically weak when it came to power because it represented less than ten per
cent of the population. A way of securing its position was to transform the
country into ethnically defined regional states and create ethnically defined
parties under its control (Ottaway 1994). This thesis will look into these
claims by exploring whether the ruling party intervenes in the regional states or
allows the regional governments to implement the constitutional right to
regional autonomy.
The structure of the analysis Chapter 2 in this study includes an examination of different theoretical
perspectives on federalism and federal systems. It incorporates both a brief
exploration of federal theory in general and some more specific aspects that are
7
Stated by a higher EPRDF representative in the independent newspaper Eletawi Addis (Daily
Addis) in the pre-election campaign 2001.
