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

EPRDF
TPLF
ANDM
OPDO
SEPDF
26
(Tigray)
(Amhara)
(Oromiya)
(SNNPRS)
Formal
members
26
The SEPDF is itself a coalition of several parties in the southern region.

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APDO
SPDF
 HNL
GPDF
BGPDUF
(Afar)
(Somali)
(Harari)
(Gambella)
(Benishangul-
Gumuz)
Affiliate
parties
In addition to the member parties, the EPRDF has close allies and affiliate
parties in the other regional states of the federation. These parties are formally
independent from the ruling party, but cannot be seen as opposition parties
because of their tight links to the EPRDF. Currently, there are EPRDF affiliate
parties in power in all the regional states not ruled by EPRDF members, and
these are also representing the regional governments in the federal institutions.
These are the Afar People’s Democratic Movement (APDO) in Afar region, the
Somali People’s Democratic Front (SPDF) in Somali, the Gambella People’s
Democratic Front (GPDF) in Gambella, the Benishangul-Gumuz Peoples
Democratic Unity Front (BGPDUF) in Benishangul-Gumuz, and the Harari
National League (HNL) in Harari (Figure 6.2). The EPRDF has been
instrumental in creating all the regional affiliates (Young 1999; Markakis
1996; Gibbs 1998) and is working closely with them. But the EPRDF claims
that so far these parties do not satisfy the conditions the ERPDF has set to
allow parties to become members of the coalition. As the speaker of the House
of Peoples’ Representatives, Dawit Yohannes, expressed it: “We are a
revolutionary democratic party and apply strict criteria for those organisations
that want to become members of our coalition. So far they have not reached
this stage. An example is the Afar and Somali parties, which because of their
Muslim dominance, have not been able to fulfil the criteria of gender equality”
(Interview November 2000). The EPRDF is continuously following the
development in the affiliate parties and is assisting them in what they call
organisation building. In all the lowland regions, EPRDF officials have
arranged so-called “peace and development conferences” to sort out clan or
ethnic differences and unite the contending groups under one party umbrella: “
We are giving political assistance to the regions and the conferences are a
medium to bring political fractions together” (Interview Dawit Yohannes
November 2000).
The principle of democratic centralism and accountability upwards
Concepts like “good governance” and “economic liberalism” were taken into
the EPRDF vocabulary when they came to power in 1991, much to please the
international diplomacy and the donor community. The TPLF rejected
Marxism and abandoned its admiration for Albanian socialism in 1989, but is
still committed to “revolutionary democracy”, and the principle of democratic
centralism has a great impact on how decisions are taken within the party. The
old management methods dominated by secrecy and conspiracy are still
prevalent and very little of the decision making process inside the party is
exposed to the public. A researcher who knows the TPLF organisation from

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inside claims that “A lack of transparency is evident at every level of
government, in spite of the ready reference of the EPRDF leadership to
democratic jargon” (Young 1997: 211).
The ruling coalition is led by the central committee, composed of sixty
members from the four member parties. The committee elects the executive
council, including five members each from the four parties. The central
committee and the executive council take care of the daily work between the