Elections and democratization in Ethiopia, 1991–2010

Abstract

In 1991 the Ethiopian Peoples' Revolutionary Democratic Forces (EPRDF), the new party and former insurgent movement that assumed power in Ethiopia, announced a program of democratization and multi-party politics. But after 20 years of rule, no electoral alternation of power on either the national or local level has yet occurred, and what seems to have been institutionalized is a de facto one-party state with undiminished rule of the EPRDF as a vanguard party. There is a significant gap between popular expectations and realities on the ground, compounded by ethno-regional tensions. One of the core problems preventing the emergence of an open political space and a democratic transition is the ideology of “revolutionary democracy”, a self-proclaimed anti-thesis of liberal democracy and based on the Leninist principle of “democratic centralism”. This has allowed a fusion of party and state that negates the separation of powers as well as a system of checks and balances. The hegemonic aspirations of the EPRDF are confirmed and reinforced by the legacy of an inherited authoritarian political culture. In such conditions, elections have not led to the development of democratic practices.