THREAD. Samuel Huntington’s Paper to TPLF’s Constitutional Commission (1993)
1) In March 1993, one of the most renowned political scientist and historian and Professor of Government, S Huntington presented a seminal piece of work on what Ethiopia’s constitutional design better be like.
2) TWO THINGS: 1) Huntington’s recommendations were all on point and he fore saw the risk of what would happen if Ethiopia settles for an asymmetrical ethno-federal design where both the territorial units and the political parties are fashioned along ethnic lines
2) Meles Zenawi’s regime DID exactly the opposite on almost all the recommendations and led us the current quagmire we find ourselves in.
Here below is a tight summary of the recommendations.
A) A dominant party system that relies on the support of peasant masses who own land and are properties. Huntington calls it a “free farmer” society. The EPRDF constitution officially declared land as State property and made Ethiopia’s peasantry a tenant of the State.
B) A strong Presidential system- that represents “the unity and continuity of the Ethiopian state” The TPLF constitution settled for a Parliamentary system with a PM office.
C) A “Mixed Electoral system” to “allow ethnic parties have a voice but force inter ethnic collaboration” e.g run offs. Instead, First past the post (FPTP) became the rule of the game disincentivizing any inter-ethnic collaboration or coalition building.
D) Geographic Federalism - “A larger number of smaller states rather than a smaller number of larger states will provide greater opportunity for particular geographic or ethnic groups to control a state, reduce the probability that a significant group could be a perm. minority”
E) Huntington added such a Federal design will “make itmore difficultfor any individual state to secede” . Meles Inc. did the opposite. Settles for “large ethnic states” that reduce many groups into permanent minorities. They also enshrined Art 39 as key cornerstone.
F) No Formal Ethnicity- Huntington recommended that creating “ethnic units” is not helpful since “it seems totally contrary to a political process one of whose purposes is to promote a common Ethiopian identity.”
G) He continued, “It also seems inappropriate in a country in which substantial portions of the population are of mixed ethnic background or unsure of which ethnic group they belong to or wish to identify with.”
H) Here again, the TPLF settled for creating “ethnic territorial” units effectively relegating millions of people into a state of permanent minority status and disenfranchising them.
Imagine what the politics of Ethiopia would have looked today had these serious and well thought recommendations were incorporated to the Woyane constitution?
May be the Ethiopian National Dialogue commission @EthioNDC would benefit from giving it a serious read this time around?
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