Constitutionality of Political Practices Being Undertaken by Member States of Ethiopian Federation: Is It an Emerging Threat Or Opportunity to the Federal Set Up?

Abstract

The Ethiopian federal arrangement which is commonly labeled as ethnic federalism by many politicians and scholars is a young federal system introduced in the year 1991.[1]  As one basic pillar of the federal polity, the constitution has established dual governments which are called the federal government and states, each of them with their own constitutionally distinct sphere of competence.[1] Yet, despite the existence of constitutionally defined power division between the two layers of government, federal government has been severely criticized for undermining and usurpation of constitutional autonomy of states through its strong and centralized party channel.

Yet, since January 2018,Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF, for short),the contemporary ruling party of Ethiopia, has undertaken numerous political reform measures both at federal and regional level which are aimed at rectifying the prevailing critical political challenges of the country. However, the finding of this paper shows that recent political measures being introduced by some members of the federation are not compatible to the political power division stipulated by the FDRE Constitution and the objective of the reform. For instance, the denunciation of the identity and administrative boundary proclamation of the federal government by Tigiray State and its resistance not to cooperate with federal government in handing over its officials to justice who are suspected in commission crime of  corruption and human right  violation, official declarations of Oromia regarding ownership of Addis Ababa to Oromia, which is constitutionally declared as separate city administration, repeated criticism of Amhara regional state towards its north neighboring state for its internal  destabilization, and the aggressive demands of statehood formation in some nationalities of Southern region  are some of the recent political actions of states which are widely practiced in the country. The writer of this piece of paper firmly argues that the aforementioned political practices of named states are against well-established intergovernmental principles of federalism and in violation of constitutional allocation of power which needs to be corrected at the earliest possible time. Thus, there is an urgent need of controlling and managing such hostile practices which will in the long run will threaten the existing already fragile federal state structure.