Ethiopian Federalism and the Ethnic Politics of Divided Cities: Consociationalism without Competitive Multiparty Politics in Dire Dawa^†

† This paper is based on the author’s research project ‘The Making of Dire Dawa: Post-1991 Conflict, Ethnicity and Power Sharing’ funded by Dire Dawa University (unpublished, 2013). As part of this project, the author has conducted nine interviews and two focus group discussions with policy-makers, politicians, bureaucrats and cultural leaders of Dire Dawa and Federal Government.

Abstract

In addition to regional-states, Ethiopia also has two federally chartered cities. This paper is an examination of the semi-consociational system found in the city of Dire Dawa, situated between the Somali regional-state of Ethiopia and Oromia. There is a power-sharing arrangement that the Federal Government has imposed on the ethnic groups competing for the control of Dire Dawa. There is segmental autonomy, proportionality, and a grand coalition; yet this has taken place outside the formal constitutional framework. The arrangement seems to have contained the more combative elements of ethnic nationalism, but relative political stability has come at the expense of grassroots democracy.

Notes

† This paper is based on the author’s research project ‘The Making of Dire Dawa: Post-1991 Conflict, Ethnicity and Power Sharing’ funded by Dire Dawa University (unpublished, 2013). As part of this project, the author has conducted nine interviews and two focus group discussions with policy-makers, politicians, bureaucrats and cultural leaders of Dire Dawa and Federal Government.

1 Compelled by the Oromo protests movement in the late months of 2015 (which was triggered by a master plan of Addis Ababa which aims to expand the city of Addis Ababa into suburbs of Oromia Region and an Oromia Regional proclamation amended to restructure, merge and rename Oromia cities), the Oromo People’s Democratic Organisation (OPDO), Ethiopia’s ruling party wing of Oromia State, on 12 January 2016, decided to scrap the master plan and revise the proclamation on Oromia cities, and promised to implement Oromia’s special interest in Addis Ababa aiming basically to calm down the escalating popular uprising across Oromia Region. The protests broke out on 12 November 2015 in Ginchi, West Shewa of Oromia which widespread across Oromia and continued till the beginning of April 2016. The grievances of the Oromo protesters appeared wider and deeper and included demands for genuine democracy, political, and economic inclusions for Oromos, human rights, rural and urban land rights of Oromos, urban social inclusions and federal language policy reforms. This protest in fact was begun in April–May 2014 against the same master plan. See Human Rights Watch Reports, ‘Dispatches: Arrest of Respected Politician Escalating Crisis in Ethiopia’ (www.hrw.org/news/2016/01/07).

2 The issue of the monolingual City Government of Addis Ababa has always been contested. For instance, in 2004, the Oromia Government moved its capital from Addis Ababa to Adama (99 km southeast of Addis Ababa), against which thousands of Oromos in Addis Ababa and surrounding areas staged protest demonstration which was reported to have resulted in several casualties, detentions, and 300 students’ dismissal from Addis Ababa University (see Damuse, 2014). However, the Oromia Government came back in less than a year to Addis Ababa following the defeat of the EPRDF in Addis Ababa by the 2005 national election. The paradox is that Addis Ababa is the capital of Oromia, but there is no school teaching in Oromo language in the city. For better understanding of the ethno-nationalist conflicts to Addis Ababa, see Benti (2014, pp. 160–182).

3 According to group discussions with Oromo elders (9 May 2012) and Somali elders (22 March 2012) in Dire Dawa, these political parties, which had their own offices in the city, were All Amhara People’s Organisation, Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Front (EPRDF), Gadabursi Liberation Front (GLF), Gurage People’s Democratic Organisation, Harari People’s Democratic Organisation, Islamic Front for the Liberation of Oromia (IFLO), IGLF, Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF), Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), and OPDO. Majority of them were armed fronts and their inter-relationships were full of collusions and collisions.

4 In the conflicts, while the IFLO, OLF, and OPDO/EPRDF were ethnic Oromo forces, the GLF, IGLF, and ONLF were Ethiopian–Somali forces.

5 The port of Asab, which used to be Ethiopia’s, now belongs to the Eritrean state. The port had been used by Ethiopia up until the outbreak of the Ethio-Eritrean war of 1998–2000.

6 The ethnic quota system of power-sharing in Dire Dawa resembles the system in place in Djibouti that goes back to the French imposition of a formula in 1977. Accordingly, ‘the French manipulated and designed the total number of seats for each ethnic group—thirty-three for Issas, thirty for Afars and two for the Arabs’ which ‘enabled the Issas to hold majority seats in the parliament when Djibouti proclaimed her independence’ (Adargie, 1978, pp. 12–13).