Federal-regional tension: Is there too much regional power or too little?

The FDRE Constitution establishes a federal and regional state structure composed of two distinct entities- the federal and regional states. The regional formation follows an ethnic federalism approach currently adding up to 12, with two additional federally administered city-states. As expressly enumerated under Article 51 and Article 55, the Constitution defines and distributes powers and functions between the two governments with both operating within their respective spheres under a federal system.

While powers of the federal state are limited to those delineated under the aforementioned article, the regional states’ powers include all matters not expressly given or are concurrent to the federal state- inclusive of the right of regional states to administer their internal affairs by setting up their own legislative, judicial and executive bodies. From the vantage point of regional states however, Ethiopian federalism could potentially be argued to be a centralized federation that puts limits to regional self-administration and grants large amount of political and financial power to the federal government including important government functions and prerogatives that remain within the mandate of the federal government under the constitution.

As many have argued, Ethiopia’s ethnic federalism deviates from the norms of state-building in the broader African context by constitutionally allowing self-determination by ethnic groups up to and including secession- Article 39. The 1995 federal experiment, as David Turton has observed, is “both radical and pioneering.”8 It is radical because it restructured the Ethiopian state anew based on the principle of ethnic groups having self-determination. It is pioneering because “Ethiopia has gone further than any other African state, and further than ‘almost any other state worldwide’ in using ethnicity as its fundamental principle.”9 Ethiopia has established a federalism in line with ethnicity, dubbed ethnic federalism.”10 pp.-157-190.pdf (harvard.edu

Debatably, Ethiopia’s ethnic federalism is applauded for its success in preventing the country from sliding into civil war. Despite this popular sentiment however, the country has seen records of human rights violations under the EPRDF coalition rule with minority groups experiencing low level repressions arising out of concentrated power in the hands of the central government. As a result, regional representation was not always truly democratic

Despite regional and local autonomy, there was clear dominance of the ruling party supported by an extensive patronage system and unwavering use of force to silence any form of opposition to the existing political apparatus. This has severely hampered genuine democratization and flourishing of self-rule among regional states as primarily envisioned under the Constitution.