It is crystal clear that the still burning question in Ethiopia is over horizontal ties between “nations, nationalities and peoples” and their vertical relationship with the federal government. In other words, it is still the “question of nationalities”, as it has been since student movement activist Wallelign Mekonnen put pen to paper in 1969.
Berhanu Nega's liberals occupy one pole. Seven parties have merged to form the Ethiopian Citizens Party for Social Justice (In Amharic, Ezema). It advocates “citizen-based politics”. It if could rewrite the constitution, it would open with “We the people”, and not “We the nations, nationalities and peoples of Ethiopia”. The demarcation of regional states would be on a geographical and not an ethnic basis, and the central power strong.
Opposing this are hardline ethnic federalists who want a loose union of quasi-sovereign states, or full autonomy for ethnic regions. Its most radical proponents believe in “consociationalist” federalism, in which states are equally represented, regardless of their population sizes – as occurs now in the EPRDF; to Tigray’s benefit because it has only six percent of the population. In this system, central key decisions are only taken if there is consensus, which gives each state a veto. There are strong ethno-national parties in Tigray, Somali, Oromia, and, most recently, Amhara.
