The Weak Centre

The weakness of the political centre continues to be by far the most important and fundamental problem in Ethiopia's politics. The political centre has numbers but its political elite, organization, and power are not concomitant to its numbers. It is severely underrepresented in the political sphere. This has resulted in a distortion in our politics - a significant portion of the population has little or no representation and power, while the rest - the ethnic nationalist population - is well represented and disproportionately powerful. This distortion is what drives the chaos in Ethiopian politics.

What is the political centre? The centre, in brief, believes in citizenship rights - that the country and its regions belong equally to all citizens and that no region belongs more to certain ethnic groups than others. At the same time, the centre, accepting Ethiopian political reality, supports ethnic rights and local autonomy, while giving primacy to citizenship rights. In other words, there is no problem if Oromia is dominated by Oromo language, culture, etc. by virtue of demographics and history, but the land of Oromia should belong equally to all. This, I think, sums up the basic beliefs of the political centre.

There are many examples that illustrate how the political centre is woefully underrepresented in terms of political elite, leadership, and power. Consider for example, Addis Ababa, where conservatively 80% of the population is centrist. This huge portion of Addis Ababa has no political/civic organization and power to speak of and has had none for decades. It has no leadership to call its own. It has no elite to speak of. The parties that claim to represent the population of Addis Ababa, such as Ezema, are, try as they might, small, weak, and incapable. The masses of Addis Ababa continue to view themselves as subjects ruled by leadership imposed upon them. For 27 years, they were ruled by the TPLF, and now by the ODP. They blithely discuss which was/is better! They have no notion that they should rule themselves!

This weakness of the political centre is not accidental. It is a result of the past 50 years of political conflict, during which the centre fought bitterly against itself - the 1974 revolution and the following White and Red Terrors - decimating its elite. The culmination of the centre's political suicide was the 1991 revolution, led by ethnic nationalists, who simply stepped into the vacuum left by the political centre. Such was the collapse of the centre that it even surprised the ethnic nationalists who fought against the centre for so long. Only a year or so before the revolution, the EPLF, TPLF, et al were hoping for a negotiated settlement with the central government. Instead, they were handed complete power. This is the history that explains today's weak political centre. The centrist population today remains haunted by its history - its masses are loath to get into politics of any kind.

On the other hand, the political periphery - ethnic nationalists - are well represented in Ethiopian politics. For 28 years they have ruled Ethiopian essentially unopposed, as the centre has been incapable of real opposition. The ethnic nationalists have a relatively strong elite and political/civic organizations and concomitant power. They push their agenda steadily, knowing, from 28 years of experience, that the centre is incapable of responding.

This has resulted in an awful distortion in Ethiopian politics. One political viewpoint - ethnic nationalism - is well represented - while the other - the political centre - is not. Because of this distortion, the ethnic nationalists continually overplay their hand, and the centre, unable to respond, continues to have its masses more and more alienated and ripe for radicalism and revolution.

One example of such radicalism can be found in today's Amhara nationalism, which is a direct outgrowth of the inability of the centre's elite to adequately represent its population. Another example is a recent development - many Addis Ababans kneejerk hatred of anything Oromo, ostensibly a result of token Oromo favouritism, but fundamentally a result of the insecurity and shame of Addis Ababans, who know that they continue to be dominated by 'others' because of their inability to organize along their interests.

For Ethiopia's political conflicts to be solved, Ethiopia's political distortion must be corrected. The centre's political elite must reconstitute itself and the centre's masses must be represented concomitant to their numbers. If this does not occur, ethnic nationalists will dominate politics to the point that the underrepresented masses of the political centre will radicalize and revolt.

How can Ethiopia's political centre rise up again? How can it pull itself up by its bootstraps? There is no magic formula of course. An elite devastated by one revolution takes decades to reconstitute - this elite has been devastated by two. It will take a long time to fix the damage. But there is a possible solution in the short/medium term. I'll talk about that in the next article.