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Ethiopia

Uncomfortable Truths

The regions are each governed by a regional council whose members are directly elected to
represent districts (woreda). Each council has a president, who is elected by the council.

***
There are currently ten regional states and two chartered cities, the latter being the country's

capital Addis Ababa, and Dire Dawa, which was chartered in 2004. Being based on ethnicity
and language, rather than physical geography or history, the regions vary enormously in area
and population, the most notable example being the Harari Region, which has a smaller area

and population than either of the chartered cities “
"Regions of Ethiopia." 155
Wikipedia

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The Trouble With Ethiopia's Ethnic Federalism
" The reforms by the country's new prime minister are clashing with its flawed Constitution and
could push the country toward an interethnic conflict.

Abiy Ahmed, the 42-year-old prime minister of Ethiopia, has dazzled Africa with a volley of
political reforms since his appointment in April. Mr Abiy ended the 20-year border war with

Eritrea, released political prisoners, removed bans on dissident groups and allowed their
members to return from exile, declared press freedom and granted diverse political groups the

freedom to mobilize and organize.
Mr Abiy has been celebrated as a reformer, but his transformative politics has come up against
ethnic federalism enshrined in Ethiopia's Constitution. The resulting clash threatens to

exacerbate competitive ethnic politics further and push the country toward an interethnic
conflict.

The 1994 Constitution, introduced by Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and the Ethiopian People's
Revolutionary Democratic Front governing coalition, recast the country from a centrally unified

republic to a federation of nine regional ethnic states and two federally administered city-
states. It bases key rights -- to land, government jobs, representation in local and federal
bodies -- not on Ethiopian citizenship but on being considered ethnically indigenous in

constituent ethnic states.
The system of ethnic federalism was troubled with internal inconsistencies because ethnic

groups do not live only in a discrete "homeland" territory but are also dispersed across the
country. Nonnative ethnic minorities live within every ethnic homeland.
Ethiopia's census lists more than 90 ethnic groups, but there are only nine ethnically defined

regional assemblies with rights for the officially designated majority ethnic group. The