Holding Together, Coming Together or Putting Together? A [Re]examination on the Formation of Ethiopia’s Federation

Federations are institutional and structural arrangements with the tenets of shared rule and self-rule. These federations may be formed through coming together, holding together or putting together processes. Both holding together and coming together federations are established through democratic bargain while putting together federation is imposed coercively by the winners. Hence, this article aims to situate Ethiopia in to one of these three variants through critical [re]examination of the transitional activities. The data were collected through interviews and document analysis. A qualitative analysis was employed to analyze the data. Accordingly, the paper argues that Ethiopia is a putting together federation because of the major flaws committed during the transition. Particularly, the absence of an organization that could represent Amhara during the Peace Conference, exclusion of the major political organizations from the conference and the aftermath processes as well as the inhuman and extrajudicial treatments against those who were explaining their discontent in the restructuring processes are some of the justification to level Ethiopia’s federation as putting together. Moreover, the electoral frauds that forced the major political parties to boycott the elections (the 1992 and 1994 elections) and the manipulation of the drafting and ratification processes of the constitution by TPLF/EPRDF can justify this position. Hence, it is recommended to restructure the federation through democratic bargaining for the putting nature of the federation is facing a legitimacy crisis due to the different questions rooted in the formation processes.