Political Elite: Partnership Fractured
The post 1991 political transition, although seemed democratic and promising at first was not devoid of critical setbacks that take the country back to political uncertainties. As interviewee number twenty-one argued, from the beginning it became clear that the leaders within the TPLF that orchestrated the formation of the EPRDF coalition of four parties and kept the most important powers within the military. Furthermore, the rapidly growing and harassing intelligence forces that are loyal to the TPLF immediately started to play important roles supporting the ruling coalition’s political agenda, which even expanded to controlling the political state of affairs in transitional Ethiopia mostly in the name of restoring stability. The interviewee states that, “for the OLF lead- ership that participated in the transitional process and had occupied certain ministerial cabinets in the transitional government, patience would become so important as TPLF’s power started to grow and everyone within the transition became aware of the fact that questioning such dominance and
asking the TPLF leaders for respect of our party’s independence in administrative duties became unquestionable and dangerous.”
After the departure of the EPLF with Eritrea’s independence, the only parties that partici- pated in the transition and had considerable number of soldiers, armaments were the TPLF, EPDM (Ethiopian Peoples Democratic Movement) which had already joined the EPRDF coalition and thus merged its military with the TPLF and OLF. The problem within the partnership of such former rebel forces first occurred when the TPLF led EPRDF coalition convinced the OLF leaders to disarm their soldiers given the country is now undertaking a new and democratic transition and thus having a strong and united national army was important more than ever. After the OLF obliged to do so and disarmed its military, the TPLF had assured that not only the political transition had been completed in their favor, but also they made sure that if any failures within the transition are to occur, the OLF’s strong and sizable army is not anywhere to pose any challenge whatsoever. Eventually, within a short period of time, OLF leadership decided to leave its partnership with the TPLF led EPRDF coalition. Such a decision by the OLF was made because staying in the transi- tional government became unbearable since watching TPLF’s dominating role was too much to the extent of interfering in the daily and routine decisions of the OLF leadership. Unfortunately, the OLF leadership and their political movement despite its sizable support in light of the popula- tion size of the people of Oromo that they represent would be declared a new enemy for the EPRDF coalition government led Ethiopian state, immediately after their exit from the transitional govern- ment.
Dima Noggo Sarbo (2009), one of the former leaders of the OLF, who also had served as cabinet minister in the Transitional Government of Ethiopia until the OLF shortly left after the transition had embarked its journey, recently wrote in his dissertation:
“The transitional government however collapsed in less than a year, the TPLF de- claring war on its erstwhile partner, the OLF and the latter leaving the TGE. The TPLF however, continued to rule in the name of the transitional government for another three years. The regime also requested the United Nations to facilitate the independence of Eri- trea, the first such case, and in 1993 Eritrea formally declared independence and joined the United Nations, making Ethiopia a landlocked state. The TPLF regime was the first to recognize the new state. In 1994 a Constituent Assembly, made up of TPLF and its surro- gates, was elected, which approved a constitution that, in theory set up a federal govern- ment of nine regional states, five of them dominated by the principal national groups, and the rest multinational regions (FDRE, 1995). A general election was conducted in 1995, contested by the TPLF without any challenger and power was transferred from the TGE to the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (FDRE). In practice, however power re- mained centralized under the dominant party and the coercive apparatus of the state, the army and security services, loyal only to the core leadership of the ruling party.”53
53 Although the author mentions the TPLF’s role in Eritrea’s secession to a certain degree as an agenda
initiated and implemented by the TPLF, I believe that the EPLF’s struggle firstly was to secure independ- ence from Eritrea. Secondly, the right to self determination in the transitional charter was signed with the agreement of the OLF, which was part of the drafting of the document. However, at the quote above shows, it was apparent that the TPLF had already embarked on preparing the political framework for its survival from the start given its treatment of the OLF and the latter’s decision to leave its temporary partnership with the TPLF led EPRDF coalition. The dissertation by Dima Noggo can be accessed at: http://trace.ten- nessee.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1130&context=utk_graddiss.
As the above quote is very important to the argument here, more context is needed. The author’s point, I believe is in part to show how the TPLF was behind the successful and seamless process that ultimately achieved the Eritrean state independence from Ethiopia, which realized the dream of the EPLF (Eritrean Peoples Liberation Front) leaders to come into fruition. The second point that the author attempted to invoke is to show that the transitional political era process was quite dominated by the TPLF, contributing to OLF’s withdrawal from its governing duties as a partner to the ruling coalition of EPRDF.
The departure of the OLF leaving its administrative role in Ethiopia’s transitional govern- ment and the subsequent decision by the TPLF led EPRDF coalition to wage war against the newly departed foes thus culminates as the first most important setback for democratic development in post 1991 Ethiopia. Such events with regards to the fracturing of the transition government, with OLF long gone, also made everyone’s already rampant suspicion of EPRDF’s ‘declared’ intentions for democratic Ethiopia as nothing but empty talk. Moreover, as the complaints of the OLF are already discussed, the TPLF, would emerge as the strongest political block within the EPRDF coalition.