Issue No. 238

Ethiopia's Compromised National Dialogue Process

Over two years since Ethiopia's Parliament established a national dialogue process, it remains worryingly adrift and more divided than ever. Announced in December 2021, halfway through the Tigray War, the process was intended to be a means to navigate Ethiopia's complex divisions through a "comprehensive national dialogue and reconciliation process." However, from the onset, the process drew immediate criticism from a number of political stakeholders who questioned its mandate and its close relationship with the federal government and viewed it as a pretext to whitewash human rights abuses. Those allegations of bias continue to dog the National Dialogue Commission (NDC) today and explain the limited engagement it has received from Ethiopian stakeholders. 
 
The NDC is comprised of 11 commissioners, appointed in February 2022, with a mandate to undertake national and regional discussions on various contentious issues, including questions surrounding Ethiopia's constitution. Discussions in every region of the country are supposed to be held to select 600 representatives who will then act as a national assembly to bring about a national consensus and outline recommendations to be presented to the House of People's Representatives. The first regional discussion took place in Addis between 30 May and 5 June, where debates surrounding the dialogue process's scope and legitimacy reared their head once again. The discussion brought together 2,500 politicians, civil society members, and religious figures, with 25 representatives being chosen to represent the participants and take forward key issues.
 
Since its inception, the national dialogue process has been compromised by its remit and structure. While there are many avenues and approaches to undertake dialogue, successful national processes have typically been formed with a conscious effort to ensure their independence from any government body, with significant and already-secured buy-in from stakeholders who are prepared and ready to discuss challenging problems facing their country. For instance, Yemen's widely-lauded National Dialogue Conference in 2013-2014 brought together 565 delegates from a genuine cross-section of the country's constituencies. In Ethiopia, however, several of those sitting on the NDC have been accused of having ties to the ruling Prosperity Party, and of having been deliberately planted on the Commission with the intention of steering it in line with the federal government's political wishes and expectations. This perception is widely held and has been echoed by political stakeholders from the Amhara, Tigray, and Oromia regions. 
 
To compound matters, the federal government has established the NDC as an essentially advisory body that is limited to providing recommendations to the House of Peoples Representatives, of which around 90% are members of the ruling Prosperity Party. Critically, the Commission does not operate outside of governance institutions and lacks the power to enforce recommendations that emerge from discussions such as the one in Addis. And with the federal government continuing to insist that it ultimately retains control over the political future and security of Ethiopia, the scope for the process to radically tackle the country's deep-set conflicts has been sharply curtailed.
 
In recent weeks, NDC has faced significant criticism and scepticism from a wide range of political stakeholders in Ethiopia, including both influential political parties and armed groups. The major Oromo opposition parties of the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) and the Oromo Federalist Congress (OFC) have expressed their intention to boycott the NDC, as has the Enat Party, whose constituency is largely drawn from Ethiopia's Orthodox Christian fundamentalists. The Enat Party leadership declared that it would not participate in the process while the armed conflict continued in Amhara and Oromia. Moreover, as other parties have done, Enat questioned the independence of the NDC and further asserted that the federal government was employing the programme as a tool to deflect international criticism.
 
Elsewhere in Ethiopia, the attitude of the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), which will finally be allowed to be reinstated as a political party following their disbarring in January 2021, towards participation in the NDC is yet to be determined. Many Tigrayan politicians and communities see the NDC as a compromised entity, given that it was established by a federal parliament without a single Tigrayan regional representative and involved commission members associated with the hostile media campaign during the Tigray War. Moreover, the Tigrayan leadership has been disinclined to participate in the NDC while the TPLF was still outlawed, and the Pretoria agreement's implementation remains unfulfilled. 
 
The absence of the Fano movement and the OLA from the process has further compromised the NDC, despite repeated requests for their participation from the Commission and guarantees of security. These promises of security ring hollow, however, when the Commission's capacity to ensure the safety of OLA and Fano leaders is in doubt, given the federal government's jailing of dozens of political figures, many of whose participation in the national dialogue process would be a prerequisite for it to be seen to be authentic and inclusive. Several senior OLF figures, for instance, remain detained by government forces in an undisclosed location despite several court orders to release them.
 
It has been argued that the true intention of the national dialogue process is to consolidate the federal government's hold on power by introducing a pretext to amend the Ethiopian constitution and the country's governance systems. It is entirely possible that the Commission's findings could be used as the justification for these amendments, which are currently under review by a number of government bodies, including the National Intelligence and Security Service and the Prime Minister's Office.
 
Despite these challenges, the Commission remains a crucial platform for dialogue and engagement among Ethiopia's divided constituencies. The NDC and the federal government should work to address the numerous and varying concerns expressed by different constituencies across the country. If it is to work it is crucal to establish it as an independent body capable of delivering genuine dialogue and addressing grievances. A national dialogue process still carries immense potential to heal some of the wounds in Ethiopian society, but if it is viewed as a cynical political tool or instrument, it will never receive the requisite buy-in to be successful.

By the Ethiopian Cable team