Ethiopia’s Pathway to Participatory Democracy: Majoritarian or Proportional Representation Electoral System

The choice of electoral system has a profound effect on the future political life of a country. From 1995-2015, Ethiopia has run five elections in which several multi-party politicians have participated. However, the Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) had been using its knowledge of the electoral systems to promote its own partisan advantage. Currently, the EPRDF controls 100 percent of the seats in the House of People's Representatives and has remained in power for the last two decades. Given that the existing system that has created a mono-party system, it is suggested that Ethiopia gives away to multi-party system that gives equal level field. In short, the policy implication of the study is that Ethiopia experiments, refines, and steadily improve its electoral system and give way to the proportional representation electoral system. Rather following the existing majoritarian system, implementing the proportional representation would make the electoral system in Ethiopia to be inclusive and allow the other smaller parties in the country to maximize their chance of participating in the Ethiopian parliament.