Abyotawi democracy: neither

revolutionary nor democratic,

Contents of study
1.The objective of the journal
2.Introduction
3.Abyotawi democracy: A political revolution in Ethiopia?
4. A liberal representative democracy?
5. The resumption of the undemocratic project: the shaping of society from above A
revolutionary economy?
6. Democratization: not a sine qua non for economic development
7. The ambiguous struggle against liberalism.
8. Abyotawi democracy as continuous struggle
9. Abyotawi democracy as a powerful fighting tool
10. Strangeness and weakness of the journal
11. Conclusion
 Intiroduction
The objective of the journal
To clarify the abyotawi democracy mining ,concept and
how related with liberalism and democracy.
Introcuction
Since 1991 and the arrival of the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic
Front (EPRDF) into power, the Ethiopian ideologists have maintained
revolutionary democracy (abyotawi democracy in Amharic) as their core
doctrine.
The notion inherited from the struggle (1970s-1980s) aims at legitimizing a
political and economic structure which de facto implies the resilience of
authoritarianism.
Abyotawi democracy has been presented by EPRDF as the exact opposite of
liberalism and neoliberalism.
 Abyotawi democracy
The notion of revolutionary democracy came from an opposition to capitalist
liberal ideology, and Lenin’s revolutionary project. In 1991, the Ethiopian
People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) a coalition led by the Tigray
People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) seized power by force and ousted the
authoritarian Dergregime led by Mengistu Haile Mariam.
The TPLF had grown out of the Ethiopian Student Movement of the 1960s
-1970s in Addis Ababa University. A Tigray University Student Association was
established in 1971 and influenced the foundation of the Tigray National
Organization in 1974, which one year later led to the formation of the TPLF. In
its 1976 Manifesto, the movement initially called for the independence of
Tigray.
In the course of the 1970s, the TPLF progressively adopted a broader
Ethiopian agenda in which Tigray would gain autonomy
 Con….
An ideological turning point is to be found in the middle of the 1980s. Since
the creation of the Marxist Leninist League of Tigray (MLLT) on 25 July 1985
under the influence of Abbay Tsehaye and Meles Zenawi, the TPLF has been
progressively led by its ideological leadership.
A second ideological sequence is to be found between 1991 and 2001. After
the fall of the Derg, the TPLF-EPRDF announced liberal policies during the
transitional period (1991-1995). But interestingly, these ‘‘liberal’’ reforms as
compared with Marxist-Leninist revolutionary democracy did not mean the
abandonment of abyotawi democracy ideology by the new Ethiopian leaders.
Abyotawi Democracy (YeEhadig Abyotawi Democracy Program) and in 1994, Meles
Zenawi confirmed the ideological resilience on the occasion of a TPLF cadre
conference in Meqele (Tigray), describing revolutionary democracy as an appropriate
doctrine that ‘‘had to be firmly grasped if Ethiopia was to embark on sustainable
economic development’’.
 Con….
• The 2001 split inside the ruling party in the aftermath of the war with
Eritrea (19982000) challenged Meles Zenawi as the leader of the TPLF-
EPRDF. Meles reactivated the ideological tool which had to support
his‘‘renewal strategy’’ (Tehadsoin Amharic) and his survival at the top of
the party.
• Thus, the demarcation line between liberalism and abyotawi democracy is
far from being clear and cannot only be interpreted in terms of so-called
‘‘liberal institutions’’(Constitution, political parties, elections, etc.)
 Abyotawi democracy: A political revolution in
Ethiopia?
• Since the struggle period, abyotawi democracy has always been defined
negatively,
• i.e. in opposition to ‘‘liberalism’’, and more recently ‘‘neoliberalism’’.
• There would be two main differences between ‘‘liberal democracy’’ and‘
‘abyotawi democracy’’ as explained by EPRDF leadership and foreign
observers. First, the former aims at securing individual rights while the latter
defends collective rights through the notion of Nations, Nationalities and
Peoples (Art. 39 of the 1995 Constitution).
• Second, abyotawi democracy is not considered representative, but one in
which the people is governing.
• In the Ethiopian context revolutionary democracy, quite surprisingly, is
• institutionalized by dint of a federal constitution guaranteeing the
establishment of a multi-party and parliamentary system in which elections
and parties are presented as keystones.
 A liberal representative democracy?
• Different laws voted for by the Ethiopian parliament (HPR) since the 2005
general elections challenge liberal understanding of civic and political
rights. The anti-terrorist law, the narrowing of freedom of the press,
• EPRDF’s ideology considers elections as a fundamentally legitimizing
process. As Aalen and Tronvoll argue:‘‘Ethiopia is not an incomplete
democracy; it is rather an authoritarian state draped in democratic
window-dressing in which manipulated multiparty elections are a means
to sustain power.
 The resumption of the undemocratic project:
the shaping of society from above
• As one basis of EPRDF’s ideological notion of abyotawi democracy,
they illustrate the remaining of authoritarian practices.
Democratic centralism reveals above all the rigid and hierarchical
structure of the EPRDF coalition and is, among others, illustrated by
the gem gema.
Criticism’’and‘‘self-criticism’’procedure is thus presented as‘‘an
instrument used to reprim and defects and mistakes in members’’.
According to the party programme, these ‘‘middle level vanguards’’ have to
occupy and control the kebele and the woredaoffices. Every level of Ethiopian
society is now organized or reached by party members in a far reaching party-
state run by EPRDF:
 Con…
• Increasing membership, priority was given to leadership at kebel and
woreda level leadership and to strengthening study sells and primary
organizations in order to build the capacity of members; creation and
strengthening of various mass organizations, particularly women’s and
youth leagues (...).
• This strategy derives from two important lines defined by the EPRDF: the
first one is related to the Leninist-Maoist definition of revolutionary
democracy and the role it assigned to party cadres during the struggle,
The second is an aggressive policy of recruiting party members since 2005
that aims at broadening its political and electoral basis. This is a central
point of EPRDF’s abyotawi democracy strategy: recruiting ‘‘vanguard
members’’, shaping their minds, and disseminating their views at every
level of the society in order to impose EPRDF’s view.
 A revolutionary economy?
Democratization: not asine qua nonfor
economic development
 The ambiguous struggle against liberalism

• Defined after the war against Eritrea (19982000) and the 2001 TPLF split, the
• ‘‘renewal’’ strategy largely explains this evolution. The strategy confirmed liberal-
ism with which the regime had been flirting in the first half of the 1990s as the
• cause of economic and political troubles.
• when EPRDF thinkers identified capitalist rent-seeking systems and
• rent collectors as antidemocratic and antidevelopment forces against which the
• Ethiopian government had to‘‘struggle’’. As it is explained in the party programme,
• abyotawi democracy has to create opportunities for private as well as public
• investors and define economic priorities through a rigid top-down approach: the
• party-state remains the principal investor and decision-maker in economic matters;
the private sector shall be sponsored only if it follows the principles defined by the
party-state; finally, the firms are to play an intermediary role between these two
sectors. Ethiopia has adopted an original way for which it uses some selected and
• controlled liberal tools appropriated from Western and Asian countries.
 Abyotawi democr acy as continuous struggle

A malleable ideolog
Abyotawi democracy seems neither revolutionary nor democratic.
EPRDF’s revolutionary discourses have to accommodate pragmatic
policies. Then we have to consider abyotawi democracy as a symbol, a
powerful discursive and political tool,rather than a genuinely
revolutionary programme.
This symbolism has been emphasizing the creation of a federal
democratic constitution and a multiparty system representing the core of
EPRDF’s legitimatizing strategy.
For who has the power to define and use the ideology (i.e. currently a
very restrictive circle around Meles Zenawi) abyotawi democracy has
become a useful resource in extricable from the party and the regime
themselves.
 Abyotawi democracy as a powerful fighting tool

• This can be understood by the name that the ruling party gave itself and
which has remained unchanged since the end of the 1980s: the Ethiopian
Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front (Ehadig).
• The name is both evidence of the TPLF’s historic as well as the on going
and future liberation struggle, which still constitutes a fundamental
justification of EPRDF’s leadership. Abyotawi democracy as a discursive
exclusionary strategy has also appeared useful as targeting opposition
parties. In fact the idea of constant struggle implies a radical opposition
between the EPRDF and the opposition parties which leads to a radical
dualistic logic. ‘‘fight’’ against every ‘‘enemy’’ critical against the Ethiopian
government.
 Conclusion

• Conclusion
• Abyotawi democracy is a highly ambiguous concept in its relation to liberalism,
• which it both rejects and endorses. It provides justification for fusing political and
• economic power in the party-state run by EPRDF. Whereas it may remain partly
• revolutionary for the identity-based federalism it implemented in 1995 or the
• remaining state-owned lands, the absence of democratic practices and the liberal
• principles it has pragmatically adopted (representative electoral system,
parliamentary system, free market economy and capitalism, focus on the private
sector, etc.)
• Have progressively emptied it from its revolutionary substance. Tensions have been
• arising from this paradox until they reached their peak during the 2005 elections.