National Dialogue or Election Matters in Ethiopia: Critical Analysis Of The Current Political Situation And The 6th National Election

Abstract

In Ethiopia, elections had conducted at different times. The first general election was held for the first time in 1992. Since then, the country has made five consecutive elections; however, almost all elections were accompanied by complaints of opposition parties, pre, and post-election conflicts. Nowadays Ethiopia has on the verge of disintegration due to ethnic conflict and political uncertainties that happen as the result of the absence of the elite’s consensus on varieties of national concerns, national and political questions raised by different ethnic groups that still unanswered. Surrounded by all the aforementioned problems the government held the sixth national election. Even if the election was said orderly, peaceful, and credible by some observatories accredited by the national election board of Ethiopia the election was not conducted in many parts of the country due to ethnic conflict. In line with this, the USA and EU said that the election was not democratic and credible because the current political atmosphere of the country not conducive to conduct elections due to major opposition parties boycotted them from the election, influential politicians have imprisoned and ethnic conflicts in many parts of the country. Therefore, to sustain the country as a unified state, to make the democratic political transition, to respond to the national and political questions of the citizens, to stop ethnic conflict, and to reach into consensus on national issues the government has better to initiating national dialogue process and made a viable peace agreement with all conflicting parties rather than holding an election nowadays.