The Role of Ethiopian Parliament in the Inclusive National Dialogue Process

Abstract

Ethiopian political history is associated with political polarizations and contention linked to flaws in the nation-building and state-building processes. To end this, the Ethiopian parliament adopted a law establishing a National Dialogue Commission. As such, the successes of the intended Ethiopian National Dialogue by large depends on inclusive cooperation of different political and democratic institutions. Indeed, parliament is one of the pivotal institutions to achieve the ultimate goal of National dialogue.  This paper analyses the role of the Ethiopian parliament in on going inclusive national dialogue. The data were collected from the secondary sources such as articles, books, media (Television) and websites. Then the collected data were qualitatively analyzed to evaluate the role of the Ethiopian parliament to achieve the Inclusive national dialogue. After analyzing, the finding of the study illustrated that Ethiopian parliament has  crucial  roles in ensuring the National Dialogue such as : enacting  legislation that would  govern the  National Dialogue  during preparation, process and implementation phases, over sighting  the intervention of the executive and ruling party, providing  financial support to Inclusive National Dialogue Commission (NDC), helping citizens to develop  sense of  ownership to ensure successful National Dialogue,  and creating public awareness that National Dialogue  is beyond the life of government and political parties. Therefore, Ethiopian parliament should work towards ensuring the Inclusive National Dialogue through discharging its full responsibilities bestowed by the FDRE constitution.