Changing Electoral System from First-Past-The-Post to Proportional Representation in Ethiopia: Its Outcome on Democratization, Legitimacy, Political Stability and Nation Building

Abstract

The selection of an apposite electoral system has an authoritative stimulus on the process of democratization, and has solemn political implications for representation, legitimacy of government, political stability and nation building. Since the adoption of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopian Constitution in 1995, Ethiopia’s electoral system has been based on winner–take-all electoral votes (first-past-the-post/FPTP/) where the candidate who receives more votes than any competitors within a constituency is declared the winner. Following the 2016 political instability, nonetheless, the government had promised the electoral system to be changed albeit no measure has been taken so far. Little has been done whether changing the electoral system has a positive outcome on democratization, legitimacy of government, political stability and nation building.  Even these few works have failed to consider the analysis of electoral formulas like the largest Remainder Method using Hare Quota which may have an impact on the proportionality of the outcome of the election result. Hence, this research aimed at investigating whether changing the electoral system from plurality to proportional representation has a positive outcome on the democratization process, political consequences for fair representation, legitimacy, political stability and nation building, by adopting the analysis of largest remainder electoral formula method using Hare quota. The research design is mixed and both descriptive and analytical methods were employed. Data were collected mainly from political parties and the Ethiopian Electoral Board. The study contends that albeit the absence of perfect electoral system, proportional representation (PR) can lead the country to a more open and participatory democratic multi-party system and ensure a fair representation of political and ethnic groups, enhance legitimacy political stability and nation building in a diverse Ethiopia in spite of its inherent weaknesses. By adopting PR electoral system, the pace of democratization process might be broadened thereby political stability, peaceful coexistence of groups and nation building might be enhanced.