Suchergebnisse

Zanzibar, a self-governing state of Tanzania, may look like a tranquil tropical archipelago. But in the 60 years since a revolution overthrew a sultanate with origins in Oman, its politics have been turbulent. Revolutionary doctrines of socialism and one-party rule led to repression that lasted for years. Far from bringing stability, the introduction of multiparty politics in the 1990s has led to cycles of electoral violence and failed reconciliation talks. The legacies of the 1964 revolution continue to define the deeply polarized political landscape, even as demographic shifts and foreign investment transform the islands.

Abstract
The Ethiopian Peoples' Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), the government party in Ethiopia from 1991 to 2019, was Africa's biggest party in terms of membership base and considered to be the most powerful incumbent on the continent. The factors behind its rapid fall from grace and eventual collapse in 2019 will be put under scrutiny in this article. Comparative political research has pointed to both endogamous and exogamous factors contributing to party instability. Party-specific concerns such as differences in local constituencies, variations in ethnopolitical identities, differences of ideological outlook, and policy preferences are all factors that may lead to a withering of party consensus. Furthermore, the governance structure of the country may also impinge on party stability, because federal models may be more divisive in nature than unitary states. The argument pursued in this article will be to investigate how the origin of the EPRDF's component parties and their ethnopolitical base under the federal system were made relevant in the internal power struggle to claim control of the coalition and hence the government of the land. The article concludes by identifying four key factors contributing to the internal power struggle that led to the demise of the EPRDF: disagreements over ideology; disputes over party bylaws, procedures, and practices; contestation over the federal state model; and finally, the surge of ethnonationalism with intrinsic territorial ambitions.

ABSTRACTThe 'non-electoral context' of elections is often overlooked in democratisation studies, in order not to obscure an otherwise clear model or theory of transition. A key challenge for research on democratisation processes is to balance electoral 'formalities' with contextual factors, qualitative perceptions and non-electoral issues, in order to reach a more nuanced and comprehensive understanding of democratic transitions. This article advocates a multilayered approach to – or a 'thick description' of – elections, as this will capture the diversity of real life experiences and expose alternative power discourses competing with the electoralist one in influencing the path of democratisation. In so doing, it casts light on the crucial impact of the Eritrean–Ethiopian war on Ethiopia's 2005 election, in addition to other qualitative and contextual factors, which lead to the conclusion that the advancement of democracy through multiparty elections in Ethiopia under the Ethiopian Peoples' Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) has failed.

This article presents peasant grievances on the flawed 2000 elections in Hadiya zone, southern Ethiopia. For the first time in Ethiopia's electoral history, an opposition party managed to win the majority of the votes in one administrative zone. In the run-up to the elections, government cadres and officials intimidated and harassed candidates and members from the opposition Hadiya National Democratic Organisation (HNDO). Several candidates and members were arrested and political campaigning was restricted. On election day, widespread attempts at rigging the election took place, and violence was exerted in several places by government cadres and the police. Despite the government's attempt to curtail and control the elections in Hadiya, the opposition party mobilised the people in a popular protest to challenge the government party's political hegemony – and won. If this is an indication of a permanent shift of power relations in Hadiya, it is however, too early to say.