Problemy legalności partii politycznych w Etiopii

This article investigates and assesses the legal problem of political parties in Ethiopia. Ethiopian rulers have denied a legitimate role of political party and saw it as the threat to their power. The evolution of party system in Ethiopia can be divided into three periods: 1. During Emperor Haile Selassie's reign 2. The period of military rule 3. The Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) led Government from 1991 up to the present. The first constitution of Ethiopia (1931), banned the presence of any political organization in Ethiopia. The Emperor was the head of the state, head of the government, and commander-in-chief of the Empire. He had absolute authority over the Imperial Military and bureaucracy. The Emperor had sole power to appoint and dismiss the regional governors and members of parliament. In 1974 the military government brought the absolute monarchical rule to an end. During the military junta all civilian opposition groups had been destroyed or forced underground. In most cases, political opponents were systematically targeted; there were human rights abuses, tens of thousands of people disappeared or were murdered in what was known as the „Red Terror" and hundreds of thousands were imprisoned. After the military government was overthrown by rebel groups in 1991, the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), created the coalition of EPRDF by involving several ethnic based political parties. During 1990s, a lot of political parties based on ethnic background, were formed. Many of them are delegalized. Those registered legally also cannot run their programme for political power, because of systematic restriction on them. Security forces of the ruling party commit politically motivated arbitrary killings, detention, torture and other forms of human rights abuse on political opponents. Ethiopia is de facto single-party sys- tem in which a dominant single political party forms the government and no other parties are permitted to run candidates for election; unfair laws and practices of the present minority government pre- vent the opposition from legally getting power.