Choosing An Electoral System To The Ethiopian Multi-ethnic Federation Issues And Alternatives

In modern democracy parliamentary representatives need to be selected through free, fair andrngenuine elections. However, this by itself cannot guarantee all inclusive, fair and legitimaternelection results which sustain the whole democratic process unless the electoral system, whichrntranslates the votes in to seats, is rightfully crafted by taking into account the countries' realrncontexts. In this watch, designing electoral systems to encourage cooperation, fairness,rnbargaining, conciliation, legitimacy, and interdependence among rival politicians and the groupsrnthey represent is becoming attractive for promoting all inclusive and trust worthy democracy.rnThis is especially true in divided societies, like ours. In view of this, this research reviews therndebate over the various dimensions of the electoral systems. It then presents the major optionsrnand the main empirical and normative arguments in support and against each of the systems.rnAccordingly, this research calls the current Ethiopian electoral system in to question, arguingrnthat it has hampered representation, fairness, legitimacy, multi-partism, and the behavior of thernpolitical parties. As a result, it contends that mixed electoral systems, combining pluralityrnelections with list proportional representation, the so called Mixed Member Proportional (MMP)rnsystem, which combines the "best of both the worlds" with regards to several aspects of politicalrnrepresentation and accountability among others, surpasses any realistic measurement to be thernbest choice to the Ethiopian multi -ethnic federation.rnKey words: electoral systems, proportional representation, jirst-past-the-post, mixed memberrnproportional and majoritarian systems.

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