The Imbylta Group
Congress of Ethiopian Civic Associations (CECA)
Washington, DC (USA)
January 17, 2024
The other side of a crisis is opportunity, and the other side of the solution to a problem is proper diagnosis. Opportunity also favors the prepared. Informed preparedness to seize auspicious moments for transformative change, we believe, is critical to fulfilling the dream of a democratic Ethiopia.
Since World War II, Ethiopia has encountered four momentous inflection or transition points—British Military Administration to Crown, Crown to Derg, Derg to EPRDF, and EPRDF to P.P. Despite promising beginnings, Ethiopian nationalists missed these windows of transition to a modern political order to end tyranny and mass poverty for good. In the face of an imminent state collapse, a fifth window of transition to an accountable, if not democratic, order is staring us in the eye.
In updating its Ager Adin (አገር አድን) blueprint, Imbylta pinpoints the wellspring of our challenge to be unrestrained state powerholders. This means that society needs to craft in-built restraints on the powerful to end for good the grudging acceptance of large-scale violence against innocent citizens or those who rightly fight for their liberty. We must formulate an effective exit strategy from this political trap. A good beginning is a roadmap that identifies the contours of the highways to help those on the ground to craft appropriate political, economic, and social blueprints and practicable programs.
Our aspiration in offering this framework paper is, therefore, to initiate the debate with a home-grown roadmap to extricate the quagmire of recurrent capture of the Ethiopian state onto a democratic constitutional order. The pillars of the proposed roadmap for a two-year transition period toward a capable and accountable state, comprise a Fano-backed national salvation council to oversee a caretaker government and interim elections, guided by a transition manifesto, an elected interim parliament that doubles up as a Constituent Assembly, and several commissions (including truth, justice, and reconciliation and constitutional reform) to guide the institutional transformation. The transition period ends with a democratic constitution championing internationally recognized human and citizenship rights, checks and balances, and a duly elected national parliament.
We also note that citizen agency is essential for keeping a democratic system anchored in a capable state and accountable government. The new constitutional order must preserve the best core values and institutions while modernizing the rest. We invite all Ethiopians to engage in informed and thoughtful debate on the country’s endangered future.
The aim is to first agree on a uniting national blueprint and then craft a plan for its implementation. Needless to say, we must first restore peace and food security in order to lay down the foundations of an enduring democratic constitutional order.
This framework paper presents a novel modality of systemic political transition for Ethiopia should the current regime collapse. The nagging question of “how” a well-managed and irreversible transition can materialize is encapsulated in Figure 1:ower accountable. Fostering independent traditional and digital media provides the citizenry with reliable and diverse information and analyses. Lastly, the hallmark of citizen empowerment is earnestly fostering a culture of dialogue, mutual respect, and reconciliation.
As we move away from a political culture that glorifies violence to settle differences, we should focus on identifying those core values that inform inclusive platforms and trustful communities that encourage the peaceful resolution of conflicts. An unengaged silent majority, in the face of the cancer that is institutionalized and inherently exclusionary identity politics, is little more than a politically doomed majority. We must unavoidably muster the courage of our conviction to instruct our children, by our example, to be empathetic and seek to bridge ethnic, class, regional, or religious fissions to regain mutual trust as a politically united people with a great destiny.–— Read More ——
Imbylta.Transition Program. Final .January 17 2024