Fortune, Ethiopia
March 7, 2010
The National Parties’ Council identified on Wednesday, March 3, 2010, the issues for the third round of inter-party debates, to take place this Friday, March 12.
The issues include good governance, human rights and the rule of law, according to Lidetu Ayalew, president of the Ethiopian Democratic Party (EDP).
The people who will represent each party are yet to be identified.
“We will announce our representative a day before the debate,” Ayele Chamiso, chairman of the Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD), said.
Both the EDP and the Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) mentioned as well that it will be a while before they announce their representatives.
“Since it is not tactical to reveal the person who is going to debate, we are not going to do that,” Bereket Simon, senior EPRDF member told Fortune.
On the second debate on federalism, which was televised from March 1 to march 2, 2010, all parties expressed that, in principle, they had no problems with it. The same position was expressed by the All Ethiopia Unity Party (AEUP), which had not participated in the debate. The AEUP will still not participate in the third round of debates.
Some of the parties were vague in stating their positions on federalism, a political science lecturer at Addis Abeba University said, although, it was up to the parties to use their time wisely. The EPRDF and EDP were better able than the others to pass their positions, he said.
It would have been better had the public been allowed into the live debate to see how people reacted to what the parties said, he concluded.
