Ethiopia Since the Derg - A Decade of Democratic Pretension and Performance (Hardcover)

The Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) took over from the much hated army dictatorship of Mengistu's DERG at the beginning of the 1990s. This book is the outcome of an intensive research and monitoring study of the growing gap between democratic aspirations and reality. It focuses on the elections held in 2000 and 2001 but also presents the wider context and issues including gender, urban and rural contrasts, class and caste conflict, and environment. While the EPRDF is a great advance on the previous DERG administration, the authors are critical of how far it has fallen short of its original democratic hopes. They explain why it seems unable to accept any indication of a faltering in its rural support or afford to lose political control even in a small number of localities. They conclude that only when the regime recognizes its shortcomings will it create the conditions for substantive democratization.