The ‘Ethnic’ Group Underrepresented in the Ethiopian Cabinet

ethiopian-cabinet

The much anticipated cabinet reshuffle by Prime Minister Hailemariam Dessalegn was nothing short of a huge disappointment for particularly one “ethnic” group in Ethiopia – Women! They may not have picked up arms to express their grievances for lack of adequate representation but enraged they are as opposed to what and-and yeketema newariwoch would have you believe on EBC.

The question itself as to why there are only three women in the Prime Minister’s 30-member cabinet had to come from women. Hon. Genet Tadesse, who makes up for the 39% of women contingent in the EPRDF and affiliates controlled parliament, confronted the prime minister to explain the dearth of women in the top power echelon.

His carefully crafted response, while it didn’t go as far as questioning the capacity of women in general and the need for building their capacity (mabqat), it nonetheless lacks sincerity. So, basically, the government prepared a pool of people to be assigned to different government positions. Hailemariam claims women were included in this pool. We don’t know how many. But because more women were assigned to lead positions in the “Leadership Academy” and the “Center for Democratic System Building”, there were fewer women for the cabinet, it was claimed.

Be that as it may, but why weren’t there enough women in the “pool” to begin with? Is it maybe because the party is not doing enough to groom and bring in women within its party structures? It is evident that the party looks for people within it to fill government positions. But there was also a promise that the party will adopt a nonpartisan approach in its appointment.

Or is the argument that there aren’t enough women with MAs and PhDs in Ethiopia to fill the cabinet positions? With 12 of the 30 cabinet ministers being PhD holders, it appears academic excellence was one of the main criteria for these appointment – a criteria I do not even think is an absolute necessary for leadership positions.

Although justified, I would like to make it clear that I do not want this to be a debate about gender issues. This is a reflection about how, given the state of affairs in the country that a major reshuffle in government fails to be more inclusive to pull the diverse strength of people from a wider pool. The issues facing the country today such as corruption and bad governance screams for more women in leadership. There are several studies that suggest that women have a number of leadership traits that men generally do not have. They are less likely to be corrupt and more likely to heed to the public demands.

Perhaps the best example to demonstrate that would be Rwanda. There are 11 women, representing 36%, in Rwandan President Paul Kagame’s recent cabinet reshuffle. This is a country where women representation in the parliament has now reached 64%, the highest proportion in the world. But beyond the numbers, the stride Rwanda is making in almost all aspects of Rwandan life owes it to its women policy makers. Coming out of a horrific genocide only two decades ago, Rwanda is now one of the most stable and among the least corrupt countries in Africa, according to Transparency International. So, in 2016, it at least makes sense to appoint more women in leadership positions.

Coming back to our backyard, EPRDF is a party which prides itself of being representative of the diverse ethnic groups in Ethiopia. It is a system where rules will be bent and compromises will be made to satisfy the question of ethnic representation. Compromises in terms of quality and/or experience; where endangered politicians demoted at one time are reassigned to lead again. Why is that lacking when it comes to women?

A look at where we assign women sums up our perception as to which leadership positions are worthy of women. Of the three women, two are appointed to lead the Ministry of Women and Children Affairs, and Ministry of Tourism and Culture, ministerial positions traditionally considered as less political.

It should have been easy for our Prime Minister, who is privileged to be surrounded by four outstanding women in his private domain, to see women in a different light. His and our daughters should be able to see that they are worthy of a role in charting the path their nation embarks on.

But for now, the promise we get from our Prime Minister is that there will be more women in middle and lower leadership positions. As he put it, leadership is not just within the Prime Ministers’ cabinet. We continue to ask why not more women were chosen to be in his cabinet.

And hence, more than 20 odd years later, women who represented about 30% of the freedom fighters and who eventually succeeded in putting in place the current system are made to wait. And God knows for how long.

By Selome Tadesse

Please follow and like us:
error
Source: Addis Fortune

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Widgetized Section

Go to Admin » appearance » Widgets » and move a widget into Advertise Widget Zone