Somali People's Democratic Party

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Somali People's Democratic Party (abbreviated SPDP ; German  about "Democratic Party of the Somali People" ; Somali Xisbiga Dimuqraadiga Shacbiga Soomaalida XDSH.S; Amharic የሶማሌ ሕዝቦች ዴሞክራሲያዊ ፓርቲ Yä-Somale Həzbočč Demokrasiyawi Parti ሶሕዴፓ SoHəDePa ) is a party in Somali- Region in Ethiopia .

She has ruled the region since 1998 and is linked to the party coalition Revolutionary Democratic Front of the Ethiopian Peoples (EPRDF), which governs Ethiopia at the national level. The party was founded by the EPRDF from the Ethiopian Somali Democratic League - which in turn was formed in 1994 at the instigation of the EPRDF - and parts of the Ogaden National Liberation Front .

The party describes itself as liberal and regards itself as moderate on questions of the Somali religion - Islam . The symbol of the party is the camel.

history

After the reorganization of the administrative structure of Ethiopia and the establishment of the Somali region in 1991, the separatist Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) initially dominated the region as an ally of the EPRDF. Mainly from the communities of Ogadeni- Darod ONLF supported won the first regional elections. However, it soon fell out with the EPRDF when the regional parliament, which it dominated, declared that the Somali region wanted to make use of the right of secession - which the individual regions are entitled to according to the constitution. In the same year, the EPRDF arranged for ten parties from non-Ogadeni minority clans to join forces to form the Ethiopian Somali Democratic League (ESDL). In 1995 the ESDL clearly won the regional and national parliament elections.

Internal disputes, however, weakened the ESDL, and by late 1997 the party had lost support from the EPRDF as well as the Somali public. The EPRDF then decided to merge the ESDL with the moderate, legal part of the ONLF. The two parties had to submit to a “self-criticism” or “evaluation” ( gem gema or GimGeme ), whereby their leaders were forced to confess actual or alleged misconduct in the presence of EPRDF representatives. Politicians who refused to go through the process were sacked. The ESDL then elected nine and the ONLF eight representatives to a joint committee that was supposed to prepare the association. Subsequently, the central committees of the ESDL and ONLF each elected 35 representatives. These 70 representatives from the two parties and 150 others attended a meeting in Jijiga in June 1998 . The climax of this meeting, which was led by the EPRDF, was the official founding of the SPDP. Part of the legal ONLF opposed this re-establishment, for which neither ESDL nor ONLF had given their approval. Most of the representatives of the ESDL in the national parliament were not accepted into the SPDP.

Reign, elections

With the establishment of the SPDP, the EPRDF expanded its support base in the Somali region from the minority clans to parts of the Ogadeni. In the national and regional elections of 2000 and 2005 and in the elections in the woredas (districts) in 2004, the SPDP was able to successfully mobilize voters thanks to state support and resources. The state-appointed and paid elders or “advisors” ( called lataliye in Somali and amakari in Amharic ), who were deployed for the entire region, zones and woredas in early 2000 , also participated in election campaigns and electoral mobilization . In 2004, 3,182 of 3,309 seats at woreda level (96.16%) went to the SPDP, 21 to the opposition Western Somali Democratic Party and 106 to independent candidates. In the controversial elections of 2005, the SPDP received 161 out of 183 regional parliament seats (87.98%) and all 23 seats in the national parliament. Thus, a de facto one-party system under the SPDP has developed in the Somali region . Despite the SPDP's weaknesses, no opposition party has the EPRDF's resources and support to compete with the SPDP.

In the independent city of Dire Dawa , the SPDP won 74 seats (out of 189) in 16 (out of 63) Kebeles in 2008 , while the EPRDF received 114 seats in 47 Kebeles. In 2005, one of Dire Dawa's two seats in the national parliament went to the SPDP (the other went to the opposition coalition for unity and democracy ). Overall, the SPDP thus sent 24 deputies to the People's House of Representatives , including one woman.

In the 2010 elections , according to official results, the SPDP again received 24 seats at the national level and all 186 seats in the Somali regional parliament.

Critics describe the party as incompetent and corrupt. It is considered to be largely controlled by the EPRDF. Representatives of the EPRDF intervened several times in the party's internal disputes as well as in the work of the regional government and parliament. The differences within the party nearly led to its collapse in 2000. The SPDP is accused of being more indebted to the EPRDF than to public opinion in Somali. During the Eritrea-Ethiopia War of 1998-2000, the regional authorities obliged rural communities to provide a specified number of sheep for the Ethiopian army, although the war was unpopular with the Somali and a severe drought prevailed. In the party program, Somalia's attempt to incorporate the Ethiopian Somali territories into Greater Somalia in the Ogaden War of 1977-78 is condemned as an “illegitimate attack”, although this hardly corresponds to the view of a majority of Somali in Ethiopia.

swell

  1. ↑ SPDP ( Memento of March 17, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ↑ a b National Electoral Authority of Ethiopia (NEBE): Party symbols and logos, Amharic version . Retrieved November 14, 2013.
  3. ↑ a b c d e Tobias Hagmann, Mohamud H. Khalif: State and Politics in Ethiopia's Somali Region since 1991 ( Memento of the original from August 31, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , in: Bildhaan. An International Journal of Somali Studies 6, 2006, pp. 25–49 (PDF; 121 kB) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / tobiashagmann.freeflux.net
  4. ↑ a b c Abdi Ismail Samatar: Ethiopian Federalism: Autonomy versus Control in the Somali Region , in: Third World Quarterly , Vol. 25/6, 2004
  5. ↑ Official election results for the House of Peoples' Representatives ( Memento of April 11, 2007 in the Internet Archive ), in: Walta Information Center , May 2008
  6. ↑ SOMALI PEOPLE'S DEMOCRATIC PARTY
  7. ↑ Official election results for the House of Peoples' Representatives ( Memento of July 6, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF), electionsethiopia.org.
  8. ↑ Political Parties and Their Seats in the third Tenure of the House of Peoples' Representatives (2005–2009) ( Memento of July 24, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF), in: ethiopar.net.
  9. ↑ NEBE: Official Results of the 23rd May 2010 General Election (PDF; 311 KB). Retrieved November 14, 2013.