The Council of Dire Dawa City Administration elected Speakers of the Council, Mayor, and Dep. Mayor to serve for the next two and half years.
In its session this morning, the Council elected Biftu Mohammed (SPDP) and Asrat Chala (OPDO) as Speakers and Dep. Speaker of the Council. It also installed Ased Ziad (OPDO) and Harbi Bouh (SPDP) as Mayor and Deputy Mayors of the Administration. The Council had approved the appointment of Heads of Capacity Building Bureau and Rural & Agricultural Bureau, though it has postponed of the appointment of the rest members of the new Cabinet.
The 189 members of the Council are elected by the April 2008 local elevtions. In its inaugural session on June 2008, the Council elected Adem Farah of Somali People’s Democratic Party (SPDP) as Mayor and Sheriff Mohammed from Oromo People’s Democratic Organization (OPDO) as his Deputy to serve the first half of its 5-years term. The outgoing Mayor Adem Farah is elected as V/President of Somali State on Sept. 04/2010. [Click here for the list of the new Somali State Officials.]
Thus, a new Cabinet will be charged with the Executive functions for the next two years and half, that is, until the next election for the Council is to be held.
The 40-40-20 Scheme
The change of leadership is a result of a deal, between EPRDF and SPDP at the beginning of 2006, to rotate the Mayoralty between SPDP and OPDO/EPRDF. According to the sharing arrangement, SPDP receives 40% of the political offices and the rest goes to EPRDF; i.e., 40% to OPDO/EPRDF and 20% to the rest 3 parties of EPRDF.
This political deal had never been made known to the public, save to members of the concerned political parties. Yet, it has been applied gradually since the second half of 2006. That is when the provisional Cabinet of Mayor Fiseha Zerihun, now Mayor of Mekele City, had been replaced by another provisional Cabinet led by Abdulaziz Mohammed, who is currently V/President of Oromia.[Click here for the list of the new Oromia State Officials.]
The new Cabinet, appointed by the federal government in July 2006, had a Cabinet of 13 members, of whom five are OPDO/EPRDF, five SPDP, one ANDM/EPRDF and two are members of SEPDM/EPRDF. The new Cabinet applied, in the subsequent month, when it appointment Office & Department Heads, and Chief Executives and Managers for Kebeles.
The first ever-elected Council of Dire Dawa, on mid-2008, epitomized the formula in its composition. In the election, SPDP and OPDO/EPRDF placed an equal number of candidates covering 80% of the Council seats, while ANDM/EPRDF, SEPDM/EPRDF, and TPLF/EPRDF placed 12%, 8%, and 2% of the Candidates.
The sharing arrangement became the composition of the Council automatically, since EPRDF and SPDP won all the seats of the Council. Thus, as the administration became a coalition of the two parties, it guaranteed the continuation of the ‘40-40-20’ arrangement for both sides. Of course, the gerrymandering of electoral constituencies that allotted 60% of the seats to the rural, despite 56% of the residents are urbanites had guaranteed the outcome, to some degree.
The Council, then, elected an SPDP member, Adem Farah, to assume the Mayoralty that had been held by an OPDO member, Abdulaziz for the previous two years. Now, after about two and half years, it is time for an OPDO member to be installed as a Mayor of Dire Dawa City Administration.
The Prologue
The arrangement is not dictated by population composition, which comprises 40.08% Oromo, 24.24% Somali, 20% Amhara, and 14% belonging to others ethnic groups, according to 2007 Census. It is an outcome of a temporary arrangement put in place until the final fate of the City is decided. At least that is what the Dire Dawa Administration Charter states; i.e., issued on July 30/’04, by the Federal legislature. That is when Dire Dawa became a Charter city and formally recognized as an entity accounted to the federal government, though it had always been under the Office of Prime Minister.[Click Here to Download the Charter]
It was on 1993 that the Council of Representatives of the Transitional Government of Ethiopia (TGE) placed Dire Dawa under the Prime Minister’s Office on a temporary basis. The decision was prompted by its inability to resolve the claim of Oromia or Somalia states on Dire Dawa. Nonetheless, the temporary had became permanent, except on the name. Neither the Council of TGE, nor the House of Peoples’ Representatives of FDRE had tabled the issue for deliberation, let alone resolve it. It took a decade for the federal government to endow the City with a legal framework that enables self-administration, pending the claims of the two states.
The reorganizing mission of Fisha’s Cabinet was supposed to be completed by the end of 2005 and replaced by an elected council. However, the Federal government postponed the election until 2008. Moreover, a new Cabinet led by Abdulaziz Mohammed was appointed, by the federal government, to run the administration for almost two years in the run-up to the mid-2008 election.
Though the skepticism on the current arrangement, be it the 40-40-20 scheme or the rotation of Mayors, is justified, the appointment of officials who are well acquainted with city is to be commended, at least as it address one of the demands of the residents. Same as the previous Mayor the current Mayor is familiar with the city. The newly elected Mayor Ased Ziad has been serving as Head of the Civil Service Commission until today, while the new Deputy Harbi Bouh has been heading the Capacity Building Bureau.
For an in-depth and informative analysis of the matter, read an Amharic article titled ‹‹ድሬዳዋ እና የፌዴራሉ ብዥታ››. [Click Here: ‘Dire Dawa and the Federal Indecision’.]
ACRONYMS
EPRDF – Ethiopian peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Party
TPLF – Tigray Peoples’ Liberation Front
ANDM – Amhara Nation Democratic Movement
OPDO – Oromo Peoples’ Democratic Organization
SPEDM – Southern Ethiopian Peoples’ Democratic movement
ANDP – Afar National Democratic Party
SPDP – Somali people’s Democratic Party
I m Somali who is native of Dire Dawa. It is not true that people of Dire Dawa are not ready for democracy.. We are ready for genuine democracy where people are judged by the content of their character not the colour of their tribe as brother MLK was quoted saying 50 years ago. What we need are leaders who think beyond the barricades of ethnicity and can lead us to better life. There are two problems in Dire: The first one is the intellectual failure of our elites. As long as we remember there is no one among the educated who stood up for the unity of our people. None of our traditional or political leaders had tried to reach the other side in positive way. We have been acting all these years like a collection of primitive tribes that happened to be there. It is high time to change our old ways and at least encourage our kids to visit each others neighbourhood so they can learn one another. We should build new community centers in town that bring people together.. There has to be an effort to reduce tension and to create trust between communities. Only then we can avoid ethnic turmoil and ugly scenes of 1992. The era of ethnic supremacy is over. If our people can live with white people in harmony in Torronto, Washington, and London, why not live with each other in harmony as well.
Hi guys,
it’s interesting how our Somali brothers are still bent on pushing their expansionist agenda. What is worrisome to us all is not only their claim on Dire Dawa; these people want the land up to Awash (Hawash). Every one who are familiar with Dire Dawa knows that the town, despite its mufti-ethnic character, largely reflects Oromo culture and language. Most Dire suburbs (ganda or sefer) are named in Oromiffaa as most inhabitants are Oromo. However, I don’t see any reason why the town should be held hostage to the deadlock over the decision on which way it should be demarcated. Today Dire is on a life support and is dying for two reasons: Firstly, the banning of contraband trade, and, secondly, lack of ownership, corruption, infighting and mismanagement due to the unresolved issue of the status of the town.
That said, Somalis and Oromos are cousins who cannot be separated and they are destined to have to live together as neighbors without bloodshed.
Adugna, You are right in an ideal world we would choose according to ability. However Ethiopia politics is still under representing its people, so we are not quite ready for that. A great example of your suggestion is Somaliland- it has had more elections than the rest of the horn of Africa and is moving a way from tribalism by voting for the best candidates. Any ideas when the results for the April 2013 Dire Dawa elections will be published
Instead of saying it is Somali or otherwise why not elect officials by secret ballot, directly by the inhabitants instead of counting ethnicity. Maybe some competent and efficient people might run to bring prosperity and development. Dire Dawa is a Metropolitan city like Addis, New York or Toronto. This cities do not elect their mayors according to their ethnicity but their capability. God bless Dire Dawa.
Mr kibrom, your answer is meaningless. In 1992 the tigreans offered dire dawa to the gurgure somali people in return for them separating from the somali region. They refused as they are proud of their somaliness. Did you see hoe dire dawa came to a halt when our ugaz died. Alala rahma. It will come to a halt again this year when we choose another ugaz in autumn. Then tell me that diredawa is not somali.
sorry mr it is not afoolish or propoganda u r stil there 40-40-20 is abest try to accept why somali is an affilate party and if u need mor than this pls go moqadisho and live there wiz chaos as ur rilative cos somali didn`t rule thier lan peace fully we cant give dd to spdf ok dr
Dire dawa is a predominantly Somali city both historically and today. Reading population statistics supplied by official websites however constantly pretend that the Somali population is around 13 -20%.
The way to see through the statistical propaganda, which even crops up in your blog, is to look at the political agreement set up in 2006 which you refer to as the 40//40/20.
SPDP Somali peoples democratic party is the single largest party in Dire dawa with EPRDF being a mixture of Amharic and Tigrayan given 40% whilst the Oromo and others being given 20% voting allocations.
At the end of the day the Somalis don’t need the internet to know that Dire Dawa is their city.
Dr A. Y. Ali