Much has been said, and for a decade, about the disproportionality of electoral constituencies in Ethiopia. Of late, the EU election observers’ mission report recommended a revision, noting that ‘average approximate numbers of voters per constituency vary from just over 40,000 in the Beneshangul-Gumuz Region, to nearly 130,000 in the Afar Region’. The variation can be attributed to demographic changes that took place in the last 16 years. It was in 1994, following the first Population and Housing Census, that Electoral Boundary Delimitation had been conducted. Indeed, some wish to portray the discrepancy as a malapportionment (systematic disproportionality in creating constituencies).

Now, the National Electoral Board is about to reorganize electoral constituencies, as indicated last month on a training of the Board on policy and technical issues of Electoral Boundary Delimitation. The training was attended by members of the National Electoral Board and its staff as well as by ‘representatives from the House of People’s Representatives, the House of federation, from Ethiopian Mapping Agency, Central Statistics Agency, from UNDP and DIP, Coordination Officers, all regional branch heads of the board, concerned lawyers, all regional states and the two city administrations heads and experts.’

Curiously, representatives of political parties are missing. Perhaps, they are too busy with in-fighting to attend such a training or the Board may have another forum for them. Yet, it is not unlikely that they might have failed to foresee its impact.

Of course, the nine members of the National Electoral Board are not members of any party; at least no one has been able to implicate them to date. Yet, the ruling party can influence the process; since Electoral Border Delimitation is not a desk work rather one to be done in cooperation with local officials and taking into account administrative boundaries and related considerations. Thus, while the opposition is still ‘evaluating’, and complaining, the last election, the ruling party can take the rug from their feet, assisted by the detailed data of the voting patterns in 2005 and 2010 elections on its hand.

That is through a method known as ‘gerrymandering’ – a deliberate manipulation of district boundaries. The favorite tool of incumbent political parties in USA and Canada. In such a case, the electoral constituencies might be proportionate but their boundary is drawn in such a manner that the presumed supporters of the ruling party would be a majority in each constituency.

The term ‘gerrymandering’ is derived from the name of Governor Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts. In 1812, he redrew the electoral constituencies in such a way that gave disproportionate representation to his party. He took the exercise to the extreme that one of the electoral constituencies was thought to resemble a salamander. A satirical cartoon in the Boston Gazette graphically transformed the districts into a fabulous animal, and labeled it, “The Gerry-mander”.

The problem with gerrymandering is that it violates two basic principles of electoral apportionment or electoral constituency boundary delimitation; that is, compactness and equality of size of constituencies. The FDRE constitution indicates that constituencies should be drawn to reflect substantial equality of population.
Of course, gerrymandering may be necessary to enable representation for minority groups. More over, there is also an ‘incumbent advantage’, since the government can reorganize administrative units anytime and electoral constituencies border delimitation is generally expected to follow a proximate pattern.

That was how the existing 547 electoral constituencies of Ethiopia were established in 1994, following the boundary of the then 500 plus Woredas and the need to secure the representation of minority nationalities. Now, there are about 850 Woredas. More importantly, as of 2003, the urban areas are separately organized as municipalities.

It is to be seen whether urban areas with 150,000 plus population size will be allowed to form an electoral constituencies. A phenomenon that would likely favor urban-based parties.