The (Un)Making of Opposition Coalitions and the Challenge of Democratization in Ethiopia, 1991-2011

A key challenge in the consolidation of a democratic system in transitional countries is the lack of effective opposition political parties to counter the dominance of incumbent regimes. In the case of Ethiopia, to be described in this article, opposition parties are weak, fragmented, and mutually antagonistic. Hence, in order to counter the dominance of the Ethiopian Peoples' Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), coalitions and alliances have been used by the opposition parties. But opposition coalitions remain unstable and prone to fragmentation due to both internal and external factors. This study analyses the factors responsible to the often repeated fragmentation of opposition coalitions in Ethiopia.