Ethiopians favour constitutional amendment, multilingual federal gov’t

Addis Ababa, August 25, 2020 (FBC) –Most Ethiopians favour a constitutional amendment and additional working languages for the federal government, a new survey by Afrobarometer reveals.

Afrobarometer, a pan-African, independent, non-partisan research network, today released results of its 8th round survey on Ethiopia’s federalism and constitution.

According to the survey, most respondents supported constitutional amendment, a multilingual federal government and limit the prime ministers to two terms.

About 68% of them supported amending the constitution, while 11% wanted it to be replaced and 18% say it should be kept unchanged.

Moreover, 73% of the respondents favoured designating additional working language in addition to Amharic, 3% want it to be kept unchanged and 24% opposed the idea.

Similarly, 68% of them supported the introduction of a two-term limit for the prime ministers, 23% opposed it and 9% abstained.

Some 55% of them backed the establishment of independent constitutional court, 25% against and 21% abstained.

Most respondents opposed the removal of article 39 from the constitution, the emblem at the centre of the national flag and making Addis Ababa a member state of the federation.

Although they agreed on federalism, the respondents split on whether it should be ethnic or geography-based, the survey says.