ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses how the EPRDF effectively exploited Ethiopia’s electoral system and laws, the electoral board that administers elections, and actual periodic elections held in the country to ensure the coalition’s survival. Moreover, as part of the discussion on the federal government’s co-optation of regional elites, the chapter shows how the federal arrangement served the coalition’s interests in ensuring that the regional states functioned only at the mercy and directions of its elites at the centre. Lastly, the chapter also broadly discusses Ethiopia’s federal government as well as the regional states’ bureaucratic institutions and how they evolved to become subservient to the interests of the dominant EPRDF coalition.
