Nat’l Parties Start Negotiating on Building National Consensus

Addis Ababa May 30/2018 After a brief interlude of time, the national political parties have started negotiating on the agenda of building national consensus today.  Recognizing that the issue of building national consensus is different from the former agenda, the parties, except for All Oromo Peoples’ Democratic Party and Gadaa System Advancement Party called for establishing a committee to frame and organize the issues to be compiled for the negotiations. EPRDF stated that it will abstain from taking part in the committee to be established since the agenda was filed only by the opposition parties. However, it agreed on establishing a committee so as to set the structural procedures of  handling the negotiation on the agenda as well as the different contents to be included starting from its definition. EPRDF further expressed its willingness and commitment towards the exclusivity of whoever demands to take part in the agenda at hand. All the parties agreed to prioritize specifying the power and duties of the committee to be established instead of first selecting its members. Moreover, some opposition parties said that all concerned political parties need to get involved on the issue instead of taking it up with fewer parties as the issue of national consensus is of prime importance. In related news, All Amhara Peoples’ Organization, which left the negotiation platform under the pretext of questioning the neutrality of the negotiators, has rejoined the negotiation following its request. All Amhara Peoples’ Organization expressed to pursue on convincing the negotiating parties on having neutral negotiators. Having failed to agree on the structural framework of pursuing the agenda, the national parties resolved to come up with detailed specifications on their next meeting scheduled for June 5, 2018.