Governance system in Eritrea – World Countries for Kids

Since independence from Ethiopia in 1993, this militarized authoritarian state has had no national election. President Isaias Afwerki headed PFDJ (The People’s Front for Democracy and Justice) is the sole political party. Arbitrary detention is usual, and citizens need to perform national service, often for their entire working lives. The government downed shutters of all independent media in 2001.

Electoral Process

Following Eritrea’s independence in 1993, an unelected Transitional National Assembly picked Isaias Afwerki to serve as president till elections could be held under a new constitution. He has stayed in office since then, without ever earning a mandate from voters. A constitution was ratified in 1997 but unfortunately it was never instituted. It proposes an elected 150-seat National Assembly, which would pick the president from among its members by a majority vote.

National elections have been deferred indefinitely, and the transitional assembly has not met since 2002. National elections have never ever been conducted. Periodic regional and local assembly elections are carefully orchestrated by the PFDJ and offer no meaningful option to voters. The 1997 constitution proposes an electoral commission headed by an appointee of the president confirmed by the National Assembly. It has never ever been established. Electoral laws are yet to be finalized.

Political Participation

The PFDJ is the solitary legally recognized political party in Eritrea. Other groups can operate from abroad among the diaspora. Groups were hosted in in the past by Ethiopia, but its government ordered several of them to cease operations after the two countries sought accord in 2018.

The Eritrean government holds prominent dissenters and family members in incarceration; a group of 11 persons has reportedly been held incommunicado since 2001. In September 2021, Amnesty International said that nine may have in fact died in detention. Additionally, Ciham Ali Abdu (the daughter of former information minister Ali Abdu Ahmed) was detained in 2012 when she attempted to flee to Sudan. She was just 15 years old when the Eritrean authorities detained her while trying to leave the country. Former finance minister Berhane Abrehe was detained in 2018 after he published a book critical of President Isaias Afwerki and his government.

As multiparty elections have never ever been permitted and opposition groups have had no real opportunity to compete or enter government, president Isaias and the PFDJ have been in power uninterrupted since independence. Military is dominant in Eritrean society with most citizens required to perform open-ended military or other national service. The authorities’ complete intolerance of dissent and the lack of elections or opposition parties leave individuals with no political options other than loyalty to the PFDJ, illegal emigration through often dangerous routes, or imprisonment.