The Political Economy of the Sidama Regional Question-Overview
By Hawassa Teessonke September 13, 2012 Today, the Sidama people are at a crossroads. Structural economic weaknesses and lack of economic transformation amid massive over population has left the majority of the population in abject poverty. Unemployment, particularly among the youth, and rural underemployment remain rampant. The continued economic marginalization amid relative improvements in political space since 1991 has been worsened by lack of capacity and good governance, corruption, and above all disempowering administrative arrangement that denied political voice to the majority of the population. The country has adopted bicameral administrative system since 1993. While the majority of the country is organized in a federal system in line with ethno-linguistic affiliations and delineations; over 45-50 ethnic groups in the South are forcefully lumped together under the Southern Ethiopia Peoples’ Region. Accordingly to the July 1, 2012 population estimate by t