Electoral Participation as a Fundamental Political Right of Persons with Disabilities in Ethiopia; Critical Examination of the Law and the Practice
| dc.contributor.advisor | Degefa, Aberra (LLB, LLM) | |
| dc.contributor.author | Sisay, Shimels | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2019-01-10T17:44:18Z | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2023-11-08T04:51:11Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2019-01-10T17:44:18Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2023-11-08T04:51:11Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2011-06 | |
| dc.description.abstract | In the 21st century where people are becoming the ultimate sources of political power, it is hard for a country to call itself as a democracy without maintaining participatory and inclusive political environment in its polity. Though it is apparent that politics and political participation starts at home and ends elsewhere at different levels, active involvement of citizens as voters and candidates in elections and effective participation as members of different political parties can be seen as a commonly known manifestations of political participation. With these points in mind, this paper is intended to scrutinize the political role of persons with disabilities that account around 10% of the total population in the Ethiopian politics only to the extent of their participation as voters, candidates for elections and as members of different political parties. Accordingly, the research identify that people with disabilities have not been participating in the past four elections conducted in the recent years history of the country. All these marginalization are attributed to the attitudinal, legal, institutional, financial, infrastructural, technical and related factors as barriers. Though there are conceptual transformations in approaching disability from the medical and charity perceptions to those of social and human rights approaches at the international level, the country does not seem to cope up with such changes. Again, though there are human rights instruments recognizing the political participation in general and electoral rights of PWDs at different level, these instruments are not serving as effective guarantees to ensure the rights of these groups of people. Taking into consideration of these challenges, the author suggested valuable recommendations. Most importantly, the need to come up with accurate and well researched disability census data record system, the enactment of disability specific national election law that can accommodate the specific needs of these people in exercising their electoral rights, introducing the quota system, special funding incentives and the general awareness and attitudinal changes are the primary steps that the country has to employ so as to alleviate the political participation of these people one step forward in the future electoral tournaments of the country. | en_US |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://etd.aau.edu.et/handle/123456789/15632 | |
| dc.language.iso | en_US | en_US |
| dc.publisher | Addis Ababa University | en_US |
| dc.subject | democracy without, maintaining participatory, and inclusive | en_US |
| dc.title | Electoral Participation as a Fundamental Political Right of Persons with Disabilities in Ethiopia; Critical Examination of the Law and the Practice | en_US |
| dc.type | Thesis | en_US |