Legesse, Yared (PhD)Gebremeskel Hailu2021-07-062023-11-082021-07-062023-11-082010http://etd.aau.edu.et/handle/123456789/27066In modern democracy parliamentary representatives need to be selected through free, fair and genuine elections. However, this by itself cannot guarantee all inclusive, fair and legitimate election results which sustain the whole democratic process unless the electoral system, which translates the votes in to seats, is rightfully crafted by taking into account the countries' real contexts. In this watch, designing electoral systems to encourage cooperation, fairness, bargaining, conciliation, legitimacy, and interdependence among rival politicians and the groups they represent is becoming attractive for promoting all inclusive and trust worthy democracy. This is especially true in divided societies, like ours. In view of this, this research reviews the debate over the various dimensions of the electoral systems. It then presents the major options and the main empirical and normative arguments in support and against each of the systems. Accordingly, this research calls the current Ethiopian electoral system in to question, arguing that it has hampered representation, fairness, legitimacy, multi-partism, and the behavior of the political parties. As a result, it contends that mixed electoral systems, combining plurality elections with list proportional representation, the so called Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) system, which combines the "best of both the worlds" with regards to several aspects of political representation and accountability among others, surpasses any realistic measurement to be the best choice to the Ethiopian multi -ethnic federation. Key words: electoral systems, proportional representation, jirst-past-the-post, mixed member proportional and majoritarian systems.enThesis